I guess Kirk gets frustrated easily

Watching ESPN can be frustrating sometimes. They hire terrible commentators like Skip Bayless, John Kruk, and Lou Holtz. Their NBA shoot-around--to which they dedicate a half an hour, three times a week--features Steven A. Smith and Bill Walton.

That said, Kirk Herbstreit is great. He co-hosts College Gameday with Lee Corso (who knows nothing about college football, but who dresses up like the mascot of the team he likes to win the big game of the week.) The show airs once a week, on Saturday mornings, and reviews and previews college football. Kirk is generally well prepared and knowledgable about the subject he gets paid to be knowledgeable about: college football.

But this morning, gameday decided to veer from the game of football, and instead to talk about race; specifically race in college football coaching. The conversation went about how you'd expect. All lamented about how few black men hold the title of head coach for division I football teams. All said we should do more to fix the problem. So far, I had about the same reaction I have when Barbara Streisand endorsed Hillary Clinton. "That's great, but I pay you to sing/discuss football. Your opinion on the subject carries as much weight as do my thoughts on gardening."

Then Kirk said this: "It's not just the head coaches. There are 240 offensive and defensive coordinators [the second rung on the coaching ladder] in division I football. Of those, only 28 are black. That's whats so frustrating to me."

First, kudos on actually giving statistics, Kirk. Most discussions of race and how little progress we've made go like this:

Person: "We have made little progress on race."
Me: "Really? Richard Parsons heads the largest entertainment company in the world. Barak Obama leads polls in Iowa. Billy Martin is, if not the best private lawyer in America, at least in the top ten. They are all black. It seems to me making progress must mean seeing racial minorities in top positions in business, law, and politics."
Person: "You are a racist."

But here is the problem with what Kirk said. 28 of 240 is 11.6 percent. According to the U.S. census, African-Americans make up 13.3 percent of America's population. That is under-representation of 1.7 percent. Or, as the economists call it, statistically insignificant. Is this really enough of an under-representation to make Kirk frustrated? To be fair, I started this post by saying I get frustrated because a sports station sometimes put people on the air I don't like. But I get frustrated easily. I guess Kirk does too.