With few exceptions, we Blacks annually decry the NFL’s continuing diversity problem. It is like Billy Preston’s 1974 classic: “Nothing From Nothing” leaves nothing.
Ten head coaching openings — zero Blacks hired. Very few outraged.
Hall of Fame journalist Rob Parker tweeted: “In the NFL — including all the say-a lot-but-rarely-say-nothing Black NFL analysts on TV — simply ignore this issue, turn a blind eye.”
Mike Jones on the league’s 32 team owners: “Black assistants compile strong resumes but then are told they’re not qualified, and then see teams make exceptions for members of the Good Ol’ Boy Club.”
Terrance Harris of the Black-owned (Houston) Defender in his Jan. 27 article wrote, “In the end, the “Not For Long” league does what it has done for years, and that’s play in our faces.”
Robert “Scoop” Jackson wrote in his Chicago Sun Times (Jan. 31) critique that this isn’t “another recycled (fake) Black issue.”
Let’s do the diversity math. Three Black NFL head coaches and, after the Minnesota Vikings fired the first-ever Black general manager Kwesi Adolo-Mensah on Jan. 30 after four seasons, four Black team GMs along with its “32-member, White-male-majority exclusive club called ownership in the NFL,” Jackson reiterated. “Here we go again, right?”
Social media trolls and others call us complainers, but we Blacks in sports media are instead elephant pointers, pointing out the elephant in the room issues such as hiring Black NFL coaches and giving them a true fair shot as their White counterparts too often get.
“The sad thing is that there will be — are — millions who will claim this is an issue unfounded,” wrote Jackson as he referenced a 2025 Associated Press study. Over the course of 25 seasons from 2000 through 2024, 31 of 173 new NFL coaching hires (not just HCs but also assistants) were Black (18%), and eight of the 19 head coaches (42%) fired after their first full season during that span were Black.
And there’s still 11 NFL clubs who’ve never hired a Black head coach.
This columnist has for years strongly questioned the effectiveness of the NFL’s Rooney Rule since being implemented in 2003, which requires teams to interview at least one Black or minority candidate for head coaching positions. It doesn’t specifically require teams to hire someone not white. It’s more ruse than rule.
American University Sports Law Professor N. Jeremi Duru, a nationally renowned sports diversity hiring expert, told MSR, “I think what it is is that you got some clubs who treat the rule the way you’ve described it, which is a very check-the-box exercise. And you got other clubs that are very serious about the rule and have implemented it consistently.
“Those clubs that just use a check-box approach philosophy, they’re really hurting themselves,” said the professor. “If you want to get the best hire, then you want to consider a broad base of candidates.
“So, it really comes down to the club doing the work and doing it properly — one, to satisfy the league rule, but two, because it serves their own advantage.”
Duru said that being a proud elephant pointer as I am when it comes to diversity issues in the NFL and elsewhere is always needed. “I think the key is to keep saying something,” he concluded.
“If there’s an issue, this lack of equal opportunity, there’s unfairness. If you stop talking about it and start to accept it, then you’re not gonna be able to make progress on it.”
This week’s BHM question:
Did you know a Black man once saved the Minnesota Twins from disbanding?
Hennepin County Judge Harry Crump in 2002 issued an injunction against Major League Baseball to stop eliminating the Twins from a contraction plan. Crump’s order said that the Twins had to fulfill its lease to play in the Metrodome in 2002. The Twins went on to win three straight division titles after Crump’s ruling.
Later named 2002 Star Tribune Sportsman of the Year, Crump retired after years of service on the bench and moved to Florida with his wife. He died in 2023 at age 85.
Charles Hallman welcomes reader comments to challman@spokesman-recorder.com.