May 23, 2008

Cleveland, Ohio - The Division I-A Athletics Directors McLendon Scholarship Steering Committee would like to applaud the efforts of the Division 1A Athletics Directors' Association and its Executive Director Dutch Baughman, for their efforts in issuing college football "acceptable standards" for minority hiring.

Similar to the Rooney Rule, the standards call for institutions searching for a head football coach to interview one or more minority candidates. The 1A AD's guidelines urge athletics directors to collect names of potential minority candidates before they're faced with an opening and search the pool that may be available in order to become better acquainted with the prospects that are available.

"The Division 1A Athletics Directors have clearly embraced the initiative to improve the head football coach search process, by supporting more inclusive practices regarding potential minority candidates," stated Division 1A Athletic Directors' Association Executive Director, Dutch Baughman. "We are very pleased with the significant improvements in recent months as evidenced by the increased number of legitimate interviews involving minority candidates."

The McLendon Steering Committee would like to take those standards one step further and apply that to the hiring of all institutional administrators and/or coaches. The Steering Committee would like to also acknowledge a significant improvement in the ethnic and gender minority hiring of athletics administrators over the past five years, which was 23 percent.

"We appreciate the support of NACDA and the Division I-A Athletics Directors McLendon Scholarship Steering Committee in the administration of recent initiatives as well as their encouragement of future initiatives," continued Baughman.

Baughman recently met with Kevin Anderson, athletics director at the United States Military Academy and chair of the Division I-A Athletics Directors McLendon Scholarship Steering Committee, and invited the committee to be the permanent minority advisory committee of the 1A Athletic Directors' Association.

"We are very pleased with the progress that has been made towards including all qualified minority candidates in the hiring practices for athletic administrators and particularly head football coaches in the past year," said Anderson.

"We understand that there remains much ground to cover in this area, but the Division I-A Athletics Directors McLendon Scholarship Steering Committee is very pleased with the strides being made. We feel the efforts of the Division 1A Athletic Directors have clearly made an impact and we appreciate the group's continued support under the leadership of Dutch."

About the John McLendon Memorial Minority Postgraduate Scholarship Foundation: The Foundation Scholarship Awards are presented to senior-level minority students that have maintained a 3.0 grade point average and demonstrated academic excellence as an undergraduate, who intend to pursue a graduate degree in athletics administration. The Division I-A Athletics Directors McLendon Scholarship Ad Hoc Steering Committee consists of the 14 minority athletics directors in the Football Bowl Subdivision.

About NACDA: NACDA founded the John McLendon Memorial Minority Postgraduate Scholarship Foundation in 1993. NACDA is in its 43rd year and is the professional and educational association for more than 6,100 college athletics administrators at more than 1,600 institutions throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico. More than 2,000 athletics administrators annually attend the NACDA Convention. Additionally, NACDA administers 11 professional associations for the separate business units that report directly to the athletics director.