This Sunday’s Super Bowl game will be an excellent opportunity to eat nachos and wish the Broncos were playing. But it also is more. The appearance of not one but two African-American coaches at the pinnacle of professional football ensures that viewers will watch the first black coach ever win the Super Bowl.
It’s a welcome landmark after 41 years of excruciatingly slow progress within professional football, but at this point, history can’t lose.
Lovie Smith, at the helm of the Chicago Bears, and Tony Dungy, Indianapolis Colts veteran coach, are known as terrific coaches and good guys who’ve worked their way up from the bottom.
Smith grew up in a tiny, east Texas town where he hauled hay in the summers. A nice kid from a hard-working family, he was a football standout who took to heart his mother’s repeated declarations that he could accomplish whatever he wanted.
Dungy came from a family of educators who valued scholarly pursuits as much as athletics. He is known throughout the league as the soul of grace, a coach revered for his even temper and intellectual approach to the game.
Bronco John Lynch played for Dungy in Tampa and said this recently in published remarks about the influence of his former coach: “You know that old bracelet that says ‘W.W.J.D.? What would Jesus do?’ There are a lot of times I find myself thinking ‘What would Tony do?”‘
Dungy is known for his ability to spot talent. Indeed, when Dungy was hired as head coach for Tampa Bay, he hired Smith as an assistant coach.
Momentum began building in the 1990s to turn the tide after decades of African-Americans being passed over for NFL coaching jobs. In 2002, the league enacted the so-called “Rooney Rule,” requiring teams to interview at least one minority candidate before hiring a head coach.
At the beginning of the 2006 NFL season, there was an all-time high of seven African-American head coaches.
It will be a better day when an African- American coach going to the Super Bowl is as unremarkable as an African-American lawyer or astronaut. We’re not there yet, but with the achievements of Dungy and Smith, we’re that much closer.
