As college football ramps into bowl games and playoffs, fans are being exposed to teams they don’t normally see because they are in different conferences and divisions. For example, North Alabama is playing Northwest Missouri for the division 2 national championship as I write. Another example, is the 2016 Air Force Reserve Celebration Bowl which features North Carolina Central versus Grambling.

During the game, announcers have cautiously walked into the phenomenon timidly referred to as HBCU. Those initials have become the preferred way of referring to a group of colleges known to be Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

Oddly enough, though I am not black, I have an interesting experience with a college from this group. I had a golf scholarship to play for a small NAIA college. I had worked hard and had earned the number five spot on my team which meant that I got to play in tournaments as long as I kept that spot. One beautiful thing about college golf is that it’s not about the coach’s opinion of you or how much he likes you. It’s about your scoring average. Everyone knows everyone else’s scoring average so everyone on the team knows who is on the playing team.

During one of our tournament practice rounds, I was paired with a player from a new team. It was the first time the college had a golf team. Their coach drove a cart while their number one player and I played our practice round. It was odd to pair a team’s number one player with the other team’s number five player.

After the first couple of shots, the coach started a conversation with me and that’s when I learned that this was their first golf team and that they were only playing three players instead of five because they hadn’t put together a full team yet. Most college golf teams have close to ten players and the top five go play in the tournaments.

The coach was going to drive along with their players that day and so the others were not playing yet. It only took a few shots to see why they paired him with me. Though he was their number one and I was my team’s five, I was considerably better. The coach explained to me that so far he had just recruited players already attending the college who had played golf. They were now trying to bring in players who could compete. And that’s when it got weird.

He started recruiting me. He explained to me that since they were just starting their golf team, weren’t in our division, and since our coach was retiring after that season, I was in a position to transfer to their school without being ineligible for the first year I was there (normally a player has to sit out as ineligible that first year to discourage recruiting).

“But, aren’t you guys a ‘black college?'” I asked.

“We are, but white students can come. In fact, since our golf scholarships are small right now, I might could get you a minority scholarship to go with it.”

Since they were predominately black, I would be a “minority student.” That is, if he could get me such a scholarship.

The advantage to me was that I wouldn’t have much competition for the number one spot and was almost assured of getting to play in every tournament during the next golf season. I guess he had done his homework on my situation. With my coach retiring and me being number five on my team, I’d proven I could play some but was barely on the right side of the edge of traveling with the team or having to stay back. I wouldn’t lose eligibility based on what he said. I don’t know if he was right or wrong. I mostly just nodded my head since I liked where I was and wasn’t interested in transferring.

I later was told that he could’ve gotten in big trouble for even talking to someone about transferring, but I was also told that the powers that be were probably bending the rules to encourage this “historically black college” to develop their new team. The coach was fired two years later, but I don’t know why.

The question of whether white people would be “allowed” to have a group of “historically” or otherwise predominately white colleges is an easy one. No. Such colleges were forced to “desegregate” or “integrate” years ago.

If there was such a lingering dinosaur of a college or university, in addition to being publicly shunned, the college would receive no government or state grants and because of political correctness, such a college wouldn’t be accepted into any conference. And I’m not referring to a fictitious college that would only allow white students. I’m referring to one that doesn’t toe the line of so-called diversity quotas.

Colleges and universities are falling all over themselves to achieve so-called racial diversity. Acceptance to a college today is of greater likelihood for blacks and Hispanics because of racial diversity goals. There have been several lawsuits filed against universities that have received national attention, some even going to the Supreme Court, where white students were rejected because they were not considered a “preferred race” to help the university’s diversity goals. These goals do more than just give bragging rights to a university, they ensure the doors remain open for government and private grants. The courts have sided with the universities.

“Historically Black Colleges and Universities” get a major pass on this issue. In fact, though Time Magazine says that 3 out of 4 students at these universities are black, more than a quarter of a billion dollars a year in special funding is provided by the federal government for historically black colleges and universities. They also qualify for special government loans.

The HBCU is rewarded for not being diverse. But why? I thought everyone wanted racial diversity, but the special treatment for the HBCU causes me to think that the so-called diversity liberals want is more anti-white than truly diverse.

It brings to mind the recent lecturing of Vice President-elect Pence by a member of the cast of the show “Hamilton.” The cast member lectured Pence, who attended the show, about diversity, but the cast itself had no whites.

Concerning the college mentioned earlier that casually recruited me to play for their golf team, they did well going forward. Within three years, they made it to the national championship of sorts for the HBCU – an amazing accomplishment for only having a team for a few years. But they almost weren’t allowed to play because their travel team had too many white guys for the taste of the HBCU. After receiving a letter saying the HBCU was considering not allowing them to play, the HBCU reneged and the school was allowed to play – and they won.

Needless to say, it doesn’t seem that diversity is the goal. It seems that giving and receiving racial preferences for certain groups is the real goal. And that’s not diversity at all.

Rhett October is on Twitter @RhettOctober