Who cares what color, religion, gender, sexual orientation someone is if they are a coach? I wouldn't care if we had a black/white/"insert any color", bi sexual, female or male, Muslim/Hindu/Buddhist,Christian/Mormon coach as long as they get us into a BCS game or win us a WAC championship.
What we need is a really hot female coach.
Jordan Mills on choosing Tech:
“It’s a great experience seeing them play. It was a good atmosphere. The fans stood up the whole game and never sat down. They have a great fan base.”
I agree that results matter, but it would be naive to assume that having only one person of color on staff would not affect the way our program is perceived, particularly by recruits. Not that it would be a main factor, but it is one of many things that consciously or unconsciously will factor into a kid's perception of whether they fit in with a program.
That said, artificially isolating just the race issue, I think having the appearance that we over-recruit white athletes would have more of an affect than the racial make up of the staff. I imagine that these kids put a lot of stock in what their hosts on recruiting visits say about the program. And research is really clear that we more highly value info that comes from someone whom we perceive as similar to ourselves. And race is one of many factors that CAN relate to our perceptions of similarity.
Anyway, it is very easy to make this into a bigger issue than it really is. But to assume that it is not an issue at all, or to try to pretend like it doesn't matter at all, is a mistake.