The Rooney Rule is dead

Next Vikings coach “must” be White

With the firing of Leslie Frazier December 30, the NFL is down to two African Americans head coaches out of the 32 teams that make up the National Football League (none were hired in the 2013 hiring cycle; Big Ten: none in the last 10 years).

This is not about Affirmative Action; this is about affirmative discrimination. With 65 percent of players being African American and most coaches being former players, statistically, all things being equal, to get the best of the best you would have at least 20 Black head coaches. I’d settle now for 10.

Statistically the NFL numbers reflect discrimination. The real number that counts is how few entry-level Black coaches are hired who can then compete for moving up. Closing the beginning of the coaching pipeline guarantees fewer qualified for the coordinator to head coach move.

Not since the mid-1970s has there been so few African Americans as NFL head coaches. To head off comments, NFL propagandists, late Monday afternoon, December 30th, started to feed information to the sports media that former Chicago head coach, Lovie Smith, was the leading candidate for the Tampa Bay job.

How ironic that the NFL Pittsburgh Steelers is owned by the Rooney family, the same people who crafted the Rooney Rule, which says that wherever there is a head coaching vacancy, at least one of those interviewed must be an African American, or a candidate of color. It will be interesting to see who the Minnesota Vikings will interview and pass over in an effort to “abide” by the Rooney “rule.”

Let’s be realistic, my friends. The Vikings need to sell a lot of seat licenses in order to sell season tickets. The false liberal philosophy of equity will show its ugly side. Likewise, the false NFL belief that they need White head coaches to get viewers or sell tickets. The Vikings will go through the motions, bring a Black guy in for an interview, and then say to the world they have satisfied the Rooney Rule requirement. Did you find it as telling as I did that in all the White sports media in this city the commentary about replacing Frasier did not include a single African American candidate.

This helps heighten the significance of the miracle hiring of Denny Green as the head coach of the Minnesota Vikings over a decade ago in the late 1990s. Have no doubt: Leslie Frazier was the type of human being, coach, father figure and mentor that the NFL pretends that they support, but in reality they do not, as seen by the fact that the NFL is now down to two African Americans in a head coaching position as of this writing on December 30, 2013. That speaks volumes to the return of overt racism regarding the coaching ranks of America’s biggest sport.

If you tie this into the almost non-existent African Americans as head coaches at prestigious White colleges, you understand the doctrine whispered about, that Blacks can play and entertain us, but they are not smart enough to lead or provide inspiration for young men and women, Black or White. Even greater irony is the National Football League having fewer African American head coaches during the administration of a Black president. There is something very symbolic about that and it has a lot to do with the games people play and the lack of a sincere commitment to the Rooney rule by the NFL.

We conclude that Leslie Frazier was in the wrong city with the wrong team at the wrong time in history.

Stay tuned.

For Ron’s hosted radio and TV show’s broadcast times, solution papers, books and archives, go to www.TheMinneapolisStory.com. To order his books go to Beacon on the Hill Press.