 HBCU Dutchess Radio, welcome back. Continuing our coverage of distinguished voices within the historically black college and university sector. Today we are deviating slightly from where you have come to expect our coverage into the world of sports, which sometimes as we know transcends a lot of the business and industrial elements of higher education. And tonight is a very special show, a friend of the show, a dear brother of mine who doesn't like the spotlight but thought that this topic was important enough to come on. He is the commissioner of the Southern Athletic and Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, Gregory Moore Esquire. Pleasure to have you on the commissioner. And also the head coach of the men's basketball team at the University of Kentucky, John Calipari. These two gentlemen are working together to give strong footing and foundation to the McClendon Foundation's Minority Leadership Initiative. This is a pipeline and a program that's designed to get minority candidates of high caliber into positions of leadership and influence within the collegiate of sports world. So gentlemen, it is a pleasure to have you on this evening. Hey, thanks for Jared. Pleasure. Hey Jared, brother Jared, I'm recovering lawyer for the record. You're only one step away brother at all times. Yeah, yeah. Let me, let me start with you commissioner. You guys, and I think this needs to be said outright. The SIC has been pioneering since your tenure, certainly over the last several years in talking about acting upon the idea of increasing equity and access within the collegiate ranks. The SIC was the first to put a full crew of women officiating a football, a college football game. You have done wonders with coaching pipelines for former NBA athletes to get coaching positions in the collegiate ranks, several of which in your conference. You've done things to start volleyball programs, a diverse program at HBCUs for sure. With all of these things that you've done, why do you think that it is outside of the division two conversation that the SIC hasn't been out there enough that this minority initiative program wasn't the first thing everybody picked up on and say, yep, that's the SIC. That's what we've come to expect. Why do you think that the conference itself, as pioneering as it's been, has flown in at radar, so to speak? Well, that's a tough question to answer. What I will say is that when I became commissioner, Jared, I tried to align the mission and purpose of our athletic conference office and put in alignment with the parties of our member institution presidents. And you know, Coach Cowell talked about access and opportunities and talking about that for years. You know, Jared, that's really at the core of what our schools have done for one over a hundred years, which is provide access and opportunities. So some of the things we try to do with focus on is there in the sports world, can we leverage athletics to provide more opportunities in terms of the professional development opportunities for African-American sports administrators? And obviously in the context of intercollegiate sports, there is some real pressing challenges in that area. To answer your question with respect to why we're flying under the radar, what I would simply say, and this doesn't just apply to college sports, generally speaking, if you are an African-American professional and you kind of raise these thorny uncomfortable issues, it doesn't win you friends in high places, it's just not a good look for you. And you know, my mom and dad raised me to, you know, when you see something that's unfair or inequitable, you know, you have to speak to that. And I appreciate you giving us our presidents and our league that credit, because we've been doing this quietly for 10 years. And now that George Floyd, that's kind of, you know, that issue has kind of, you know, raised awareness of the larger issue of racial justice in the country. Folks are beginning to pay attention, but I'd be remiss, Jared, if I didn't say that we've been flying under the radar in a lot of quarters, but there is a, you know, a very short list of people who kind of paid attention to what we're doing. And Coach Cowell is one of those folks. You know, Michelle Roberts at the MBPA, you know, Phil Knight, Willie Gregory, Rick at Morris and Nike, obviously Coke on Depot. So, you know, John Skipper and ESPN. So these are all people who are involved with and connected to, you know, multi-billion dollar enterprises who kind of, you know, saw what we're doing, saw us swimming upstream and said, you know what, call this up and said, what can I do to help? Unfortunately, those calls are few and far in between, but Coach Cowell is one of the latest folks who, again, Kentucky Wildcat basketball is a whole nother, you know, animal. But he's taking time out to say, hey, what can I do to help? Let's talk about that quickly, Coach, because you've always been outspoken. Anybody who knows sports, period, collegiate or pro or otherwise knows you're an outspoken cat. And you've never been one to shy away from even issues on social justice and equity. Why do you think, or what is it that attracted you to this opportunity and this partnership to not only say something about, you know, how do we get, you know, more minority access to sports? A lot of people do that. But you're specifically saying we got to get more people in the leadership and executive pipelines. What is it about that that stood out to you? Well, let me do this first year. Let me tell you why Greg and I hit it off. Dude's a solution based, solution driven human being. That's what I'm about. When people come in to me with problems, my normal response is, we think I'm not paying attention. I know it's a problem. Give me a solution. Tell me what we're gonna do. And Greg and I, he's got really great ideas and a great picture of where he wants us to go, which is why when I talk to him, we have great conversations. You asked me why this, why now? When everything happened and however you wanna say it, you know, George Floyd murdered in front of our eyes, how can one human being do it to another human being? How can this be in this time and age? And then, you know, you sit back as a coach and my wife said to me, you gotta speak and you better come up with some solutions. Don't just talk loud. And she said, we owe everything that we have, every success that you've had, everything for our children, because African-American parents have entrusted us with their sons. That's why and you need to speak up. And then it just, my sphere of influence, I know there's problems with police, but that's not my, I don't have influence or the criminal justice system. Come on, we all know it's wrong. We can see it, but I don't have influence. But in access and opportunity, I do. My own staff or athletic departments. And all of a sudden, the idea was to get a group of coaches together to work on their campus inside out. Do your campus. And if we're all doing our campuses, this thing's gonna change. And how do we get the best and the brightest who want to apply? Many don't apply because they'll say, I can't get that job. There's no way. Well, these are minority positions. Now, here's what I would say. You may be out there saying, well, you know, I don't have the connections. Well, you do now. Well, I don't have access and opportunity. You do now. Now, you may look at this and say, this is gonna be hard. It will be hard, because there's only gonna be about 70 jobs this first year. My hope is it goes to 150 and 300 in the next three. But there'll only be about 70, 50 to 70 this year. But here's my point. You still have to go prove yourself. But how many out there say, I will just give me a chance. Let me in the door. I'll prove myself. And I believe what's gonna happen with this. Leadership, it's not just a voice in the room. You have to be in leadership and decision-making positions. And there are many in athletics. But here's what I'll say to you. There's great diversity and minority on the field. There's just not much in the athletic department. And that's the idea. Now, coaches are funding this. The coaches are funding this. I knew Athletic Direct. And Greg and I talked. How do you take away the answer? No, you fund it. You promote it. You come up with how the applications are coming in. How you're filling the job. You give them three candidates for each position on their campus. You take away the ability to say no. And then, I don't wanna say the word pressure, but I don't know what else I can say, which is we're leaning on them to get this done. And then we become mentors. The Athletic Department becomes mentors. And these are stipend paying $2,500 a month. We don't want anybody to have to take a loan. We don't want anybody to have to get a second job. You're trying to learn to be a leader, to be a decision-maker. You're giving real work in a real position. They're for one or two years. And we need, the coaches have committed. This is what's great about it, Jared. The coaches and the schools have committed to multiple years, like four years. We need that time to check the data, to make sure that we're doing right and we're handling things right. So all I can tell you is, Greg, how many times do we talk about this? Three times, four times? Many times. I want all the school, I said, I want your conference in this. But just as important, I want the students from the HBCUs to look at this and say, I'm applying. I deserve this opportunity. This is what I've been looking for. So that's why I said to Greg, how do we do this? How do we get your presidents involved? How do they make recommendations? They don't have to be athletes. They can be the student body president that wants to say, I wanna learn. And lastly, and Greg, I'll let you go with this. We got businesses involved. So part of it is, if you don't get a job with a school this year, you're gonna be in a database. And that database will be a minority database where a company may call and say, hey, I'm looking for a minority in accounting or IT or marketing, whatever. You're in that database. We're trying to look for matching dollars for businesses. So schools that can't, because right now it's about 33,000 per position on a campus that the coaches are being the point of funding. And there are many coaches that can't afford that. So how do we get matching dollars? I want each coach to be invested at some point. You can't, it's not for free. I want you to have to give up something. I want the school to have to give up something. And then we match. But this thing is, if we do this right and we're passionate and we're engaged in it, we don't just say we're starting it and walking away. It's not for optics. This thing is what happens in four to five years, what's it look like? So let me stick with you real quick, coach, because I think you're a guy that appreciates keeping it real. So let me frame it this way. You've built programs, you've inherited legacy programs and built them to championship caliber. You've been in the NBA. What is the difference when you look at your path from a UMass to Memphis to Kentucky to the league? And you look and you see these operations from top to bottom. And you know that the business of college sports moves fast, either you're ready to do this or you aren't. What in your mind, what would a candidate or what could a school do to prepare a candidate for that kind of top flight position? And what can a school do to welcome that kind of talent to make them feel most comfortable and ready to succeed under a coach cow? At a UK. Okay, let's start with your second point. The athletic director and the president of whatever university that future leader is on, they have to let everybody know I'm in this and this is important to me. If it's important to the president and the AD, it'll be important to everyone in the athletic department. The coach needs to stay involved to let everybody in the athletic department know this is important. We're gonna have five positions at Kentucky, okay? Once a month, they're gonna be at my house, maybe with my team, maybe with themselves, just by themselves and we're gonna talk leadership. We're gonna have speakers. I've already told Spike Lee, this isn't an ask, it's a tell, just like he did to me when we played Morehouse. I'm not asking you to play, I'm telling you you're playing them and I did. He and I have been friends for a while, but to have Jamie Foxx and different leaders to get on and talk about leadership, talk about making decisions, how to engage everybody, leadership is about serving. It's not just, I've had more players that you would say they knew how to lead when they got there. Well, that born to lead, I don't believe it. I think serving, creating opportunities for others, stepping back and being wrong so someone else can be right, so decisions can be made is so important and they don't know it. Just because you got a great personality and you got some leadership traits doesn't mean you understand how to lead. And so we're trying to do that. And then again, the access, what you're gonna find out, why have we not been as diverse in athletics? Says there hasn't been the access. There hasn't been the connections. And now I'm saying, let's eliminate that. And let's see how these young, talented, driven, wired, just competitive, how they succeed. And I think what you're gonna find out is wherever they go to work, what school, that AD's gonna look and say, we're hiring that person. All right, they're in this position in the Futures Leaders Program in the John McLendon Foundation Leadership Program, but we're hiring him full-time, hiring her full-time. We want this to be both about men and women. And I will tell you, right now in America, and Greg and I've talked about this, we have seven of the major cities have mayors that are African-American women. I mean, they're making strides now. And I'm saying, why not in athletics? Why don't we do the same? And so I'm again, and then the other thing, let me just say this to the listeners. After we came up with this, I was so excited. And I got coaches on board. Not one said, no, because it's right. It's the right thing to do. And it's the right time to do it for, I don't care about crew, and I don't care what they're doing with athletics this year. If we have to work remote, we teach them how to work remote, remotely. And then you come back. But here's the one question that came to me, kind of made me feel a little uncomfortable. Why didn't I do this 10 years ago? Why now? What was I missing? What wasn't I hearing? What wasn't I seeing that I would wait 10 years that I could have done this 10 years ago? We could have done the same thing. And so, you talk about what we're doing, it takes courage, but this doesn't, this is easier. Now it's hard to grab everybody, get them together. Can you imagine getting 50 coaches to agree to something that are like the big time, I mean, these guys, or whoever they are, it's hard. But if it were 10 years ago, now it takes a little courage. The coaches in the 60s and 70s, I always wonder if I would have courage back then, if you're making a move that could cost you your job, because you're trying to do it right. Would I do what's right? I hope so, but I don't know. I don't know. And I do know, we should have done this earlier, but Greg and I talk, let's just do it now. And let's do it right, and let's have this be something that we all are proud of. Every coach, every commissioner, every college president, we all know we need this. We also wanna include presidents. We want them to say, look, I'll take the future leader, let him shadow me for a day or two. He can be in my meetings, he can see what I'm doing, he can see what the leader of a campus does. I want this to be more, I want every future leader to lead the program and say it was the greatest experience of my life. I can't believe I got this experience. And if that's what they're saying, that means everybody's engaged, everybody's showing how important it is to them personally. And you know what? We're teaching the things that put them in the position that Greg is in to lead and be solution-based and be a guy or a girl, a lady that says, look, we can do this together, we can lead and hear solutions to some of the issues. Let me throw this to both of you, but I'll start with you, commissioner. So with this training program, obviously it's putting minority candidates in good position with strong networks to be seen and be accepted by athletic administration at all levels. But more specifically to the programs which may be included at the HBCUs. Do the candidates have to be trained on some of the unique challenges that black colleges face, particularly in with kind of college sport regulation. And I'm hoping I'm not being a boogeyman of any kind. When I say things like the APR, things like lower resource being punished for not having enough money as Coach Cal said, when you can't do summer school, the APR gets a hit for that. Guaranteed games, how do you navigate around that? What does fundraising look like within that scope? Are there things that this program will develop within the leaders or the leadership pipeline that prepare candidates from all kinds of backgrounds to understand, here's what smaller mid majors and smaller independent schools and what specifically HBCUs have to go through to then give them a greater perspective of what athletic administration really looks like. I think at some point, you know, Jared, yeah, I mean, those things will. So every kid who wants to work in college sports, right? Is it within the loading curve? And at some point, they'll gain the appreciation of some of the things you just outlined. But you look at our league, we have some incredibly rigorous academic institutions. Our presidents and our colleges universities produce very talented, bright young people. I think at the starting point, baseline, we just need smart kids, kids with a passion to work in sports. And I think those kinds of loading curve issues will resolve themselves. Use word pipeline. And that's one of the things that I will say it's been very frustrating for the last 10 years because when you look at the percentage of ethnic minorities who work in college sports, colleges, HBCUs provide the supermajority of ethnic minority professionals and sports administrators across every world in terms of head coaches, football, basketball, coaches, 80s, president. And very often when these discussions are had, we're not really engaged. And the frustrating part about that is that, you know, how can you say you really care about inclusion in college sports? And to some degree, historically black colleges, which is the largest repository of ethnic minority sports talent in the country, they're not really engaged. And to Coach Cal's point, maybe segueing to APR, there are policies in place that actually disadvantage these schools and hurt these schools. So that's really frustrating too in terms of trying to, rather than investing in these guidelines, you know, we're making it more difficult to conduct business at these schools that are creating these counter-piped lines. Greg, let me add one piece to that too. Jared, all of the coaches that are in this, that one comment that came up, it's not just the mid majors, the lower major schools, whoever that future leader is, man or woman, they're gonna have a job that's gonna be like, it's theirs, that they've gotta perform. And they may learn to do two or three things, which is what happens at that level. You're not just this guy, you're this guy, this lady, this lady, you're doing three or four things that I hate to tell you, like I started as a volunteer. And you've got things you've gotta do and things you're responsible for. So that would be good also to have that. And we want this to be a wide breadth of schools. This year, we're trying to keep it to 50 to 60, including football coaches, you know, Lubby Smith, you know, there are coaches that wanna be involved, baseball coaches, women's coaches, but we wanna make sure this first year, and I told Greg this, we gotta get this off the ground and running and running in a great way. Let me ask you both this then, and Commissioner, you said this at the top about, you know, when you're doing what's right and doing what's necessary, it doesn't make you a lot of friends. Is there any concern that this will draw, I don't know if animosity is the right word, but it will draw a certain level of attention that could be counterproductive? I asked that because not too long ago, the ACC unveiled plans, you know, for its equity program, you know, and no one is stupid. Everybody knows that this is an opportunity to try to do what is right and reverse some things that have worked against African-Americans for a long time. But do you think that you guys' level of investment and you guys' level of passion about this will create some blowback for you in any respect? I do, but you know what? I say I'll be taking arrows, but I've got bazooka holes in my body, so those arrows don't even touch skin. And what I do is I know we are doing right. And here's the difference between putting committees together, talking and action and solutions. And this may not be the best thing, but I haven't heard anything right now. And I also hope this bleeds into business and other areas where people, how about they come in here and we have two or 300 future leaders being trained in a year from three or four years from now and businesses know that and they come in and say, hey, we'd like to look at some of these students, would you be interested in business? How about this one? How about they get the chance to rub shoulders and elbows with people that they would never have an opportunity? Maybe someone that says, you know what? You're a terrific person, I want you with me. You're coming with me. And now you look and say, how in the world did I get this opportunity? Let me just say this. For me, my career started, I was, you know, I'd say as a player, I was a gym rat. And I say I was small, but I was slow. And, but I was a gym rat and I was into it. And I was a pretty good basketball player, but nothing special. I was a division two. I played division one for a minute at UNC Welmington. But there was a man in the five store basketball camp, Howard Garfinkel, that took a liking to me. I didn't play for, I mean, Kentucky. How did I get here? I didn't play for any of the great name coaches, but I had someone who lit a fire in me and say, you know what? Took a liking to me. You're gonna be good. You're gonna be a head coach. I wanted to be a high school coaching teacher. I didn't want to be a college coach. And then I was a pro coach and then they fired me. But I look at it and I'm telling you that that's what I want this to do. A springboard, light a fire, have belief that you can do whatever you choose. My mother, the greatest gift she gave me growing up, she said, listen, you're not responsible for these surroundings. You were born here. She said, dream beyond your surroundings. And that was the greatest gift that she gave me, that she believed I could be president someday. And I'm like, what? Like we were, you know, I mean, my sisters and I are the first college graduates in our family. My grandparents came through Ellis Island. I mean, so you look at this and I say all the time, access and opportunity that I've had, that is white privilege to me. It's not just money. I didn't have any money, but I had white privilege because I had access to stuff. And all of a sudden I had to take advantage. I had to work. There was nothing gonna be given in this. And what we're doing, nothing is gonna be given. But it gives you a chance to earn what you choose to earn. Be who you choose to be. And that's why I say, I want the HBC use involved. I want Greg in this. He's in the middle because I don't think I did one thing that I didn't learn by Greg. Like, tell me if I'm off the mark. Tell me if I'm being tone deaf. Tell me what this is what I wanna do. How do I get you guys involved? How do we do this step by step? And again, I'm trying to get funding so that all the schools can be involved in this. And now, look, learning wherever you learn, you're gonna learn something different. I'll give an example. Jared, if you're an athlete at Kentucky and you won in this program, you're more than welcome. You just can't train at Kentucky. You gotta go somewhere else and train. And then say you go to Conzo Martin and you're at Missouri. And I call Conzo and I go, Conzo, how is she or he? And he says, unbelievable. We are so happy. And I tell my AD, Mitch Barnhart, and say, she's our athlete, hire her back. She's proven herself. She wants to do this, let's go. Because I don't want any athlete thinking, well, you owe me. This isn't about that. This is about here's your opportunity. Take it, grab it, no excuses, go for it. And that's who I want to apply for this. And again, it's gonna be tough. We may have 27, 28-year-olds wanna change professions and do this. We may have people that are out of work right now that have great leadership and they know this is what they can do and they wanna start over. We may, this is gonna be interesting what we're gonna have in candidates. But I'll say this. You know, my hope is if this is done right, we coaches, and I'm calling the other coaches, Tommy Amaker and I, he helped organize. We had to get together and say, Tommy, I can't do this myself, I need you. And Tommy Amaker jumped in and he's done unbelievable work. But the 50, I'm calling him ambassadors, the first-year guys, ambassadors who've committed to multiple years, four years of doing this. I say, well, how about if we can all look back and say in 10 years, forget about national titles, league titles, whatever wins, whatever's happened for us personally, this may be the biggest thing that we've ever been involved in. This may have more of an impact than anything I've done. And again, my goal is to have every one of my players be something more. I know the families are saying to me, look, coach, we're entrusting you with our son. Do you understand? And then it's, you know, we're entrusting you to coach him, to teach him, to lead him, to love him, to hug him, to tell him when he's wrong and help him become all that he can be. And that's what the parents are telling me. And so now I'm looking at these young people and saying, you know what? How about they get the same opportunity? And that's what this is about. And then tying it all together with Gray, with Spike Lee, with people that are, I know will help with this, Maria Taylor, who's unbelievable with young women that want to get into her field. And she's the ESPN rising star. Matter of fact, she worked with you, didn't she, Gray? She did. She was our sideline with S.I.C. football games on Bounce TV. Well, I'm gonna tell you, she is a rising star. I mean, but she is a talent. And she's now, I'm gonna tell you, everyone who's been in her sphere should be proud of her because it's paying it forward. And that's the last piece of this. Anyone that leaves this program, when they leave the last thing they're talked to about is, your time now is to mentor somebody else. This has to have a ripple effect. If it has a ripple effect, it'll grow big fast. If it's just everybody worrying about themselves, if we're not doing this for optics, we're not doing this to speak louder than somebody else or say, be proud we're doing something. The only thing we're gonna be proud of is that this works. If the data says, yeah, done good, then we'll be happy. Let me ask that question. This will be the last one for both of you. How will you know in a couple of years that this has worked? What will be the cultural indicators? What will be the data indicators that showed you? Yep, exactly what we set out to do has been done. Is it hiring? Is it influences, is it titles? What will have shown you this was effective? Greg, you tell me what you would say. This is what you see that this would be a success. Yeah, Jared, success for me is providing increased access and opportunities for our kids. And also of getting the corporate community to invest in those pipelines. Folks want the talent that come out of the pipeline, but you don't see as much investment as there should be in the pipelines that produce them. You with me? So to me, we got to, you know, we got to, you know, my job is really go out there and identify resources. And I think it's also important to mention you bring up Maria Taylor. You know, not only did you, our schools provide opportunities for, you know, the kids who are, who choose to attend historically black colleges, universities, but you know, Maria Taylor went to use yes. And she got an opportunity at the SISC. You know, George Lynch went to UNC. So Darrell Walker, who went to Arkansas, he, you know, he had 21 interviews before and he's been very vocal about this. For Clark Atlanta University gave an opportunity. So, you know, the head football coach and at AD at, at Lane College went to Memphis playing the NFL. So I think a lot of the autonomy five folks, I'm not sure they fully appreciate how many of their former student athletes, football players and basketball players become ADs and coaches and football coaches and administrators and sideline reporters. And I think if they had a better awareness of that, they'd understand why it's critically important to invest in those institutions at a greater level. You know, and I'm going to piggyback. I would say in 10 years that we look at athletic departments collectively and we say they look different. This looks different. Hooray that different decision makers look different. That in 20 years, instead of having five or six minority ADs, we have 30 to 40 minority ADs or more. And then the other part that would make this a success is that Greg and I are arm and arm saying, we finally got money in the pipeline for our student athletes, so that we can prepare the next wave. So this is the bigger picture that Greg and I really haven't talked about is, all right, we want to be involved, but we need help too. And there's been different companies and I heard somebody, you know, where you heard different athletes or thinking about HBCUs, I love it. And different shoe companies are coming back saying, you know what, how do we get an HBCU in the sweet 16? What would that mean? What would that be like? And you know, you look at the name of this foundation, the John McLendon Foundation. And John McLendon, again, was, before his time, he was absolutely an icon, but he trained under James Naismith and he trained because he wasn't allowed to be on the team, but he trained under him. And then all of a sudden, he is the first African-American, he was a pioneer and a phenomenally white school. He was one national title that Tennessee state. You know, you're talking about the fast break basketball. What did Dean Smith take from him, Greg? Four corners, that's where it was. He took it from him. And now all of a sudden we get to honor John McLendon with this foundation and what we're doing to change college athletics and what it looks like, what could be better? So again- You also spent a couple of years, you also spent a couple of years, coach at Kentucky State of Head coach as well. And he was an administrator, which is how the NACCA people latched on and said, hey man, let's do this in his name. And that program that they have already in place, which is more for postgraduate education, those scholarships have been tremendous and have led to success of Martin Jarmin, who's the AD at UCLA went through that program. So, you know, it's special. Minorityleaders.org. So if you're a business leader that you're interested in supporting this, minorityleaders.org, if you're a candidate, if you're a future leader, if you're looking for how to apply, minorityleaders.org, and I would tell coaches or athletic directors that have an interest in this program, how we can help you forget about money wise, if this is something you wanna do, we will help. Minorityleaders.org. Did I say that, Jared? Minorityleaders.org? You know how to brandy coach minorityleaders.org.