Western Pennsylvania coaching pool thin on diversity

Part 1 of 2

Before the start of every high school football season, Stacy Robinson goes through a familiar routine.

The head coach at Union High School for the past 18 seasons, Robinson makes it a point to keep an eye on fellow African-Americans trying to break into the head coaching ranks, those going through the same things he did nearly two decades ago.

Robinson believes it's his responsibility to reach out to these coaches coming along and help them in any small way he can.

Though it's something he continues to do, the regimen often has a familiar ending, with very few African-Americans getting hired in what can be a bleak landscape for coaches of their race.

"It's not a surprise to me that this has been going on," Robinson said.

In a city where the most high-profile coaching figure is an African-American -- Mike Tomlin of the Steelers -- and in a region that gave birth to the Rooney Rule -- which requires NFL teams to interview at least one minority candidate for a head-coaching vacancy -- the local pool of high school football coaches is thin on diversity.

In the 2014 season, only 9 of 130 area high schools employed a head coach who is a racial minority (6.9 percent), a number that is significantly lower than in other cities in the region.

It's a figure former Gateway head coach and current Penn State cornerbacks coach Terry Smith called "embarrassing." Dr. Richard Lapchick, a University of Central Florida academic who is considered a leading voice for racial issues in sports, said this lack of coaching diversity in high school football is a national problem, but referred to the numbers in Pittsburgh as "stunningly low" and "almost off-the-charts bad."

Though few consider that overall lack of representation intentional, it nonetheless exists, impacting the lives of the men who find a calling in the sport they love.

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Western Pennsylvania coaching pool thin on diversity