[damaniac]

I don't know so much that the issue is AD's/GM's or rich powerful alums are racist. It's more that they aren't all incredibly slick objective and impartial in viewing potential candidates (this is especially so of the rich old alums). A lot have an image of what a coach should look like; very often this is the tough old (white) guy who shaves with broken glass and makes his teams tough as nails. The point is, the world does not consist of people in positions of power who are able to divorce their subtle biases, or the biases of people who they have to appease, from their decision-making process.

If you further believe that there is a large class of coaches between whom there isn't a huge difference in ability, then making the mistake of overlooking qualified minorities in favor of somewhat less qualified white coaches may not make a huge difference in most cases. So ignoring minorities isn't giving rise to a particularly large exploitable edge or putting numerous AD jobs at risk that otherwise would be safe.