What Rooney Rule?
White NFL coaches continued to be hired while qualified Black coaches sit and wait.
Today, the Chicago Bears hired Maff Eberflus to be its new head coach.
Also today, the Denver Broncos hired Nathaniel Hackett as their new coach.
Meanwhile, better known and just as qualified (if not more so) Black coordinators like Tampa Bay offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich and Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy continued to wait for their turn.
Will it ever come?
These two hires, and most of the new head coaching hires in the NFL are notable for giving White offensive and defensive coordinators (and notably one special teams coach) their first head coaching opportunities.
But Black head coaches in the National Football League are numbered at 1.
Mike Tomlin of the Pittsburgh Steelers.
David Culley of the Houston Texans and Brian Flores were the two other Black head coaches this season, and both were fired under murky circumstances.
It’s more than ironic that the current, only, and longest-ever tenured Black head coach in the pros coached for the team whose owner created the rule that was supposed to create a more diverse head coaching pool.
The Rooney Rule was named after Dan Rooney, the former owner and executive with the Steelers. As the Chairman of the League’s Diversity Committee, he implemented a rule that at least one minority candidate must be interviewed for every head coach opening.
The rule has always been a step in the right direction, but almost 20 years after it was first enacted, Black assistant coaches are still routinely passed over in favor of White coaches who are either lacking in the experience possessed by qualified Black coaches, or who constantly pass through the hired/fired/rehired cycle.
The rule is necessary and needs to remain in place.
What needs to change is the thinking and reasoning of NFL owners and executives, most of whom are White.
It is now and always has been true that regulations won’t change hearts and minds, but it is also true that hearts and minds need to be goosed from time to time.
In a league that’s 70% Black, one Black head coach is not enough.
And never will be.