A Truly Super Bowl!
Who cares if you aren’t a Bears or Colts fan? One of the things you’ll be hearing about over the course of the next two weeks is three new “firsts” will take place. Prior to Superbowl XLI, not a single black coach has made it to pro football’s crowning championship game and to top it off we will have TWO in the same game which means the third first will be that a black coach will lead an NFL team to a Superbowl victory.
In fact, I fully expect this set of circumstances to be used to challenge the Rooney Rule that requires teams to interview minority candidates for coaching posts. On one hand you have Tony Dungy, hired in 1995 as head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, earned his post before the Roony Rule was in place. Then you have Lovie Smith, hired as the top coach for the Bears in 2004 after the Rooney Rule was in place (fittingly, Lovie’s first coaching post was under Tony Dungy). Some will argue that Dungy is evidence the Rooney Rule is not needed while others can argue the contrary citing Lovie’s situation.
Most of my friends here in Des Moines are white and most have probably heard about the dismal state of black head coaches in the NFL but few of them probably understand the magnitude of the problem. It’s a complicated situation that has brought on heated debate and threats of lawsuits. On one hand you have the realization that the majority of this season’s NFL players are black (70%) while the inverse in true when looking at the coaching pool (22%). The other hand notes the dismal track record of past black head coaches as evidence that white coaches are better qualified.
To me, this is precisely the sort of issue that brings strong opinions that lead to racial divides and I don’t want to fuel that fire. I think most people can agree that the situation warrants attention. In the meantime I will make a point to blacks aspiring to be NFL coaches…to get these top jobs you need to perform well and not hope the “Rooney Rule” will apply to you (just as minority students should strive to attain academic excellence and not depend on the fact affirmative action may help them get to college). Outstanding performance will always help one achieve greatness and will break the dependence of affirmative action-type of rules (I take no sides for such programs as that can be the subject of a future post).
It should be noted that Mike Tomlin has decided to leave the Vikings to take the top spot in Pittsburgh while Dennis Green is gone from Arizona (Note to Raiders fans, he wouldn’t even interview for the Raider job…what’s that say about Al?). That leaves the net difference from the ’06-07 season at -1 for black coaches when you add Art Shell into the mix (and good riddance).