I think your numbers are going to be way off. While rosters are 100+ every season for all football players, Iowa has mostly white athletes and from spot checking a couple rosters it looks like about 1/3 are minorities. If we say Iowa averaged 30 new players a season with walkons and transfers included and 1/3 of those are minorities that would be 10 minorities per year. So with 23 seasons or so at Iowa that would be about 230 minority athletes under KF while he was the head coach at Iowa as a rough estimate.
And when we look at the players that were openly complaining, it seems like those athletes came in around 2007-2008 and after which is a key point here in my opinion. James Cleveland, Arvell Nelson, Cedric Everson, Abe Satterfield were all making news for getting arrested around that time. Iowa football had a new character issue and to me the football program probably learned the wrong lessons to deal with it which is why the complaints didn't seem to come from the first several years of KF at Iowa.
So if my understanding is correct that most complaints of racial bias or insensitivity came on or after 2008 that is 14 season with a guestimate of 140 minority athletes. That would be 17.9% of minority athletes complaining if we go with your low end of 25. What percentage of players should be openly making comments for us to admit there was a problem that needed to be addressed?
I will confess to inviting a statistical argument where the small total numbers involved allow individual analysis rather than obtain insight through statistical aggregation. So we could actually ascertain the nature of every single complainer's complaint by listening to their complaint. Also, I think the actual number of complainers is around 20 but I was erring on the high side.
Your argument is too reliant on hypothetical facts to allow for a direct response. For example, you concede one of your premises is purely opinion. We don't know if there was a culture change following some citizenship issues back in 2008. There really isn't any reason to believe that KF changed his culture then, or at any point in his 30 year head coaching career, and 40+ year coaching career.
Indeed, there is some circumstantial evidence to dispute that opinion. The number of black players that returned to Iowa and KF as adult coaches after the period where you think the culture changed. I don't think those guys would return if they thought a racially hostile environment existed here, or ever under KF. Especially LaDell, who had a great gig in the warm and sunny south and Jason Manson, a very respected and employable sports executive. Far fewer black players would have come to Iowa if the environment was hostile. This isn't 1953, black recruits both know each other and have a wide variety of options. They can use social media to communicate with each other. There would have been an enormous social media traffic if there were ever serious complaints about a racially hostile environment at Iowa.
Distribute the number of complainers of each year KF was coaching and you've got what, a very small number of players on an annual basis (assuming of course that some complainers were on multiple rosters and would fill multiple spots in the "complainer" category. That's not very many players per season. Easily within the range of the small number of malcontents that infest every organization. We have conditioned too many black kids to blame race for any bad outcome or offense. It's the go to move. Taken to the most ludicrous and stupid extreme are morons like LeBron and Warren Sapp comparing their contracts to slavery.
The question just gets harder from there. What specific facts constituted the complainer's complaints? Not some generic "racially hostile" or "racially insensitive" adjective. What was insensitive and, more importantly, why does anyone have to be sensitive to anyone else based on either person's race? What acts do the complainers consider hostile? That last question should be the one that triggers further inquiry.
So, I wouldn't have much time for that kinds of complaints I described above. However, if a guy comes to me and says "Doyle never flips any shit at the white players' appearance" I would pay a little closer attention. If it's the same handful of malcontents that constitute the 17.9%, I probably wouldn't pay that much attention. Given my own leadership style, controlling and informed, I'd alert a couple of staff guys or coaches to put an eye on and get back to me if they see anything specific or worth reporting.
For example. One of the plaintiffs, whom we can consider in the category of complainers can't we, said the coaches discriminated against him because they suggested an easier major than engineering. Now I would see that as the much more experienced coaches felt the kid was either insufficiently intelligent or insufficiently motivated to be good at both football and engineering. An ineligible (too much football for school) player doesn't help the team or the player. An unprepared player (too much school for football) doesn't help the team or the player. Only so many hours in the day. Probably not the first teenager to overestimate his abilities or underestimate the difficulties of the major he chose. We all know the guys that came in pre med and came out phys ed. Again, not a racially or ethnically specific trait. I just want to ask that kid if he thinks white people don't know that there are dumb white people.