On Monday, August 17th the Washington Football Team announced their new Team President. They appointed former National Football League (NFL) Running Back Jason Wright to lead their organization. Wright becomes the first-ever black president to lead an NFL organization. I applaud the team for making the hire and Wright for making history, but this shouldn’t have been history making in the year 2020. When the NFL established the Rooney Rule 17 years ago, it was viewed as a ground-breaking step towards improving diversity in leadership positions throughout league. It has fallen tragically short of that goal. On a personal level, I believed the Rooney Rule would allow me a fair chance at fulfilling my dream of working in the NFL.
Growing up in Richmond, Virginia, I gravitated towards sports at an early age. Like millions of other kids, I dreamed of playing in the NFL. After high school, I played college football at Saint Vincent College (SVC) in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. During the summer before my senior year, I earned a marketing internship with the Pittsburgh Steelers, who held training camp at SVC. It was an incredibly valuable experience and opened my eyes to the business behind the sport I loved. It was pretty cool to meet people I admired like Hall of Famer Troy Polamalu, Head Coach Mike Tomlin, and owner Dan Rooney. Ultimately, I realized playing in the NFL was not realistic but working in the NFL was very possible, so I turned my focus and effort towards that goal.
Like many former players, I transitioned into a coaching role, at both SVC and my high school, J.R. Tucker. Of all the things I learned, the most significant was that coaching wasn’t the right fit for me. I reached out to then University of Richmond Athletic Director Keith Gill for guidance. As a black man in a leadership position in sports, Gill offered advice, direction and encouragement. He inspired me to pursue my master’s degree and my goal of working with an NFL team. I enrolled at VCU’s Center for Sport Leadership and obtained a graduate assistantship working with the University of Richmond football team. Through hard work and perfect timing, I was hired as the Director of Football Operations (DFO) at Richmond two years after graduating with my master’s degree. I was on track towards my dream job
During my years as DFO at U of R, I had the pleasure of meeting many college coaches, NFL scouts, and leaders in the sports industry. The people working in sports are just as competitive as the players participating in sports. Many are former athletes themselves. Advancing in the football industry is extremely challenging. I knew the odds were not in my favor. Working full time in football helped me to understand the inner workings of the industry. There is a superficial drive for diversity, but the reality is the candidates securing the jobs are retreads (former head coaches that were fired) or coaches helped by nepotism. Policies like the Rooney Rule are trying to change that trend.
The Rooney Rule, named after the Steelers owner I met as an intern, is a mandated policy where every NFL team must interview a minority candidate for a Head Coach or General Manager vacancy. At the time, it was refreshing to see the NFL recognize their diversity problem. It inspired other professional sports leagues to institute similar policies. The NFL also has a diversity committee which was headed by Mr. Rooney and now, his son. The Bill Walsh Diversity Coaching Committee has helped minority coaches gain valuable experience and exposure to the NFL during training camp in the summer for over 30 seasons. These initiatives and committees show that the league is trying to fix their major workplace issue: diversity.
The Rooney Rule may have had good intentions, but the results have been severely lacking. Yes, it has given many black men the chance to interview for these coveted positions. The actual number who have been hired is grossly inadequate. The statistics don’t support the rule having had much effect on the hiring of minority coaches or GMs. Since 2003, the highest number of active minority head coaches has been 8, just 25% of the total number of head coaches. Since 2018, the number coaches of color have decreased by half (12.5%) and the league received a D+ grade in the 2019 NFL Racial and Gender Report Card. This report card was released by The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport (TIDES) at the University of Central Florida. In the same report card, the league received an A+ by having 70% of its players being of color. In other words, a league with 70% of its players being of color, only have 12.5% of the head coaches that look like them! The numbers get lower regarding minority GMs. There were only two GMs (6.3%) of color in the NFL in 2019. The league received an F grade for the second consecutive year in this category. These stats are alarming and disappointing to see in 2020.
I believe the lack of black head coaches and GMs can be traced to another number. There are only two NFL owners that are minorities, and neither are black. Owners certainly have the most influence in hiring head coaches and GMs and, in most cases, the final word. NFL owners are overwhelmingly older, white men. The phrase “Good Ol’ Boys Club” has been used to describe this exclusive fraternity. How willing are they to truly consider a black head coach or GM? Remember, per the Rooney Rule, if a team does not interview at least one minority for their vacancies, they will be fined, like the Detroit Lions in 2003. No team has been fined since and dozens of black coaches and front office personnel have been interviewed only to be denied at the end. Are owners simply giving them an interview to satisfy the Rooney Rule? I believe if there was more diversity in ownership, more minorities would be hired in leadership roles.
The league’s diversity issues run much deeper than ownership and token interviews. There’s a double standard in judging success of white and black coaches. The numbers suggest white head coaches who have .500 or below winning percentage and, are ultimately fired, are often considered and receive subsequent opportunities to become a head coach again. Adam Gase, who is currently the head coach with the New York Jets, had a below .500 winning percentage coming out of Miami at 23-25. After he was fired by Miami, he was hired by the New York Jets. Doug Marrone is another example. He is currently the head coach with the Jacksonville Jaguars. Prior to that, he posted a 15-17 record as Head Coach of the Buffalo Bills.
Conversely, black head coaches rarely get a second chance. Leslie Frazier, a well-respected NFL defensive coach, was named interim coach of the Minnesota Vikings in 2010. He went 3-and-3. In 2011, his first full season, he went 3-and-13, then 10-and-6 in his second season, leading the Vikings to the playoffs. Frazier’s Vikings went 5-10-and-1 in 2013, his 3rd full season and was fired. He has been interviewed for head coach vacancies in the last 7 years but not hired.
During this past off season, NFL owners introduced a proposal to incentivize the Rooney Rule. It stated: “Under the proposal, any team that hires a minority head coach would receive a six-slot bump for their subsequent year's third-round NFL draft pick. Hiring a minority general manager would move the same pick up 10 slots.” The proposal was tabled after little support.
The NFL is now expanding the Rooney Rule to require teams to interview two external minority candidates for head coaching vacancies and one for GM roles. These new additions are a clear sign that the NFL is desperate to fix these issues. I believe in order to fix the system there must be more black owners to drive true change. There needs to be more representation at the top of these organizations for the league to transform. If there isn’t more diversity within NFL leadership, there needs to be a progressive white owner to drive the change. During my time in the CSL, we were told how important networking is in sports. It is not what you know but more who you know. The NFL needs to provide more opportunities for owners to get to know up and coming coaches in settings that allows for real talk. I believe starting with these simple solutions can go a long way to increasing the diversity and inclusion in the NFL.
Diversity isn’t just missing in the NFL but throughout the sport industry. I have been fortunate in my life to meet some brilliant black people that have made history. There’s Kimberly Fields, Senior Vice President for Partnership Development & Operations in the NFL. There’s University of Virginia Director of Athletics Carla Williams, the first African-American woman to lead an athletics program at a Power Five university. There’s Keith Gill, the former Richmond AD, who is now the Commissioner of the Sun Belt Conference and the first African-American commissioner of a NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision conference. I am blessed to have met these wonderful individuals, but I don’t understand why it took so long for these positions to be filled by a Black person. Diversity in the workplace is essential. Diversity in leadership will drive the change we need.
My dream was to work in the NFL. Based on the stats I gave earlier, I don’t know if that will ever happen. I want kids of color to see themselves in those positions, so they don’t think all they can be are players. I hope the hiring of Jason Wright leads to an upward trend of black/people of color in NFL leadership positions. Seeing Jason in this position might inspire more individuals to chase their dream of becoming the next President of their favorite sports team. One thing I think we can all agree on is that change is warranted for our country to continue moving forward, including Sports.
Credits:
The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports; ESPN.com; CNN.com;