On Friday's 'Pac-12 Perspective': Arizona's Kevin Sumlin talks change in light of racism, police brutality

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Ashley Adamson and Yogi Roth had a powerful conversation with Sumlin, one of 13 Black coaches in the country, during Friday's of the Pac-12 Perspective episode. Sumlin has a powerful point-of-view, having been the head coach at Texas A&M and Houston before arriving in Tucson in 2018. He shares how his race has often been a question during his opening press conference — and how, until it's not, college football has work to do in creating equality for coaches of all backgrounds.

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On the current worldwide protests in wake of George Floyd's death:

"Everybody has a role. How can we help, particularly the people that we touch on a daily basis, deal with the emotions that they have right now? And then effectively use those emotions to create change and a dynamic that looks different than what it does right now."

On growing up in Alabama eight miles from the Florida border and seeing racism:

"1964 was a different time. By the time you're 4 or 5 years old, you're in the peak of the Civil Rights Movement. I'm young enough. My dad was a football coach at a segregated high school. It's hard for my kids to even hear something like that. We moved; he was frustrated. After they won games, trying to feed a football team, driving an hour away and you have to plan to stop at different places because the black players couldn't eat at certain restaurants."

On being one of five black head coaches in the Pac-12:

"I think it speaks to our league and this part of the country also, just being frank. The progress that's been made and the overall outlook of this part of the country and our conference. That's significant. Because as you said, there's 13 and five of us are in the Pac-12. To just kind of skip over that, you can't do that. That's something that speaks to this progress in this part of the country and particularly in the Pac-12."

Before appearing on the podcast, Sumlin penned two powerful statements on his Twitter account:

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Background reading:

• The Tucson Star's Michael Lev wrote in Feb. 2020 about Sumlin's desire to see more African-Americans leading in college football. While recent stats show that 49.2% of college football student-athletes are black, just 10% of head coaches are black (13).

• In 2017, while coaching at Texas A&M, Sumlin's wife, Charlene, said their home received racist hate mail after a loss to UCLA to open the season, per ESPN. Sumlin's daughter, Shelby, commented on social media after the incident: "Imagine being a kid & reading this bs abt your dad. Things 'fans' say gets taken personal (sic) by more than just the coach. Humanity isn't hard."