This reasoning, however, fails to get at adeeper source of Harvard's failure to recruitminority coaches.

Like other athletic departments in the IvyLeague and across the NCAA, Harvard depends upon anetwork of largely personal connections to hirenew staff when vacancies arise. Head coaches, inparticular, turn to former players, colleagues andformer assistants, preferring, in the words of theSelf-Study, "someone I know."

Given Harvard's relatively low number ofminority athletes and staff, the pool from whichto draw new candidates is prohibitively small.Although both Johnson and White are alumni of theteams they now coach, they are, like Bruce Tall,exceptions to the typical result.

"This exclusive network of coaches was noted asa problem," Johnson says. "We're trying to getcoaches to look beyond the 'good old boy network."

Nearly all Harvard coaches interviewed for thisstory said they got jobs at the University throughdirect connections with a coach or AthleticDirector William J. Cleary '56.

This pool of connected coaches is by everyone'sadmission low in minorities because of a lack ofminority athletes at Harvard in the past and anoverall lack of minorities among coaches' IvyLeague peers.

And so Harvard begins each recruiting effort ata disadvantage.

"I think it's less likely our existingnon-diverse coaching staff is going to havecontacts with minority coaches," Hoyte says. "Weneed to develop a network that will lead us tomore familiarity with minority coaches."

Why Harvard Has Failed So Far

But extending the network from which it drawscoaches is one thing Harvard has failed to doeffectively in the last few years.

The Self-Study recommends that Harvard placerecruiting ads in coaching journals and academicmagazines like The Chronicle of Higher Education,as well as expand its contacts within the BlackCoaches' Association.

The only new initiative the Self-Study setsforth is the development of a relationship withbodies like the Historically Black Colleges andUniversities (HBCUs) and the Hispanic Associationof Colleges and Universities (HACUs).

It was hoped that this relationship wouldsupplement the existing network of coaches,increasing the number of minority applicants inthe pool.

But coaches at Harvard and elsewhere say thatads are not enough. None of Harvard's currentminority coaches were attracted by ad--all eitherhad a personal connection with a head coach orvisited with the staff.

Whitcomb says answering an ad often means wordgets out that they are looking for a new job,which is often unsettling to a current employer.The average minority coach, he says, is not likelyto take this risk in response to an ad from theunattractive Ivy League.