How do we score in the front office? While blacks have landed some high-profile posts, few are getting the jobs that really count - Cover Story

Black Enterprise, Feb, 1994 by Bobby Clay

Despite the considerable presence of African-Americans as athletes, the fact remains that only a handful of the top executives in big-money sports are black. Just one of Major League Baseball's 28 teams, the Houston Astros, has a black general manager, Bob Watson. The National Basketball Association's (NBA) 27 teams employ five leading black executives. The 30 franchises of the National Football League have yet to hire a black general manager.

However, after Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott was suspended last year for using ethnic slurs to describe blacks, Jews and the Japanese, public scrutiny of team hiring practices intensified. Rev. Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Commission for Fairness in Sport was formed, along with the Coalition for Equality in Sports, even as the governing sports leagues themselves began to press for front-office diversity. As a result, teams opened their doors a crack, creating internships and making special outreach efforts to identify minority talent. Yet, observers--including several African-Americans who have reached front-office pay-dirt--say that real change will be slow to come. It's been seven years since former Los Angeles Dodgers general manager Al Campanis asserted on national television that blacks lacked the "necessities" to be baseball executives. And there are those who believe that a great many team owners, smart enough not to say so publicly, privately share the opinions of Schott and Campanis. Apparently, these attitudes are more persistent than efforts to promote equal opportunity.

Northeastern University's Center for the Study of Sport in Society, which tracks hiring practices from support staff to senior management, thought so poorly of baseball's diversity efforts in 1993 that it gave the sport an F for top management hiring and a C-minus for front-office/administration hiring. The NBA received a B-minus and a B, while the NFL got a C and C-plus.

Bill White, who has just completed his term as the first black president of baseball's National League, openly stated that one of the reasons he refuses to serve another five-year term is because of baseball's hiring practices. "To be quite honest, I have not been able to make an impact on minority hiring in the National League," he says. "We have not been able to get in at the club level for a lot of reasons, some legitimate, some not."

Peter A. Magowan, president and managing general partner of the Giants and part of a five-man committee charged with exploring team ownership by minorities, maintains that there is no excuse for baseball's poor minority hiring record. "I honestly believe there is a clear understanding of the problem and a willingness to find solutions and make improvements," he says.

Changes In The Field

The most visible changes in the complexion of sports team management appear not in the front office but at courtside, in the dugouts and on the sidelines. Basketball has the longest track record of providing head coaching opportunities. The most recently named in the NBA are second-year San Antonio Spurs coach John Lucas and rookie coach and former broadcaster Quinn Buckner of the Dallas Mavericks. The NFL finally broke the color barrier among its head coaches with the hiring of Art Shell and Dennis Green, coaches for the Los Angeles Raiders and the Minnesota Vikings.

Since the Campanis incident, baseball has seen fit to add six minority managers to its previous list of one (Frank Robinson, most recently with the Baltimore Orioles): Cito Gaston (the Toronto Blue Jays), Hal McRae (Kansas City Royals), Don Baylor (Colorado Rockies), Felipe Alou (Montreal Expos), Tony Perez (Cincinnati Reds, until he was fired last season) and San Francisco's Dusty Baker. Gaston managed the Toronto Blue Jays to back-to-back World Series titles in 1992 and 1993. In his first campaign, Baker, 44, led the San Francisco Giants to a club-record 103 wins and nearly captured the National League West tide last season. So far, no one has voiced doubt over whether those men have the "necessities" for leadership.

Magowan, the man responsible for putting Baker and three-time MVP outfielder Barry Bonds on his team, insists that the opening up of on-field management opportunities to minorities can be duplicated in the front office. "The new owners in baseball have a lot of practical opportunities and experience in trying to get minorities into their businesses," he asserts.

One of the newest owners, Drayton McLane Jr., who bought the Houston Astros in 1992, has best exemplified Magowan's vision of them. Last October, McLane, a Texas trucking magnate and the second-largest shareholder in Wal-Mart Inc., named Bob Watson, 47, general manager, baseball's second black in that position. Watson oversees all aspects of baseball operations and a budget that was $30 million last year.

Watson played 15 years in the major leagues for the Astros, Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees and Atlanta Braves. He was a hitting instructor and bench coach for the Oakland Athletics before joining the Astros as assistant general manager in 1988. He also has a business background, having done financial planning and investment banking for E.F. Hutton.