King Crimson
6/5/2006, 12:46 PM
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/sports/14741260.htm
also, note the link to an article on Prentiss Gautt.
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/sports/colleges/big_12_conference/14741257.htm
thanks to Kansan at OUInsider for posting it.
amazing our whip-cracking, spitfire local journalists could actually do some research and not come up with the "story" about Capel's ancestors and family.
:rolleyes:
Oklahoma a champion of diversity
By RANDY COVITZ
The Kansas City Star
* Oklahoma hasn’t forgotten Gautt’s legacy
* Part 1: Big 12 thrives despite its growing pains
NORMAN, Okla. | - Less than two months into his tenure as the new Oklahoma men’s basketball coach, Jeff Capel was multitasking in his spacious office at the Lloyd Noble Center.
He was still house-hunting, unpacking boxes and making the transition from coaching a midmajor school at Virginia Commonwealth University to stepping into the spotlight of a program with Final Four expectations.
More than 50 years after his grandfather was denied admission by Duke University because of the color of his skin, Felton Jeffrey Capel III was taking his place as the first black head basketball coach at the University of Oklahoma.
Capel grew up listening to the stories of how his grandfather, Felton Jeffrey Capel, led sit-ins in movie theaters and helped changed the course of racial relations in North Carolina. So it’s only fitting that as the Big 12 Conference concludes its 10th season, Capel was hired by a university that has been at the forefront of altering the racial landscape in Division I athletics.
During the first three seasons of the Big 12, Oklahoma became the first Division I school to simultaneously have minority head coaches in both major sports — football coach John Blake, who is black; and basketball coach Kelvin Sampson, a Lumbee American Indian.
“It’s a university that has an open mind,” said Capel, who was hired in April after Sampson left for Indiana. “It doesn’t put barriers up and restrict someone’s opportunity because of their race.”
In addition to Oklahoma’s hiring Capel, two other Big 12 schools hired minorities for their major sports in 2006. The University of Missouri hired Mike Anderson as men’s basketball coach, and Kansas State hired Ron Prince as head football coach.
With 40 percent of Oklahoma’s student-athletes being minorities, the school’s commitment to diversity among its coaches drew praise from Floyd Keith, executive director of the Black Coaches Association.
“Oklahoma has demonstrated a real commitment to doing things the right way,” Keith said. “Diversity is about people. If the people involved in the process seek diversity and want inclusion, you’re going to see it.”
As progressive as Oklahoma has been in racial matters, the university found itself at the epicenter of a raging controversy last year when veteran baseball coach Larry Cochell used a racial slur in describing one of his black players in an off-camera discussion with an ESPN crew.
Cochell, who had led the Sooners to three College World Series appearances and won the 1994 national title, was forced to immediately resign.
“Even in this case, he wasn’t trying to be slanderous, but it was just an unconscionable choice of a word,” Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione said. “The university had a responsibility to uphold its values.”
Learning from role models
During the 1950s, Felton Capel was a successful cookware salesman, member of the Town Council and mayor pro tem in the small town of Pinebluff, N.C. In 1962, he and a white community leader, Voit Gilmore, took seats in the middle of the first row at the segregated Sunrise Theatre.
Their action helped open the doors for blacks at golf courses, bowling alleys, lunch counters and other public places in the area.
Capel’s grandfathers were among several role models in his life. Capel’s maternal grandfather, Page Saunders, coached football and tennis at the small-college level in the Carolinas. His father, Felton Jeffrey Capel II, coached basketball at Fayetteville (N.C.) State University and North Carolina A&T before becoming one of the few coaches to make a successful transition from historic black universities to a nonblack school, Old Dominion. He is now an assistant with the Charlotte Bobcats.
And Capel’s father-in-law, Dan Blue, was the first black speaker of the House in North Carolina.
“Those are pretty amazing men and role models,” said Capel, 31.
Felton Capel Sr. also owned Cardinal Recreation Park, a 22-acre parcel that included a 7-acre lake that gave blacks a place where they could picnic, relax on the lake and have family reunions.
It was at that park in 1998 that the Capel family gathered in celebration of Jeff’s graduation from Duke.
“My grandfather got up to speak and talked about my finishing school,” Jeff recalled. “He got emotional; he talked about how proud he was. He wanted to be a doctor and applied to Duke, but they turned him away. Now, he had a grandson who was graduating from there.
“As I’ve gotten older, I realized what my grandfather has done, and all the people he’s touched, and all the doors he’s opened for so many people in North Carolina and what a trailblazer he was for equality.”
Young leader
Capel’s career began at Old Dominion, where his father had an opening for an assistant in 2000. Capel then joined the staff at Virginia Commonwealth in 2001 as an assistant before he was promoted to head coach in 2002, becoming, at age 27, the youngest head coach in Division I basketball.
As he led VCU to a 79-41 record and trips to the NCAA Tournament in 2004 and the NIT in 2005, Capel realized he had become a standard bearer for young black coaches. Capel’s new staff at Oklahoma will include two minority assistant coaches — former Ole Miss head coach Rod Barnes and former South Carolina State head coach Ben Betts.
“When I was younger, I was a huge Georgetown fan because of coach (John) Thompson,” Capel said. “When you see someone who looks like you, you want to root for them.”
Football lags behind
Capel, Anderson and Colorado’s Ricardo Patton — the dean of Big 12 coaches — give the conference three minority head basketball coaches, which mirrors the NCAA percentage of 23 percent black head coaches among the 327 Division I programs.
That still might not be satisfactory for a sport in which nearly 60 percent of the players are black, but it’s considerably better than football. Not only is Prince the only black head football coach in the Big 12, but he’s one of just five minority coaches among the 119 Division I-A programs, joining Tyrone Willingham of Washington, Karl Dorrell of UCLA, Sylvester Croom of Mississippi State and Turner Gill of Buffalo.
“Progress is very slow,” said Keith Gill, associate athletic director at Oklahoma. “As a person of color, it is disappointing. You look around and you know it should look different, that more people should have opportunities.”
Right now, there are just 10 black athletic directors among Division I-A schools (excluding historically black universities). The Big 12 has no minority athletic directors, though Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith had that job at Iowa State during 1993-2000.
Castiglione, who sits on the NCAA Diversity Leadership Strategic Planning Committee, is encouraged by what he sees on administrative and football coaching staffs.
“We’re on the doorstep of making a more significant advancement in the hiring of head football coaches primarily because there are more African-American coaches in leadership positions on coaching staffs,” he said.
And then there are those like Jeff Capel, who were born to coach. And born to lead.
“Jeff has unique experiences that go beyond the chronological age of a person, and his experiences have helped mature him beyond his years,” Castiglione said. “We hired the best guy.”
also, note the link to an article on Prentiss Gautt.
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/sports/colleges/big_12_conference/14741257.htm
thanks to Kansan at OUInsider for posting it.
amazing our whip-cracking, spitfire local journalists could actually do some research and not come up with the "story" about Capel's ancestors and family.
:rolleyes:
Oklahoma a champion of diversity
By RANDY COVITZ
The Kansas City Star
* Oklahoma hasn’t forgotten Gautt’s legacy
* Part 1: Big 12 thrives despite its growing pains
NORMAN, Okla. | - Less than two months into his tenure as the new Oklahoma men’s basketball coach, Jeff Capel was multitasking in his spacious office at the Lloyd Noble Center.
He was still house-hunting, unpacking boxes and making the transition from coaching a midmajor school at Virginia Commonwealth University to stepping into the spotlight of a program with Final Four expectations.
More than 50 years after his grandfather was denied admission by Duke University because of the color of his skin, Felton Jeffrey Capel III was taking his place as the first black head basketball coach at the University of Oklahoma.
Capel grew up listening to the stories of how his grandfather, Felton Jeffrey Capel, led sit-ins in movie theaters and helped changed the course of racial relations in North Carolina. So it’s only fitting that as the Big 12 Conference concludes its 10th season, Capel was hired by a university that has been at the forefront of altering the racial landscape in Division I athletics.
During the first three seasons of the Big 12, Oklahoma became the first Division I school to simultaneously have minority head coaches in both major sports — football coach John Blake, who is black; and basketball coach Kelvin Sampson, a Lumbee American Indian.
“It’s a university that has an open mind,” said Capel, who was hired in April after Sampson left for Indiana. “It doesn’t put barriers up and restrict someone’s opportunity because of their race.”
In addition to Oklahoma’s hiring Capel, two other Big 12 schools hired minorities for their major sports in 2006. The University of Missouri hired Mike Anderson as men’s basketball coach, and Kansas State hired Ron Prince as head football coach.
With 40 percent of Oklahoma’s student-athletes being minorities, the school’s commitment to diversity among its coaches drew praise from Floyd Keith, executive director of the Black Coaches Association.
“Oklahoma has demonstrated a real commitment to doing things the right way,” Keith said. “Diversity is about people. If the people involved in the process seek diversity and want inclusion, you’re going to see it.”
As progressive as Oklahoma has been in racial matters, the university found itself at the epicenter of a raging controversy last year when veteran baseball coach Larry Cochell used a racial slur in describing one of his black players in an off-camera discussion with an ESPN crew.
Cochell, who had led the Sooners to three College World Series appearances and won the 1994 national title, was forced to immediately resign.
“Even in this case, he wasn’t trying to be slanderous, but it was just an unconscionable choice of a word,” Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione said. “The university had a responsibility to uphold its values.”
Learning from role models
During the 1950s, Felton Capel was a successful cookware salesman, member of the Town Council and mayor pro tem in the small town of Pinebluff, N.C. In 1962, he and a white community leader, Voit Gilmore, took seats in the middle of the first row at the segregated Sunrise Theatre.
Their action helped open the doors for blacks at golf courses, bowling alleys, lunch counters and other public places in the area.
Capel’s grandfathers were among several role models in his life. Capel’s maternal grandfather, Page Saunders, coached football and tennis at the small-college level in the Carolinas. His father, Felton Jeffrey Capel II, coached basketball at Fayetteville (N.C.) State University and North Carolina A&T before becoming one of the few coaches to make a successful transition from historic black universities to a nonblack school, Old Dominion. He is now an assistant with the Charlotte Bobcats.
And Capel’s father-in-law, Dan Blue, was the first black speaker of the House in North Carolina.
“Those are pretty amazing men and role models,” said Capel, 31.
Felton Capel Sr. also owned Cardinal Recreation Park, a 22-acre parcel that included a 7-acre lake that gave blacks a place where they could picnic, relax on the lake and have family reunions.
It was at that park in 1998 that the Capel family gathered in celebration of Jeff’s graduation from Duke.
“My grandfather got up to speak and talked about my finishing school,” Jeff recalled. “He got emotional; he talked about how proud he was. He wanted to be a doctor and applied to Duke, but they turned him away. Now, he had a grandson who was graduating from there.
“As I’ve gotten older, I realized what my grandfather has done, and all the people he’s touched, and all the doors he’s opened for so many people in North Carolina and what a trailblazer he was for equality.”
Young leader
Capel’s career began at Old Dominion, where his father had an opening for an assistant in 2000. Capel then joined the staff at Virginia Commonwealth in 2001 as an assistant before he was promoted to head coach in 2002, becoming, at age 27, the youngest head coach in Division I basketball.
As he led VCU to a 79-41 record and trips to the NCAA Tournament in 2004 and the NIT in 2005, Capel realized he had become a standard bearer for young black coaches. Capel’s new staff at Oklahoma will include two minority assistant coaches — former Ole Miss head coach Rod Barnes and former South Carolina State head coach Ben Betts.
“When I was younger, I was a huge Georgetown fan because of coach (John) Thompson,” Capel said. “When you see someone who looks like you, you want to root for them.”
Football lags behind
Capel, Anderson and Colorado’s Ricardo Patton — the dean of Big 12 coaches — give the conference three minority head basketball coaches, which mirrors the NCAA percentage of 23 percent black head coaches among the 327 Division I programs.
That still might not be satisfactory for a sport in which nearly 60 percent of the players are black, but it’s considerably better than football. Not only is Prince the only black head football coach in the Big 12, but he’s one of just five minority coaches among the 119 Division I-A programs, joining Tyrone Willingham of Washington, Karl Dorrell of UCLA, Sylvester Croom of Mississippi State and Turner Gill of Buffalo.
“Progress is very slow,” said Keith Gill, associate athletic director at Oklahoma. “As a person of color, it is disappointing. You look around and you know it should look different, that more people should have opportunities.”
Right now, there are just 10 black athletic directors among Division I-A schools (excluding historically black universities). The Big 12 has no minority athletic directors, though Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith had that job at Iowa State during 1993-2000.
Castiglione, who sits on the NCAA Diversity Leadership Strategic Planning Committee, is encouraged by what he sees on administrative and football coaching staffs.
“We’re on the doorstep of making a more significant advancement in the hiring of head football coaches primarily because there are more African-American coaches in leadership positions on coaching staffs,” he said.
And then there are those like Jeff Capel, who were born to coach. And born to lead.
“Jeff has unique experiences that go beyond the chronological age of a person, and his experiences have helped mature him beyond his years,” Castiglione said. “We hired the best guy.”