Now that football is entering it’s ‘second season’, the first isn’t entirely over either.

While some teams are prepping for the playoffs, some are prepping for next season and it starts with the traditional ‘Black Monday’ where failed head coaches are fired, some are courted, and some are hired.

Because of perceived historic racism in the hiring of head coaches in the National Football League, the Rooney Rule (named after former Pittsburgh Steeler owner Dan Rooney, also chairman of the league’s diversity committee) was instituted, requiring all teams to consider a minority candidate before offering the position to a white man.

Not all think it’s working…

Unfortunately, good intentions and a dollar bill won’t buy you a cup of coffee most places and this rule has accomplished little if anything. Ostensibly, the Rooney Rule causes white team owners and general managers to look for people outside their comfort zones.

Most teams have a strong idea of who they intend to hire before the actual interview as their bodies of work speak for themselves.

The Rooney-rule interviews largely go to whatever black guy it’s convenient to interview.

I may be naive but I always thought the main thing all teams were interested in was winning.

If the color of a person’s skin was an instant sign of ability, you might not see any white players at all in the NFL. Minorities dominate almost every other sport, but the color of one’s skin doesn’t guarantee ability nor does it guarantee the ability to lead.

Whenever we hear of discrimination in hiring, there are usually many issues that are left out of the equation, like how many minorities applied for the position in question. One could say that network television is very white, but if one were to ask how many applied for a given position, the number tends to be quite low, so it’s not an immediate question of racist motives but of the number of applicants who applied in the first place.

From what I hear, being an NFL head coach is almost as demanding as being President of the United States. Not everyone may want to be locked into that pressure cooker of commitment. But in wanting to do the right thing, are black head coach candidates being tagged as being looked at only because of the color of their skin?

Most players got to the professional elite because of performance. Is it fair that they should be led by a minority who was hired to satisfy a social demand?

Of course there were black candidates who were hired, partially because of the color of their skin as well as the content of their character and potential to lead an NFL franchise. Some have been very successful….

Well before the opening kickoff, it is already clear that Super Bowl XLI will be one for the history books.That’s because both competing coaches – Tony Dungy of the Indianapolis Colts and the Chicago Bears’ Lovie Smith – are of African-American heritage. On Sunday night, one of them will become the first black coach to win a Super Bowl.

That’s not just a piece of sports trivia. It is part of the civil rights movement, an important chapter of American history that for many will outshine even the most amazing gridiron heroics.

Before we get all misty… ‘part of the civil rights movement’… for whom?

It would appear that the primary concerns of certain sports writers who challenge this topic aren’t how black coaches are perceived by their peers, but how good those writers want to feel at the end of the day.

Professional football is not the only enterprise in America where retreads get preferential treatment in hiring. It happens in the everyday workforce, however not all businesses require a boss to send his or her employees into competition where life and limb are also at risk. At that point, it’s all about the ability of a proven and gifted leader to plan strategy and motivate people. One race does not have a monopoly over the ability to motivate, but in the game of professional football, trust in the coach’s ability to lead is most important.

Will a coach be able to properly lead if those whom he leads know he’s taking them into battle because he is the best… or because he’s black? As only one team wins the Super Bowl every year, the color of one’s skin won’t help the other thirty-one vie for the ultimate success next season.

Personally, I’d prefer to be hired because I was considered an asset to a business and not because I needed to fill a seat.

I assume professional athletes and coaches feel the same way and that tokenism has no place in professional sports except for those observers and activists who need a reason to feel good about themselves. For them, the results on the field are secondary. That’s no reason to fill a position and that seldom results in w’s.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 8th, 2010 at 7:08 pm and is filed under Race, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.