Re: Assuming your point is valid, how do you force this on owners?

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PSJRam

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ramBRO
Anyways, as I've mentioned in some earlier posts to this thread, if I were the NFL, I'd consider offering compensatory draft picks of some sort to teams that hire minority coaches. This way, you get away from the language that you used of "forcing" owners to do this or that. Assuming GM's and owners are interviewing candidates that are qualified to begin with, it might serve as an incentive to go along with your qualified candidate. I suspect that MOST owners might not take it...preferring to go with an option that makes them feel more "comfortable."

Incentive based anything, in exchange for hiring anyone, for anything other than you think they are the best person for the job, is just a bad idea.

Again, as I mentioned in my post, when you allow problems to persist and getting bigger over time, you are many times left with the "best of bad" of options. Believe me when I say this: Black coaches would have never preferred to have had the Rooney Rule in the first place. But there was a reason for it. Maybe they should've just done nothing and the issue would've just gone away?

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MLK Jr. stating that he wants to see people "judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin" is simply put and brilliantly stated. It's no different for a job, or admission to a school. We should all be judged by the same standards. When you "help" one race (or any minority or the white majority) for any reason, in many ways you are holding that group of people back from their maximum potential.

Of course. And it'd be great if that had been (or even is) reality. The fact is, who we'd LIKE TO BE as Americans on issues of race (and other subjects) is pretty far from what we've actually seen in practice.

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I wondered yesterday, why there aren't more black coaches when there are so many black players. i think it's fair to wonder that because a far fewer percentage of white folks get drafted into the NFL, that perhaps you have more white football people turning their focus to coaching, sooner in life. This would give them more experience and knowledge than another path to coaching in the NFL. I certainly prefer this idea than the one where the majority of NFL owner are racists. But... I don't know which is, or if either is accurate.

You may have had a similar experience yourself or with your kids (with respect to sports), but I can remember the player/parent orientation event at my daughter's high school when she wanted to play volleyball. The coach got up and told everyone that, for a variety of reasons (mostly talent), the organized playing careers for 90% of the athletes in the school (not just girls volleyball) would be over by the end of their senior year. Now, whether or not that message is delivered in such stark terms to young athletes is unknown to me. Regardless, I believe that the overwhelming majority of us who have played sports learn (rather soon) that there's a ton of players bigger, faster, and smarter (on the court) than they will every be - and that's regardless of skin color. I'm not saying that you're wrong with respect to the "another path to coaching" thought...I'm just not sure that it bears out.