by Brandon Walker, For New Pittsburgh Courier
HBCU culture has always seemed grand on the outside. Homecoming Step Shows, Battle of the Bands, school pride, and all the glitz and glamor that we have seen on shows like “A Different World.” But recently, prominent NFL athletes Deion Sanders, Eddie George and Ed Reed have exposed the malfeasance of the administrators of Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
Misappropriation of funds and antiquated athletic facilities have always been a problem in most HBCUs; however, Reed ripped the lid off the real incompetence of these schools.
Sunday, Jan. 15, Reed, the Hall of Famer who starred with the Baltimore Ravens, went on a vulgar rant while riding a golf cart and spoke about how there was trash all over the Bethune-Cookman University athletic department. Furthermore, the school did not have his office clean when he arrived. As a result, the school had Reed’s contract to be the next head coach of the school rescinded.
In Reed’s defense, it takes about $20 to get a soap bucket, rags, and Windex to clean an office. Black Greek Letter Organizations are supposed to do community service on its campus to make the experience better for students at-large by making sure the campus is presentable enough for Reed, but obviously, Bethune-Cookman just didn’t care.
The rift is between Reed and the athletic director. That athletic director is former NBA All-Star Reggie Theus, who also happens to be the men’s basketball coach for Bethune-Cookman. It figures that they would clash because he was not only a former NBA player but a successful actor and broadcaster. However, he is not as successful as a coach as his college career college record at New Mexico State, Cal State Northridge and Bethune Cookman is 109-162, and his career coaching record in the NBA is 44-62. Theus, as you would think, has a big ego mixed with an old-school personality that would not allow Reed to outshine him, especially if he made the changes to the program with donations from fellow Hall of Fame athletes Edgerrin James and Shaquille O’Neal. My theory is that Theus may have sabotaged him, getting in the ear of Bethune Cookman interim president Dr. Lawrence M. Drake, who got his Ph.D. in media psychology, so when Reed went on his rant on Instagram, it made it all the easier to win the power struggle. I find it really funny that a contract would not be ratified for this long after Reed was announced as the head coach. It seems fishy, and here’s the kicker: Reed had 26 recruits waiting to commit to Bethune-Cookman on campus when he found out that he would not be coaching the team.
In my opinion, Bethune-Cookman is totally at fault here, and even if Reed went a little bit too far in his rant, he was correct. Not only about Bethune-Cookman but most other HBCUs, not only in athletic programs, but in student life in general. I have read reports that there had been mold, mice and roaches in dorm rooms and cafeterias on these campuses. And this was at Howard University, one of the most famous and most HBCUs in the world. A school that will gross over $300 million in revenue from student tuition and has over $900 million in endowments. How does this happen when you have $1.2 billion in hand?
Now HBCUs are reaching for the next “celebrity coach” that will bring notoriety to bring revenue and eyes to its product to try to save its dying legacy. However, if administrators are doing corrupt things with the revenue and not helping the school, then why would they support it? Why would alumni donate? Tuition-paying college students should never be subjected to a disgusting campus, terrible food, and other things that threaten their safety on its campus in trying to get an education.
College administrators from HBCUs, let me ask you a question: Who do Black celebrity athletes network with? Other Black celebrities, and if this trend keeps going then HBCUs will be all but extinct in 10 years, and they will have no one to blame but the “educated Blacks” that should be the pillars of the Black communities. If these young men and women wanted to have this type of experience, they would have stayed in the hood with the Pookies and Ray-rays of the world. At least they would not have mold in their house, OR have their food cooked right. But for now, we just have to see if we as a people learn from this, so we can continue with the legacies of HBCUs.
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