A Bay Area prep basketball coach is risking his health and reputation to make a point about racial inclusivity at the sport’s highest collegiate level.
Lou Richie, boys’ basketball coach at Bishop O’Dowd High School in Oakland, is fighting for diversity in the Pac-12 Conference as the long-awaited NCAA Tournament gets underway.
On his mind: The Pac-12 includes a dozen teams from the west, Cal and Stanford among them, and has zero Black head coaches on the sidelines.
That, said Richie, is wrong.
"So, when you have zero head coaches that are Black or of color and you have 43% of assistant coaches that are of color and 63.8% of student athletes, it just doesn’t seem right," he told KCBS Radio. "It doesn’t make sense that you have zero (Black) coaches."
Richie is determined to get the conference’s attention.
He carried a sign last weekend at the Pac-12 tournament in Las Vegas reading "Black Head Coaches Matter." That bold move turned the heads of Pac-12 leadership and fellow coaches around the country.
He was later escorted away be security.
Richie plans to take his protest to the Final Four in Indianapolis next month, possibly via Zoom, but hopefully in person. Several high-profile coaches of color have reached out to Richie in support of his cause.
"Good trouble, more good trouble, more good trouble," Richie said.
In a statement to the Mercury News, the Pac-12 said "its member universities have a long history of supporting diversity and inclusion. We are collectively committed to continuing to take steps to make progress in this critical area, including with respect to hiring minority coaches."
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