Riggins: New AD Allen Greene could impact recruit’s perception of Auburn

AUBURN — Not too many athletic directors can have a direct impact on athlete recruiting.

Normally, the athletic director hires the head coach, who hires his staff and among all that, the AD is in charge of fundraising for facility projects to attract nationally relevant talent. It’s possible some high profile recruits may never meet the athletic director until they sign and arrive on campus. However, if he chooses to, new Auburn athletic director Allen Green could have an impact on the decisions of recruits and/or their parents. Montgomery native Quentin Riggins, who was on the appointed athletic director search committee, certainly thinks so.

“However, here at Auburn now they’ll see somebody who is black in an administrative role that they could pursue after graduation,” Riggins said. “Now there’s a role model that exists throughout this school and throughout the conference. He’s young enough that these guys could see themselves in these roles.”

When Auburn on Friday officially hired the school’s first African-American athletic director and only the third African-American AD in Southeastern Conference history, the historic nature of Greene’s position wasn’t to be denied. In the same week the country honored Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, the hiring of Greene could symbolize a progressive movement in an athletic department at a university that is admittedly historically conservative to any massive change.

“I would be naïve to sit here and think it doesn’t mean something significant,” Greene said in his introductory news conference Friday. “I’m sure there are people out there watching. I’m sure of the 400 texts that I have, people are very happy for me and for the bigger picture of our country.”

According to NCAA data for the 2016-17 season, blacks accounted for 64.5 percent of men’s basketball scholarship athletes in the SEC. In the same academic year, 57.6 percent of SEC football student-athletes on scholarship were African-American. These statistics point to an undeniable fact that a majority of SEC scholarship athletes in football and men’s basketball are African-American, and at Auburn will have their letter of intent signed by an athletic director of a similar racial background.

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Greene was also quick to point out “the other side” of the racial argument that suggests Greene’s race “isn’t a big deal.” Whether prospective student-athletes choose Auburn because they see an example in the school’s athletic administration is not where Greene will likely be judged.

“I consider myself a partner, a leader and regardless of my gender, my sexual orientation or my skin color, I’m here to serve,” Greene said Friday. “And that should transcend.”

Football coach Gus Malzahn, who attended Greene’s introductory news conference and had informal discussions with Greene after the Peach Bowl, just put together the program’s first early signing period in December. Of the 15 signees, only one was white.

Malzahn said Friday it was Greene’s immediate presence that assured him he was the right person to succeed Jay Jacobs, who hired Malzahn in 2013. The qualities Malzahn described when speaking of his previous conversations with Greene could certainly be interpreted as the abilities of a top-notch recruiter in the coaching profession.

“You sit down with him and you know right now he’s a dynamic person, he’s got great energy,” Malzahn said. “He’s the type that gets you excited, so I really feel like that’s going to rub off on everybody in our athletic department. I know our head coaches are excited, and I think that’s very important, too.”

However, before future student-athletes sign to play at Auburn, that high school basketball player or high school football prospect could have the opportunity to see a person of color and ethnic diversity in the highest authoritative power on their official campus visit. This was an opportunity never presented to Riggins when he signed in 1986 out of Robert E. Lee High to play tailback at Auburn before being moved to linebacker.

“I never saw that,” Riggins said. “Coach (Pat) Dye was my athletic director and my position coach all in one.”

Riggins, who was a team captain at Auburn in 1989 and earned second-team All-American and first-team All-SEC honors in 1988 and 1989, was a member of the search committee that helped select and interview the athletic director candidates. Riggins is a board of trustees member and vice president of government relations at Alabama Power.

Riggins did not downplay what Greene’s hiring could symbolize for a new generation of African-American student-athletes at Auburn who only saw 14 black athletic directors among the 131 NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision schools in the 2016-17 academic year.

“When less than 2 percent of college players make it a career playing in the NFL or even less in the NBA and you’re a recruit that may want a career in athletics, now you can see another way,” Riggins said. “You can see a path that doesn’t have to involve playing or on-the-field coaching. That excites me.”