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The NFL Thread
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@ 08-01-2005 00:57 FireWaterBurn | 28,885 posts
| I also love football, but I feel that no one else knows a thing about sports here..Please, someone know something about the NFL and the playoffs...anyone?
Talk about the NFL here |
| Showing posts 301-303 of 303 | Page 13 of 13 |
| Discussion |
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 0  @ 16-04-2007 11:53 realbloke | 8 posts
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Hey Curt ... I don't want to burst your bubble bro. But it didn't take much to google this stuff man. Evidently someone out there does care about Black Coaches. I mean its all smoke to me. I just dig NFL. Everything about it, warts and all ... is'all good!
Playing Racial Games: Minority Coaches in the NFL
by Phyllis Raybin Emert
Football season is now in full swing and although minority faces seem to dominate on the gridiron, few are seen on the sidelines as head or assistant coaches.
Attorneys Johnnie Cochran Jr., the lawyer who first gained national prominence for his successful defense of O.J. Simpson, and Cyrus Mehri, a labor law attorney in Washington, D.C., released a report in 2002 that called attention to what they refer to as the "dismal record of minority hiring" of head coaches in the National Football League. The study, titled "Black Coaches in the National Football League: Superior Performances, Inferior Opportunities," noted that since the NFL began in 1920, over 400 head coaches had been hired, but only six were African-Americans (five since 1989).
Using statistical evidence over the last 15 years that contends that the few black coaches that were hired outperformed their white counterparts, the study determined that these same coaches were often the first fired by the team's owners. Cochran declared at a news conference in September 2002 that black coaches were being held to a higher standard than their white counterparts and threatened to take the NFL to court.
"We can bring a lawsuit…but let's see if we can have a dialogue," Cochran said at the press conference. "You only litigate after you've done everything you can to negotiate."
What the study found
Commissioned by Cochran and Mehri, Dr. Janice Madden of the University of Pennsylvania analyzed the data compiled in the 2002 report. Dr. Madden found that while 70 percent of all NFL players were black, only 28 percent of the assistants and coordinators and six percent of all head coaches were African-American. Whereas whites accounted for 30 percent of all NFL players, they comprised 72 percent of the assistant coaches and coordinators, and 94 percent of the head coaching positions.
Win and loss records of the five African-American coaches from 1986-2001 (Dennis Green, Art Shell, Tony Dungy, Ray Rhodes, and Herman Edwards) were compared with the 86 white coaches during that same time period. Dr. Madden concluded that black coaches averaged 1.1 more wins per season than white coaches. That may not seem significant, but any football fan knows that nine wins to eight wins could be the difference between a team making the playoffs and going home for the season.
Teams led by the 86 white coaches participated in the playoffs 39 percent of the time, while the African-American coaches made the playoffs 67 percent of the time.
Among teams who had both black and white coaches during the time period, Dr. Madden found that the African-American coaches increased the average wins from 7.4 to 9.1. In general, the study found that the black head coaches consistently outperformed their white counterparts. However, the report does concede, "there were too few black coaches to apply formal statistical analyses." The prior success of African-American coaches did not pave the way or open doors for other minority candidates in the NFL. According to the report, nine new coaches in 2000 were hired and all were white with losing records or little or no experience.
Fair competition
To address the issue of opportunity, the Cochran/Mehri report proposed a Fair Competition Resolution to "promote an atmosphere in which African-American coaches are fairly and equally considered for head coaching positions." The study proposed incentives and penalties to motivate NFL owners toward a more open selection process.
According to the resolution, the NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue could award teams an extra draft pick for hiring minorities in management positions. All teams would select coaching and coordinator positions from a group of candidates who were racially diverse and interviewed in person. Finally, a team could opt out of the process by forfeiting a first-round draft pick for head coaching positions, or a third-round draft pick for assistant coaching and coordinator positions.
The Rooney Rule
The NFL's response to the Cochran/Mehri report was to establish a committee of owners to investigate diversity. The committee enacted the Rooney Rule, named for its chairman, Dan Rooney, owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Rooney Rule required each team to interview at least one minority candidate when filling a head coach position or be fined. The committee did not adopt the proposed Fair Competition Resolution.
In January 2004, two black coaches were hired among seven vacancies. Two years after the Cochran/Mehri report, there are now five African-American head coaches in the 32-team NFL, more than any other season in league history.
The effectiveness of the Rooney Rule
There are questions as to whether the Rooney Rule can be effective. The NFL commissioner enforces the Rooney Rule but the commissioner is also hired by the team owners to manage the business affairs of the National Football League. Therefore, the commissioner, who is accountable to the owners, would have to oppose those owners who don't enforce the Rooney Rule, perhaps undermining his own job. Corey M. Turner, a professor of sports law and ethics at Metropolitan College of New York, contends the situation creates a conflict of interest.
In his Sport Journal column, Turner said that he believes, "it is the owners who must actually take action…[and]…embrace a policy to the point that it becomes embedded as the normal and accepted way that business is conducted."
In July 2003, the NFL did invoke the Rooney Rule when it fined Matt Millen, president of the Detroit Lions $200,000 for violating the new rule because he hired a white head coach without interviewing any black candidates. Millen had always wanted his old friend, Steve Mariucci, to be his head coach, so when San Francisco let Mariucci go, Detroit went after him. The Lions president tried to follow the Rooney Rule by contacting five different assistant black coaches for an interview. Because it was common knowledge in the league that Millen would hire Mariucci, the coaches declined to be interviewed. Millen paid the fine and received much negative attention from the media and community groups.
Sports observers say things are changing in the NFL, and progress is slowly being made. They point to a similar controversy in the 1980s when the issue was the scarcity of black quarterbacks in the league. Today, many of the top signal callers are African-American.
Is more patience required when dealing with the coaching situation in the NFL, or must diversity be given a push in the right direction? The Cochran/Mehri report and the Rooney Rule have given professional football the push. Now, time will tell if the number of minority coaches continues to increase.
| 0 @ 16-04-2007 19:36 Bucephalus | 
1,978 posts
| Hey Curt ... I don't want to burst your bubble bro. But it didn't take much to google this stuff man.
What?
You copy and pasted an article tlaking about what I was talking about... I don't get it. | | 0 @ 17-04-2007 09:05 realbloke | 8 posts
| Curt, dont worry about it buddy. Its me who didn't get it. Still getting used to amercanisms in speech and word. I couldn't figure you for pro or anti. Truth be told, I didn't know much about issues of race among NFL coaches as a hot topic over there, until you brought it up, so I googled it and found this article from the New Jersey Law Institue Web. It was quite a good read (I thought) Saw no harm in giving someone else a look see. We ignorant Aussies could learn a thing or two. But I'm happy to keep racism out of the game. Having said that ... I just left myself open for one of my fellow compatriots to shoot me down. |
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