Morgan Football & Coach Hill-Eley Latest Possible Victims of HBCU Resource Disparity

COACH DONALD HILL-ELEY

BALTIMORE, Maryland  --  Coaching a college athletic team is an extremely challenging job for anybody.  On average, a college football coach holds his job only four years before being fired, according to a USA Today report. The average tenure for a college basketball coach is even shorter at only three years, according to the New York Times.

But the smaller college football coaches who don’t make millions per year or lack the expansive budgets to fund and support a team perhaps face an even greater challenge than top talent such as Alabama football coach Nick Saban, who is reportedly earning $5 million a year.

The Baltimore Sun recently broke news that Morgan State University officials accidentally forwarded an e-mail to their head football coach, Don Hill-Eley, detailing their plans to dismiss him from his position by January, following a 3-8 season. It was the third straight losing season for Morgan State under Hill-Eley, results that university President David Wilson deemed unacceptable.

Hill-Eley told the Sun he knew expectations were high when he was hired by MSU President-Emeritus Earl Richardson two years ago. But, with the school’s spending plans for the football program unchanged, the coach said higher expectations for success became unrealistic.

“He said the expectations had changed," Hill-Eley told the Sun. "But the input didn't change, so how do you expect things to change on Saturday? It's about resources, bottom line.”

“They think that just because they have a stadium ...

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