Mora Moment on SI: College Football Recruiting Changes Are Coming
In the midst of college football recruiting, social-justice protests overtook Seattle and the rest of the country. Demand for cultural change went front and center with the Black Lives Matter movement.
While the public demonstrations have begun to wane, the impact on everyone —particularly on aspiring young football players, the majority of whom who are African American — is long-term.
In the accompanying Sports Illustrated video, Jim Mora, the former Seattle Seahawks and UCLA head coach and ex-University of Washington linebacker, discusses with SI recruiting director John Garcia Jr. how recruiting will change because of cultural change.
"Parents will ask more questions," Mora said, rattling off several factors he envisioned. "Parents will be more skeptical."
Advancements are expected in greater cultural awareness on campus and whether players get adequately supported or suppressed, he said.
One area Mora didn't address in this segment was the ethnic makeup of the head coaches in the Power Five conferences.
Member schools still collectively fall short in their hiring of African American head coaches.
Just 11 of 64 schools have black football leaders, among them the University of Washington's Jimmy Lake, the Husky head coach since December, when he replaced Chris Petersen.
The conference by conference breakdown is this: Pac-12, five of 12 coaches are African American; Big Ten, four out of 14; SEC, one out of 14; ACC, one out of 14; and Big 12, zero out of 10.
Lake, the UW's second African American football coach following Tyrone Willingham, publicly expressed his anguish and anger over the death of George Floyd, an African American man who died during a police stop in Minneapolis, setting off a wave of protests internationally and leading to officer arrests.
Using social media, Lake shared his reaction and called for a peaceful response from protesters.
