BY TODD DYBAS / SEATTLESPORTSONLINE.COM

When the 2008 college football season concludes, there will be only four African-American head coaches in major college football, the lowest total in 15 years a study shows.

The firing of Washington's Tyrone Willingham and Kansas State's Ron Prince is what cut the total to its lowest point since 1993, when there were only three African-American head coaches. In 1997, there were eight African-American head football coaches in the 119-school Football Bowl Subdivision level.

"It should be of great concern to all of us because it means there is a pool of talent our country does not tap and this should be a country that is about tapping all the talents that we have," Willingham said Thursday. "We've battled this for some time, the issue of African-American coaches at this level, and at no point has it been where it should be."

The National Football League adopted the "Rooney Rule" in 2003, which requires teams to interview minority candidates for head coaching positions. The rule is named for Pittsburgh Steelers owner Dan Rooney, who is the head of the league's diversity committee. The NFL sanctions teams that do not interview a minority candidate.

College football does not have an equivalent. Something Willingham says needs to change.

"Obviously the current system we have is not doing it, so you have to reinvent the system," Willingham said. "Probably to do something along the lines that the NFL has done with the Rooney Rule would be the first step and people will tell you that is very difficult to do at the collegiate level, but there are ways to do it.

"All you're asking for with the Rooney Rule is the opportunity to sit down at the table. It does not mean that the individual is hired, but that the individual has the opportunity to sit down at the table and that benefits us all."

Willingham is the president of the American Football Coaches Association's Board of Trustees. He said there is an effort being made to bring something comparable to the Rooney Rule to the college level, referred to by some as the "Eddie Robinson Rule."

"There's push now," Willingham said. "There are things being looked at to try to consider how to implement something along those lines, but I don't think it's reached small or large scale approval yet. We don't know what the year of implementation will be."

The diversity report done by The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida polled every major college on the ethnicity of its coaches, athletic directors, presidents, faculty, student-athletes and NCAA faculty representatives.

"While the percentages are slightly better, the general picture is still one of white men running college sport,” Richard Lapchick, the report’s co-author, told the Associated Press. "Overall, the numbers simply do not reflect the diversity of our student-athletes. Moreover, they do not reflect the diversity of our nation where we have elected an African-American as President for the first time."

The report was released two days after Barack Obama was voted President elect, and points out that 55 percent of all student-athletes are minorities. The report also showed that more minority candidates are being interviewed, but they are not being hired for head coaching positions.

It goes on to show an overwhelming white majority at all levels of college sports leadership: 92.5 percent of college presidents are white; 87.5 percent of athletic directors; 92.6 percent of faculty athletic reps; 83.3 percent of the faculty; and 100 percent of the conference commissioners, which of course includes Tom Hansen, the commissioner of the Pac-10 Conference. Hansen has been the head of the conference for 25 years and will retire after 2009.

Last season, two minority coaches were hired to fill the 22 openings. Thirty percent of the candidates interviewed were minorities.

The four black coaches who will finish this season are Miami's Randy Shannon, Mississippi State's Sylvester Croom, Buffalo's Turner Gill and Houston's Kevin Sumlin. All four remain Bowl eligible at this point.

"The representation is far short of what it should be and the potential that the group has to give, and in my estimation that hurts all of us," Willingham said. "When you have talented people that have the ability to help us do the things we like to do better, win football games, educate young people and have them mature, and you're missing that, that's a shame."

The University of Washington has been a bastion for African-American head coaches in top programs. In addition to Willingham, African-American's Lorenzo Romar, who runs the men's basketball program, and Tia Jackson, who runs the women's basketball program, work at the university.

Todd Dybas is the editor of Seattlesportsonline. He can be reached via e-mail at tdybas@seattlesportsonline.com.