Black Head Coaches in the NFL:
Dennis Green and Tony Dungy were fired in the 2002 off-season. That leaves first year coach Herman Edwards as the only African-American Head Coach in the NFL.
Dungy has since taken a head coaching job with the Indianapolis Colts. Green seems only interested in the two Bay Area teams at this time so he might not coach this coming season.
But with the Buccaneers and Chargers still looking for head coaches, it is also evident that neither is looking to hire a minority coach.
John Fox was hired today as the new head coach of the Carolina Panthers. Marty Schottenheimer, who has coached the Browns, Chiefs, and Redskins, looks to be the new head coach of the San Diego Chargers. That just leaves the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who has said their first choice is Oakland Raiders coach Jon Gruden.
Marvin Lewis and Ted Cottrell, two of the most qualified African-American coaches, are both defensive minded and Tampa is most likely searching for an offensive minded coach.
Art Shell, a Hall Of Fame offensive tackle and who has a similar winning percentage to Jon Gruden during his one stint as the Raiders head coach, doesn't seem to be a candidate
either for the lone coaching vacancy.
Their seems to be two main reasons for these qualified coaches to not get their
opportunity.
First of all, general managers seem to be attracted only to who they are very familiar with, which comes with the territory for any job. Second, I think success has been their failure to get hired because teams want to hire a coach immediately and both the Ravens and Jets, where Lewis and Cottrell are defensive coordinators, were still in the playoffs while these teams looked for replacements. Instead of waiting so they could interview all the possible candidates, these teams found a quicker change.
But this latter reasoning is fairly weak in a response to why black coaches are not being hired. It is apparent that until we see black general managers, White GM's will continue to hire coaches they are familiar with.
Green will be a head coach again. But Shell and Ray Rhodes aren't getting a second or third chance like Schottenheimer, Jim Mora, George Seifert, and Mike Ditka. Lewis, Cottrell, Sherman Lewis (Minnesota), and Lovie Smith (St. Louis) aren't getting a first chance like Fox, Mice Tice, Marty Morhinweg, and Gregg Williams.
The NFL is nowhere near equality but then again, neither is the rest of the world. But until we stop using that as an excuse and using it as the main core of the problem, we won't see improvement and we won't see change.
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