When Eric Studesville was named the Broncos’ interim head coach on Monday, he viewed the promotion as a can’t-miss career opportunity. His rise from running backs coach to head coach helped make NFL history. Less than eight years after the NFL instituted the Rooney Rule requiring teams to interview minority head coaching candidates, Studesville joins seven other black head coaches who are in charge of NFL teams, a record number for minority coaches.
The fraternity started at six at the beginning of 2010 — the same number as last season — and grew to eight with the additions of Minnesota interim head coach Leslie Frazier and Studesville, and now accounts for 25 percent of the league’s head coaches.
“It’s certainly something to be proud of,” Studesville said. “I have so many other things going on right now with this football team that I haven’t even gotten to that part of it.”
In a span of little more than six hours on Monday, Colorado became home to two black head football coaches, this after never previously having any in charge of the Broncos or at any of the Division I universities.
The University of Colorado introduced Jon Embree, along with offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy, at a news conference Monday morning. Studesville’s promotion came later that afternoon, after Broncos owner Pat Bowlen fired Josh McDaniels.
“It’s an honor, and it’s humbling,” Embree said Friday afternoon. “I understand what it means in the big picture, I really do. I don’t want to shy away from it and pretend it doesn’t exist. I’m embracing it and I want to try to help. It is unique, with the major pro franchise and the major university having African-American head coaches. Hopefully, one day it won’t be something that jumps out like that.”
Studesville becomes the 16th black head coach in the modern era of pro football. Ten, including Studesville, got that first head coaching job since the Rooney Rule was introduced in 2003, proof enough to Floyd Keith, the executive director of the Black Coaches Association, that the intention of the rule is working.
The NFL received an “A” grade for racial hiring practices in the 2010 annual Racial and Gender Report from the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida.
“It is obvious there are a lot of coaches capable of doing this job. It has been shown that coaches of color are capable of handling that,” Keith said.
Still, the Rooney Rule isn’t without its issues. Frazier interviewed seven times for head coaching jobs, including in Denver in 2009, and was not hired, prompting criticism of teams granting token interviews to circumvent the rules.
Should the Broncos choose to interview Studesville in the search to find McDaniels’ full-time replacement, they would fulfill their Rooney Rule requirements. The Broncos interviewed three minority candidates in their search in 2009 — Frazier, Raheem Morris (now the head coach in Tampa Bay), and Todd Bowles, assistant head coach with the Miami Dolphins.
“I’m going to be the best football coach I can be, and if someone is interested in talking to me about a position, I hope they want to talk to me because I’m a quality football coach, a quality person and they want me to be a part of their organization for those reasons, more so than anything else,” Studesville said.
Embree’s hiring — especially paired with the hiring of Bieniemy as offensive coordinator — could be seen as an even bigger step. The NCAA has no formal rules in place requiring schools to conduct inclusive, diverse searches, though Keith said the Black Coaches Association has a five-step process it hopes schools adhere to in their searches.
Keith said Embree is now the 15th black head coach in major college football, out of 119 positions. Keith said he has not spoken to Colorado athletic director Mike Bohn, but said CU should be commended for the way it conducted its search to replace Dan Hawkins.
“Colleges have some catching up to do with the NFL, and you would think it would be flipped,” Keith said.
Studesville and Embree are both alumni of the NFL’s Bill Walsh Minority Coaching Fellowship, a program that allows aspiring coaches to work at NFL training camps.
For Studesville, his internship came with the Chicago Bears in 1996, when he was a college assistant coach at Kent State. Studesville was hired by the Bears as a quality-control coach the next year and has been in the NFL ever since.
“You get to be in camp, be around the players, in the meetings and learn. It was a tremendous learning experience,” Studesville said. “For some guys, it’s maybe, ‘You know what? I don’t want to do this. This is not an easy thing to do.’
“For me, it was just the opposite.”
Lindsay H. Jones: 303-954-1262 or ljones@denverpost.com
