College basketball coaches discuss racism, diversity

Frank Martin remembers the day 22 years ago when he was stopped by a police officer in the middle of nowhere, when he was driving across the country from his home in Miami to help coach a youth basketball camp.

“An officer walked up to my window and asked, ‘What’s a guy from your neck of the woods doing up here, like real sarcastically,” the South Carolina coach recalled. “My proper name is Francisco, middle name Jose. He starts making fun of how to enunciate my name. And he said, ‘You’re one of those banana boat guys down there where you're from,' so right that moment I was kind of like, trying to figure out how to handle that moment. Common sense said, ‘Frank, defuse.’”

It wasn't the first time Martin experienced racism. It wouldn't be the last. But it left such an indelible impression on him that all these years later, it was among the first things that came to mind when he saw a video of a white Minneapolis police officer kneeling on the throat of George Floyd as the black man pleaded for help with his final breaths.

And it's why Martin, the son of Cuban political exiles and the first of his family born in the U.S., is joining dozens of other basketball coaches to discuss issues of race and discrimination amid the social unrest that has gripped the nation.

“He was trying to incite me the whole time,” Martin said during a panel discussion Friday with members of the National Association of Basketball Coaches. “Luckily for me I didn't say anything to him, and he left and I left” — after not one but two tickets — “but in retrospect my biggest failure is that I never took action afterward.”

The NABC already has released a list of recommendations for college coaches. Among the suggestions are holding in-person or virtual meetings to discuss current events and racial injustice;...