Charles Barkley might be onto something. He is a proud Auburn alum, so I sincerely doubt he’d say "I think race was the No. 1 factor" in Auburn hiring Gene Chizik instead of Turner Gill as its football coach if he didn’t fervently believe it. Barkley not only went to Auburn, he grew up in Alabama and was part of Auburn’s search committee when it needed a new basketball coach following the 2003-04 campaign. In other words, he knows a lot more about the inner-workings of the Auburn athletic department than most of us. And let’s not forget that only four of the 119 FBS teams employ black head coaches, and there has only been one black head coach in SEC history.Barkley was dismissed from the committee before Auburn hired Jeff Lebo, a white man. (This is also known as the Jon Sundvold Treatment.) Because of this, it’s possible that Barkley has an ax to grind. However, as Barkley points out, Lebo (61-68 so far at Auburn) was the only candidate interviewed who never made the NCAA tournament. Mizzou’s Mike Anderson, Alabama-Birmingham’s Mike Davis, and Oklahoma’s Jeff Capel, who are black, were among the candidates Barkley championed.
I’ve seen people in the blogosphere calling Barkley a moron and a racist for his comments. In my opinion, anyone saying Barkley is a racist is way off base. He obviously loves Ernie Johnson, his TNT colleague. On several occasions, he’s called Kevin McHale the best player he's ever played against. On Inside the NBA, he repeatedly screams Manu Ginobili's name like a desperate groupie. And who could forget his post-foot-race smooch with NBA ref Dick Bavetta (pictured, right)? I’ll also give Barkley the benefit of the doubt because he’s often been an outspoken critic of his fellow blacks. He may be wrong, but I don’t think he’s a racist.
Frankly though, even if there’s some truth in Barkley’s claims, that would only explain why Auburn didn’t hire Gill, not why it hired Chizik. Why would Auburn dump Tommy Tuberville to get a guy who went 5-19 at Iowa State? There were surely several black, white, and Samoan (Navy’s Ken Niumatalolo) candidates who had better resumes than Chizik.
