During the modern Civil Rights Era, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. warned that changes to the Law were easy for American legislators; however, the application would be difficult. In his legendary style, Dr. King stated that integration of a public park is easy. According to Dr. King, the most difficult portion of this integration process was the integration of the employment sector and American schools that Whites have always dominated. The sharing of a swing set by Black and White children would look like child’s play when compared to the business sector. For verification of Dr. King’s cryptic prophecy, one needs to look no further than the current conundrum facing National Football League leaders seeking to diversify their head coaching ranks.    

Now, the National Football League, a sports league that primarily rests on the physical prowess of Black men, continues the arduous task of injecting color into its lily-White ownership ranks and head coaching group except for a paltry few. Presently there are only five “minority” head coaches in the NFL and not a single Black majority owner. Representative of the prolonged nature of this problem is the Rooney Rule, named in honor of former Pittsburgh Steelers owner Dan Rooney, who headed the league’s diversity committee.  

The Rooney Rule, implemented in 2003, requires NFL franchises with a head coaching vacancy to interview at least one “minority candidate” during the hiring process. It is not a stretch to compare the NFL’s initial efforts to diversify its head coaching ranks to manifestations of the NFL’s version of 70’s Affirmative Action as it is not a quota mandating the hiring of a minority to the head coaching position. The Rooney Rule has met with limited success as White owners have continued to resist handing over the reins of their organizations to a Black man. 

Most agree that the securing of a coordinator’s position is a stepping stone to becoming an NFL Head Coach. With the NFL becoming a more offensive-oriented league, it makes some sense that there has been a run of Offensive Coordinators ascending to Head Coaching posts. The latest alteration of the Rooney Rule mandates that all NFL teams must hire a minority offensive assistant coach for the upcoming 2022 season.  

On the surface, this is a positive development for Black NFL coaches. However, this alteration to league hiring policies includes a disturbing aspect. The disconcerting portion of this alteration revolves around the following language.  

The hired coach can be “a female or a member of an ethnic or racial minority.” 

Such language reminds me of the expansion of 70’s Affirmative Action initiatives that were initially aimed at leveling the playing field so that Black coaches could at least get in the competition. Let us make no mistake about it, Affirmative Action initiatives were tantamount to reparations for Black people who had been discriminated against via multi-faceted state-sanctioned discrimination schemes that traversed across politics, economics, education, and every other measurable aspect of American society. Yet, in time, the umbrella of government programs aimed at repairing an injury that began when the first parcel of stolen Africans arrived in Jamestown with a status of “half-free” hanging around their necks was expanded to include other “minority groups” such as White women.  

Black political leaders failed the Race when they proved either unwilling to fight for or incapable of defending what should have been considered sacred ground as it was carved out by the blood, sweat, tears, and sacrifices of millions of deceased persons of African descent.  

The new language that adds women at all levels of the Rooney Rule means that women and/or people of color can satisfy the requirement to interview two external minorities for top positions, including head coach. It is now possible for any NFL Franchise to meet the standard created by the Rooney Rule without interviewing a Black coach; they only need to interview two White women. 

Although I care little if anyone considers this post an articulation of misogyny because such shallow analysis is not worthy of even a short response. My position has nothing to do with the shutting out of White women from the NFL coaching ranks, I suspect that in time there will be more White female Offensive Coordinators and Head Football Coaches at the highest level of football if for no other reason than the comfortability of White owners with other Whites, regardless of their socioeconomic status.  

I am firmly entrenched in the belief that the Rooney Rule was created to facilitate a path to Head Coaching posts for Blacks who make up most of the gridiron gladiators that this nation cheers for on many Sundays. The decision to expand who fits under an overcrowded minority umbrella matters mightily because only a few, and I do mean a few, will ever be permitted to lead an NFL franchise. Over time, I am sure that the alluded alteration to the Rooney Rule will serve to create more competition for Offensive Coordinator positions as teams will seek to be the first to promote White women to such a position and as mentioned above this is a stepping stone to being a head coach.  

It is truly unfortunate that in a league that is overwhelmingly Black that few are willing to publicly articulate the fact that the path to an increase in Black head coaches was problematized with this alteration and more than likely will never be paved over until there are a substantial number of Black owners in the league.  

This is the world that we live in. 

 James Thomas Jones III, Ph.D. 

©Manhood, Race, and Culture, 2022 

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