Irving Cowboy said:
Ummm.... no. Not apples and oranges. You cannot dominate one facet of sports (playing) and ignore the obvious discrimination, (for lack of a better word) that comes with it while screaming discrimination when there are not so many opportunites at ownership. The league has not shot down a black owner who has the assets required to own a team. Fact is, there are not a lot of African-Americans out there who have those assets, and those that do, probably don't want to be bothered with owning a team. For those that do want to own one, but don't have the assets, what do we do, give them what they need? No, not any more than you would make a football team reflect the racial makeup of their community just to promote harmony. Your team will flounder and the owner will be out of business. Case Closed.
There is no comparison between the domination of black athletes in pro football and the dearth of black coaches in the college and pro ranks. The former is the result of merit, the latter, the vestiges of overt discrimination.
At one time black athletes were deliberately kept out of professional and collegiate sports. Even in my memory as a fan, 'quotas' existed that limited the number of blacks on a team for the reason that white owners felt white fans would not buy tickets to see a team with many black faces. In particular, positions where 'brains' mattered, as opposed to speed, were kept white..the olines and the leadership position of QB. Teams were the classic 'oreos' by design. White on the inside where thinking counted, black on the outside where speed did.
One of the reasons why so many promising black high school QBs were shunted to other positions in college was the feeling white teammates would not follow their leadership. It was not until the mid sixties that many southern schools even accepted black athletes on the team, and when they finally did , it was largely as Bear Bryant said, because the teams who did play black athletes would beat the teams who didn't.
It has been a LONG long hard road for black athletes to have a level enough playing field in society to be able to get to the position where they could compete for professional sports jobs..and now they they can, the dominate based on ability, on merit.
The coaching ranks have long been a landmine of nepotism, old boyism, and connections. Retreads and 'known quanitities' being preferred over the unknown makes sense, but what the fear of the unknown leads to is newblood being kept out. Because the college ranks have been so difficult for minority coaches to break into, the pool of viable coaching candidates in the NFL has lagged far behind the playing field, where a meritocracy
finally evolved.
The Rooney Rule was established not to force a black hire on a white owner, It was passed after extensive research by the NFL indicated the problem was the 'comfort level' of white owners was challenged by the idea of working with a black coach or GM. Because in our still largely segregated society, (no area has been integrated as well as the military, civilian life lags far behind) many folks don't mingle with folks from other backgrounds, the NFL felt it was expedient to get owners to at least interview a minority candidate or two..so that perhaps in the process of the interview, owners could see that blacks are not so different, and that ideally, the owners comfort level would be threatened.
The idea was that sitting face to face in an interview, listening to a minority coach who had every bit as much interest in winning as a white coach, owners might be persuaded to say to themselves ' gee I think I can work with this guy, he's not so different from me, afterall'.
It's a darm shame something like the Rooney Rule is needed at this late stage. But it's achieved it's aim - competent minority coaching candidates who may never have gotten an interview because the owner felt the gap between black and white is too vast to do business on a day to day basis now get an occasional foot in the door.
Rest assured, the NFL did not want to take this step. But their research on 'the comfort level' of white owners with minority candidates was the driving force.
