Seth Vigdor
The Philadelphia Eagles interviewed one black man that we know of for their vacant head coaching job. Their first interview after Chip Kelly was fired was running backs coach Duce Staley. With that one interview, the Eagles complied with the Rooney rule.
Ah yes, the Rooney rule. Here’s the best description of the Rooney Rule via Forbes.
In 2003 the NFL, facing the threat of potential lawsuits, enacted what has become known as the “Rooney Rule,” named after the chairman of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Dan Rooney. The rule stated that for all coaching and general manager job openings, a minority candidate had to at the very least get an interview. The penalty for not doing so was a stiff fine. At the time, only 6% of the NFL coaching jobs were held by a minority. The idea was that by getting minority candidates in front of a franchise’s top brass, these applicants would at least get a fair shake at a job for which they may have very well been looked over. The rule had overtones of affirmative action in the corporate world. The $9 billion NFL is, essentially, a very big corporation.
The rule stipulates that the minority candidate must have the same interview experience as the other candidates. One of the worst years since the Rooney rule went into effect was in 2013 when there were 15 openings for head coaches and general managers. Not one went to a minority candidate. Surely that has to raise some eye brows.
After that, the league introduced a committee to help identify candidates with a training program to help candidates of all backgrounds move up the ladder. Are you kidding me? Why would that be needed? Why would minority candidates be the only ones that need training programs. They aren’t the ones doing anything wrong. Shouldn’t the training programs go to the Owners, all of whom are white and seem to have issues with reaching outside of their comfort zone, the white race?
I know that this is a conversation that many people don’t like to have, but it’s a conversation that needs to be had. So again, the Eagles technically complied with the Rooney rule, but c’mon, it almost seems like they had the Staley interview to get it over with.
Now knowing the history that Staley has with the Eagles, I absolutely don’t think that the Eagles had the thought of the Rooney rule in mind when interviewing Staley for the position. But perception is everything. To an outsider judging it, it could look fishy.
Lovie Smith was just fired in Tampa Bay. While I’m not a fan of his for a head coaching position, surely his past experience warrants an interview or two somewhere. I’ve yet to see him get an interview though. What’s up with that? This year’s cast of potential coaches aren’t exactly amazing prospects.
Cincinnatti coach Marvin Lewis once said the following via ESPN.com
“If the hiring organization isn’t going into it with an open mind, then I think that’s the wrong way to do it, and hopefully no one goes about it that way because there’s an emotion that the candidate goes through because of the preparation it takes to go into an interview for one of these positions in a serious way.”
There were two black coaches in the N.F.L. in 2001. After the Rooney Rule was enacted, in 2003, the number increased to seven in 2006, later matched in 2011. There are currently six minority head coaches in the league including, Ron Rivera of the Panthers, who is of Puerto Rican and Mexican descent. The others, along with Todd Bowles of the Jets, are Marvin Lewis of the Bengals, Jim Caldwell of the Lions, Mike Tomlin of the Steelers. Lovie Smith of the Buccaneers was part of this crew until as previously mentioned he was fired.
Mind you Smith was fired after only two seasons in Tampa Bay and on top of that Smith’s Bucs had made drastic improvements this season. They improved to six and ten and they were no easy out in games. So there’s not only an issue of getting minorities a fair shake with interviews, but there’s also a questions as to do black coaches get less time with teams when they finally do get a coaching job?
I think Lovie Smith in Cincinnati is the only true enigma. Despite his team always getting eliminated early in the playoffs every season, he manages to hold onto his job every year, which is definitely nice to see.
The Cleveland Browns just hired Hue Jackson as their head coach, but we all know that the Browns organization is trash and it’s only a matter of time before they’re looking for another head coach. The NFL is heading in the right direction with the Rooney rule, but there needs to be some sort of amendment to the rule. Do you disagree with me? Let this sink in then.
There are 32 teams in the NFL and only five black coaches. If you throw in Ron Rivera then you have six minorities. There’s something wrong with that picture. And if you still don’t see that after seeing that there’s a 26 white coaches compared to 6 minority coaches, well I suggest you do some soul searching because either you’re in denial or you may have some deeper feelings way down that need to be examined further.
Among the league’s hundreds of assistant coaches, 16 percent were members of minority groups in 1991. That proportion increased to 36 percent in 2007 and 29 percent in 2013. Again, progress has been made, but there’s way more work to do. In a sport dominated by minority athletes, many of them wish to move onto coaching in some capacity. Surely we could bump the percentage of minority coaches up to the 40-45 percent range. That’s not too much to ask, is it?
ESPN’s Mina Kimes recently brought to life new research that furthers my conclusion that there is still way more work to be done on this front. The research focused on “if you take white and black coaches who oversee the same position, are they equally likely to advance?”
Per Kimes’ reporting, the answer according to the data was no. Here’s what Kimes had to say about the results.
“The white coach is 114 percent more likely to become a coordinator. Black coaches are less likely to be promoted than white ones, independent of their first position, their current position, their employer, their prior experience, their education and their age.”
That is just staggering to see, though I’m not surprised. Our criminal justice system is just as messed up (that’s me being politically correct) and biased against minorities. Why would anything else be different?
You can read that full study here and I urge you to read it with an open mind.
Back to the Eagles. Did they do enough to comply with the Rooney rule? Yeah, sure. Just like all teams do. All teams give a pathetic attempt to comply with the rule. They do just enough. They bring their token in for an interview and boom they’ve complied. There was a report that the Eagles made a late call to Hue Jackson, when he was already 97 percent on his way to Cleveland. Jackson should’ve gotten a call early in the process. He’s a very good coach and quite frankly, more teams should’ve been knocking at his door.
I call for an immediate amendment to the Rooney rule that forces teams to do more to get minority candidates in more positions around the league. But, that’s not all. I call for mandatory training for Owners to school them and tell them that it’s not the 20’s anymore and that it’s okay to have more minorities within their organization. It doesn’t just have to be the ones on the field that are making the Owners old wrinkly asses big time money, all for chump change and concussions. Part of this falls on good old Commissioner Goodell. But, considering he’s in bed with the Owners being whored out by them, we all know that won’t happen.
While my name means absolutely nothing to anyone in the NFL, one guy that should show his grapefruits and immediately call for an amendment to the Rooney rule is Philadelphia Eagles’ owner Jeffrey Lurie. Here’s a thought. Since he wants to be the gold standard and clearly his team isn’t capable of being that, how about he gets some balls and champions this cause? It’s time to demand more for equality.