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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Feb. 10, 2000
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------BLACK HISTORY MONTH
Super scandal in NFL: Exclusion of Black coaches
By Monica Moorehead
Twelve years ago, on Jan. 31, quarterback Doug Williams won the Most Valuable Player award after winning Super Bowl XXXIII. Williams was the first African American quarterback to ever play in this championship game.
The Super Bowl is an annual contest between the National Football Conference and the American Football Conference within the National Football League. It's the highest ranking sports event in the United States and is treated like a national holiday.
This year Steve McNair became the second African American quarterback to play in a Super Bowl. He almost led his team, the Tennessee Titans, to an upset victory over the heavily favored St. Louis Rams.
McNair, a 1995 Heisman trophy runner-up from a small Black college in Mississippi--Alcorn State--
gain ed national and worldwide popularity as he lead his underdog team to this year's Super Bowl.There are a few African American quarterbacks in the NFL, including Donovan McNabb, Shaun King, Jeff Blake and Ray Lucas. The quarterback position is considered the most prestigious and heavily scrutinized position because the quarterback calls the offensive plays and is ultimately responsible for advancing the team toward the goal line.
Being a quarterback requires not only athletic agility but also intellectual and memory skills. Usually, when Black quarterbacks come out of the ranks of college, the NFL automatically turns them into either defensive backs or running backs. This is a scandal in itself.
But the biggest crime of all is the ongoing, systematic exclusion of African American head coaches in the NFL.
In a league that is now 70 percent Black, there are only two Black head coaches: Dennis Green of the Minnesota Vikings and Tony Dungy of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
The Green Bay Packers fired another coach, Ray Rhodes, and his entire African American coaching staff, after just one season. Rhodes was the only coach of color hired out of the NFL's 31 franchises in 1999.
It is very unusual for a head coach to be fired after just one season. Rhodes has been demoted to defensive coordinator on another team.
This past winter, there were six vacancies within the NFL. The Miami Dolphins replaced head coach Jimmy Johnson with his assistant coach, Dave Wannstedt. And the New York Jets replaced head coach Bill Parcells with his aide, Al Groh.
A number of Black assistant coaches refer to this approach as the "NFL's buddy system." This means that no external interviews take place on a particular team when there is a job opening.
The New England Patriots interviewed a Black coaching assistant, Willie Shaw--but decided to hire former Cleveland coach Bill Belichick.
Ted Cottrell is another Black coach who has gotten the cold shoulder from NFL teams. Cottrell is the Buffalo Bills' defensive coordinator. He has been an assistant coach for 15 years.
The Bills' defense ranked first last year in total defense. But Cottrell has not yet been sought out for any head coaching jobs.
Cottrell told CNN, "I have to keep working hard and hope my time will come."
'A culture driven by white supremacists'
Michael Wilborn, a Black sports writer for the Washington Post, said angrily on the ESPN program "The Sportswriters" that Art Shell--the former Oakland Raiders player and head coach--had not been offered a head coaching job in six years. Shell has only been interviewed twice within the last five years.
While Wannstedt and Belichick were fired from previous coaching jobs for producing losing records, Shell had a winning record with the Raiders. Wilborn went on to say that white head coaches get second and third chances while Black coaches like Shell are punished and ostracized if they don't win and win big.
Just days before the Super Bowl was played, the Rev. Jesse Jackson said that the lack of coaching opportunities for Black coaches shows that the NFL is "a culture driven by white supremacists. There is a standard for choosing coaches in the National Football League and another standard for choosing players."
Commenting on the firing of Rhodes, Jackson said that "the wipeout on that coaching staff set us back 10 years."
NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue defended the league's hiring practices regarding Black coaches by saying it is up to the owners, not the NFL, to hire coaches. He failed to point out that every top owner in the NFL is white--and they are mostly all multi-millionaires.
The pressure should not be put on Black coaches to "prove themselves." The pressure should be put on the owners and the NFL management to stop these racist and degrading practices from proceeding another day.
And the only kind of real pressure they will understand will have to come from the players themselves--Black and white. United, these players have the power to withhold their ability to perform on the field until a real affirmative action program is established.
If the NFL is 70 percent African American, there is no sane reason why coaching staffs should not be 70 percent Black as well.
This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
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