Chicago – This has been a proud week for the Rev. Jesse Jackson and African-Americans.
It’s been a week for celebration, a time to boast, consider what took so long and caution that progress is not the same as work completed.
Six days after our nation celebrated the birth of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., the empire known as the NFL will have, for the first time, two African-American head coaches – Tony Dungy of the Indianapolis Colts and the Chicago Bears’ Lovie Smith – guide teams into the conference championships, to be played today in their home stadiums.
“They are evidence of the unfolding of the American Dream,” Jackson said. “Dr. King said, ‘I have seen the Promised Land.’ This is part of the promise. We’ve seen more advance in the athletic arena than in any arena. The reason is in athletics – football, basketball, baseball, track – the playing field is even. The rules are public. The goals are clear. And we do well. So I’m not surprised where Lovie and Tony are. I’m delighted.”
Colorado football fans may remember when Jackson was far more rankled regarding the subject of black coaches. In 1995, the University of Colorado ignored the recommendation of outgoing coach Bill McCartney to replace him with longtime assistant Bob Simmons, an African-American. Instead, CU hired Rick Neuheisel, a fair-haired assistant with less experience and fewer qualifications.
The hiring of Neuheisel created an uproar among African-American groups and activists, including Jackson.
“To McCartney’s credit, he recommended Simmons,” Jackson recalled.
History of hurt
The success of Dungy and Smith hasn’t necessarily caused Americans of all races to espouse the gender equality slogan: “You’ve come a long way, baby.” Instead, the overwhelming reaction simply has been: “It’s about time.”
This is about a proud heritage with a cruel history marked by painfully slow gains toward equality and against discrimination.
African-Americans were first brought to this country primarily as bonded slaves in the 1780s. Roughly 3.5 million of the 4 million blacks in this country in 1860 were slaves until they were “freed” by the Emancipation Proclamation.
However, when racial discrimination remained etched in private and public laws some 100 years later, black leaders such as King and Jackson galvanized the civil rights movement.
“I am extremely thankful for everybody who fought for getting us a vote, for drinking out of the same water fountain, for Rosa Parks so we no longer have to ride in the back of the bus,” said Bears cornerback Charles Tillman, an African-American. “I’m thankful to those who integrated our schools so people of all races could go to the same school. A lot of people gave up their lives for that. I think Lovie and Tony Dungy represent everything they stood for. I think they definitely would have seen this in a positive way.
“I just wish they had lived to see how far we’ve come.”
While the civil rights movement led to stronger laws to protect minorities, it didn’t bury the emotional prejudices against skin color, especially regarding positions of authority.
Progress has been slow
The NFL generally has received high grades for its minority hiring numbers in recent years, but like American society, it was extremely slow to come around. Roughly two-thirds of NFL players are black, yet the league did not have its first black head coach until Art Shell succeeded Mike Shanahan with the Los Angeles Raiders in 1989. (Fritz Pollard was a black player/coach in the pre-NFL season of 1921.)
This season, there were seven black coaches in the 32-team league.
“When I came into the league, it wasn’t even something that you could think about because there were no African-American coaches,” Dungy said. “We’ve made a ton of progress. I know I was thrilled when I was younger watching Doug Williams win the MVP of the Super Bowl. That was a landmark for a lot of African-Americans.”
Williams became the first black quarterback to start and win the Super Bowl, in 1988.
The front office landmark took more patience. It wasn’t until 2002 that Ozzie Newsome became the first African-American to hold the top management position of general manager. There are now three black general managers, with the hirings in the past year of Jerry Reese by the New York Giants and Rick Smith, who was lured away from the Broncos by the Houston Texans.
“African-Americans in management positions are behind coaching positions,” Rick Smith said. “But it is clear progress is being made. Should there be more? When you look at the success by those who have received the opportunity, you’d have to say the number should be larger. But based on the significant gains that have been made in just the last couple years, you have to be encouraged.”
Good impressions
At the urging of minority-hiring watchdog groups such as those headed by Dr. Richard Lapchick at the University of Central Florida, the NFL formed a diversity committee five years ago that included Broncos owner Pat Bowlen and was headed by Steelers owner Dan Rooney.
The committee emerged with the now famous “Rooney Rule” that mandates teams interview minority candidates when searching for replacements at prominent positions.
“Some people would suggest that’s not the right thing to do because it could just be tokenism to satisfy the rule,” said Peter Roby, the executive director of Society in Sport. “There’s another line of thinking that says, even at the risk of tokenism, the more that candidates get access to people of ultimate influence, if you can impress them enough, they may enter the Rolodex so that when a colleague calls with an opening, his chances of consideration will increase.”
The story goes that when Herm Edwards was an assistant at Tampa Bay, he was not considered a serious candidate for the head coaching job with the New York Jets in 2001.
“Whatever the reason, the Jets brought him in, Herm blew everybody away, and they hired him, even though he had never been a head coach at any level,” Roby said.
Change for colleges?
Lapchick has tried to urge NCAA president Myles Brand to adopt a variance of the Rooney Rule into college athletics. Brand has yet to act, although he recently admonished schools under his jurisdiction for their hiring practices.
Meanwhile, only seven of 119 Division I-A football programs had black head coaches last season in a sport in which roughly 49 percent of the players are African-American.
“The National Football League is a whole football field ahead of collegiate football,” said Floyd Keith, executive director of the Black Coaches Association. “I think the NFL gets it. I think one possible explanation is in the NFL, you’re dealing with an owner and maybe the general manager, but usually one or two people. And in the collegiate ranks you’re dealing with more influences. And I don’t think all of them are positive.”
Not that the NFL is about to modify its emblem to include the Black Power salute. Lovie Smith lifted the Bears from the forgettable reigns of Dave Wannstedt and Dick Jauron (combined 11-season record: 76-103) by averaging 12 wins in the past two seasons. Yet Smith is the NFL’s lowest-paid coach at $1.3 million a season. That should change soon, as his contract expires after this season.
“It’s acceptable to celebrate what Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith have accomplished, but you still have a case where a guy is the lowest paid,” Jackson said. “Lovie wasn’t the Bears’ first choice. The first choice was Nick Saban….The Bears promised him three times more money than Lovie. To that extent, that’s classical.”
Staff writer Mike Klis can be reached at 303-954-1055 or mklis@denverpost.com.
