No minority head coaches were hired with 8 openings

[panthers55]

in the history of the NFL there have been literally hundreds of men to coach in the NFL. Out of those hundreds, 21 have been African American. 21 out of hundreds. 14 of those 21 have been since the Rooney rule in 2003. You can draw your own conclusions, from those numbers. I however saw no evidence that the owners had any desire to diversify before the Rooney rule.

The fact is, that yes this is America and the majority of the owners are private businessman running their private business and can basically do as they please with it. However the NFL itself like so many other major industries has grown to the point where its existance has a great impact on the mindset, culture, and behavior of this nation. The decisions they make affect not just you and I as fans but our children as potential players. They represent the endorsements from other major industries as well as the major charities of the world. An entire culture of people that do not all share the same views about what is right and wrong.

Ask yourself honestly, if you were an owner and had lived through the past 60 years of racial tensions in America. You are burdened with the weight of not just your own team but the preservation of the league itself. You have to maintain the support of your fan base, but you also have to make sure you cultivate an environment that must constantly be infused with new talent from ALL walks of life and at ALL levels. But you must do so without alienating ANY part of your constituents. With all this on your plate, is making a promise to at least consider an African American coaching candidate every time really all that bad? Who gives a fug what the media says. Its there job to stir up convo about the league, good and bad.

All you gotta do is promise an interview.

Not a follow up interview.

Not a hire.

1 guy.

1 hour of your time.

and you pick the guy.

For me the Rooney Rule and saying that the owners are racial biased or motivated are very different. Or that owners would hire or not hire a minority candidate based on whether it alienated some of their fan base. I can totally see the value of the Rooney Rule. I would hope that it wasn't necessary given the fact that if there a number of highly qualified minority candidates being denied an interview based on color, it would be a huge waste of talent which ultimately hurts these same owners. Even if they were biased, they are driven by profit and success, and wins. Whoever can contribute the most to the bottom line will be first in line. It is convincing them that you are the best one, and that it is an individual decision for each club based on a number of factors.

But there is nothing wrong with the Rooney Rule, since it really only obligates you to interview minority candidates not hire them and there is no cap on how many guys you can interview, it doesn't have to diminish the opportunities for non-minority candidates. Everyone who is a non-minority can still be interviewed as well. There is really no reason not to follow the Rooney Rule.

What alienates fan the most is losing seasons. If their team is winning, they don't care who the coach is or the color of their skin. All they care about is that they are relevant again. Winning cures most ills. Losing intensifies them.

[BBQ&Beer]

I posted this back when Rivera was being considered for the job here & stand by it...

The multiple interviews is my biggest problem with the Rooney rule. There's almost no way to tell if say, 7 of those interviews were with teams that already had their HC and called him in to just to satisfy the RR. It puts the minority coaches in a catch 22 because if they know they're just being called in to be a token interview & turn it down, it sends the signal that they don't want to leave where they are so no other team sees them as a serious candidate. If they go to the token interviews & don't get the job it sends up a (very understandable) red flag & teams don't take them seriously.

The flip side of course is that if the teams put any thought in it, they have to discount those warning signs & thus risk chasing after someone who really doesn't want to leave or just doesn't have what it takes. They waste a lot of time.

Just a mess all the way around.

[Awesomeness!!]

Im going to guess what other NFL markets are having this conversation. Tenn, Jax, ATL, Tampa, and New Orelans.

[Awesomeness!!]

BUT, I will say this. I know when people are talking about race, and someone brings up genetics, they have never even taken antro 101.

[Goondal]

http://espn.go.com/n...nsure-diversity

Jim Caldwell nearly went undefeated as a rookie coach in Indianapolis three years ago and he's one win away from returning to the Super Bowl as an assistant with Baltimore.

Yet Caldwell didn't get one interview for any of the eight coaching vacancies in the NFL this year.

"That's almost impossible for me to comprehend," John Wooten, chairman of the Fritz Pollard Alliance Foundation, told The Associated Press on Friday.

Considering Baltimore is sitll playing, are teams even allowed to interview Caldwell? I honestly do not know for sure but I was under the impression that they could not.

[Guest BlueBoy]

Athleticism have nothing to do with skin color

Although you mean well in saying that but it does have to do with genetics. All individuals have different genetic. And genetics is everything. Africans have black skins and give birth to black skinned children. Same for other races. Tall people tend to give birth to tall people. Athletic people also tend to give birth to athletic people. The point is the genetics of Africans tend to give birth to athletic children.

Africans have a tropical body proportion, meaning long legs and short torso. Others tend to have long torso with shorter legs. That has a lot to do with athletic ability and it's genetic that predetermines that. Although it's noble in you wanting everyone to be the 'same' but you can't science and reality under the rug to achieve that.

And it's not racist for us to admit to obvious anatomical differences among people from different region of the world.

[Guest BlueBoy]

Although you mean well in saying that but it does have to do with genetics. All individuals have different genetic. And genetics is everything. Africans have black skins and give birth to black skinned children. Same for other races. Tall people tend to give birth to tall people. Athletic people also tend to give birth to athletic people. The point is the genetics of Africans tend to give birth to athletic children.

Africans have a tropical body proportion, meaning long legs and short torso. Others tend to have long torso with shorter legs. That has a lot to do with athletic ability and it's genetic that predetermines that. Although it's noble in you wanting everyone to be the 'same' but you can't sweep science and reality under the rug to achieve that.

And it's not racist for us to admit to obvious anatomical differences among people from different region of the world.

[CarolinaCoolin]

This whole thing and thread included is stupid

[klumme]

We hired a minority and he is not doing other minority candidates any favors thats for sure :)

[King Taharqa]

Not shocking for the NFL. The sport has a long racist past so it takes time for change. Having so many african americans on the workforce but making sure the "fraternity" and people in authority be virtually all white is similar to a plantation mentality. Theres 1 black OC in the entire league, and he just got hired in December. Thats embarassing.

[PhillyB]

Although you mean well in saying that but it does have to do with genetics. All individuals have different genetic. And genetics is everything. Africans have black skins and give birth to black skinned children. Same for other races. Tall people tend to give birth to tall people. Athletic people also tend to give birth to athletic people. The point is the genetics of Africans tend to give birth to athletic children.

Africans have a tropical body proportion, meaning long legs and short torso. Others tend to have long torso with shorter legs. That has a lot to do with athletic ability and it's genetic that predetermines that. Although it's noble in you wanting everyone to be the 'same' but you can't science and reality under the rug to achieve that.

And it's not racist for us to admit to obvious anatomical differences among people from different region of the world.

how was your time machine flight from 1836?

[carpantherfan84]

Although you mean well in saying that but it does have to do with genetics. All individuals have different genetic. And genetics is everything. Africans have black skins and give birth to black skinned children. Same for other races. Tall people tend to give birth to tall people. Athletic people also tend to give birth to athletic people. The point is the genetics of Africans tend to give birth to athletic children.

Africans have a tropical body proportion, meaning long legs and short torso. Others tend to have long torso with shorter legs. That has a lot to do with athletic ability and it's genetic that predetermines that. Although it's noble in you wanting everyone to be the 'same' but you can't science and reality under the rug to achieve that.

And it's not racist for us to admit to obvious anatomical differences among people from different region of the world.

My first response to this post was anger but it has been replaced with pity. What you say is representative of the serious deficiency in the American education system, a flaw that is not shared throughout the rest of the world. Whether you believe it or not, the differences that separate us physically are not categorized along lines of skin color. They are also not categorized along lines of geograhic origin. This last statement may be hard for most Americans to grasp, but I assure you it is true. Any difference in expected height, or body size goes back 10's of thousands of years to before humans migrated out of Africa. This means that tall black people share the same genetic markers for height that tall white people do which is the same as the one that every other race or nationality. This means that there is no greater chance for person of darker skin tone to be particularly physically different simply because he is black, and there is an equal chance of someone of lighter skin tone to have the same physical characteristics if the criteria for categorizing them is nothing more than skin color. Also FYI, Africa is not all tropical. It has a desert climate, as well as temperate. In fact, it basically has most every climate other than the most extreme arctic when you add in the moutains.

Plz refer back to my first post on page 2. The misunderstanding about racial differences in sport stem from a refusal to acknowledge the socio-economic problems of the past hundred years.

You cannot physically compare athletes of today with any particular genetic heritage. Any minor physical difference has been so enhanced by modern biochemical technology that you can almost call them superhuman. Supplements are so potent and precise as to give the body fuel that transcends anything any human could possibly have accomplished in any generation prior. Combine that with rampant PED use at the competitive high school level and the modern athlete is on a whole different plane of physical competition. So don't use them as a reference point it will skew your results.

Now once again I know this is hard to believe, but the truth is that anthropology is not taught in American public education system. This is likely a result of the puritist roots of this nation. By the time we get the chance to learn the origins of man as it pertains to racial and biological differences we have already been so corrupted by the media spin, social hierarchy and our own prejudice and ignorance. The belief in genetic superiority is not good or productive regardless of whether it is used as an insult or compliment. It breeds resentment, jealousy, ignorance, and hate no matter how it is used. only through education and understanding can we overcome it.

Lastly I challenge you, as a teacher challenges a student, or a mentor challenges a pupil, or a huddler to huddle newb. I challenge you to think outside of your shell, crack open a text book turn to Nat Geo. Just give it a shot. You may be surprised at what you learn.

[Keith Moons Liver]

How come we passed over a far more qualified black man for the OC position? JRs southern roots exposing themselves?

[Matthias]

Is this a race problem, or a numbers problem? If it's a numbers problem, why do people get so up in arms about this, as though the NFL is discriminating against people who aren't white? By the way, there is only one race.