PFT: Having 3 NFL African American coaches is shameful

[SantaClaraHawk]

What makes you (and a lot of others) so certain of this? Why is it so easily assumed that all human beings posses the same level and type of mental ability, and that those differences cannot be grouped by gender, race, cultural background, etc?

Scientists can't isolate a gendered brain, or a black brain versus a white brain. So far, there is no proof of a concrete brain advantage based solely on genetic destiny. Many people in racial categories (especially blacks and Latinos, increasingly Asians) are in fact multiracial.

Certainly, cultural background and expectations have something to do with it. And to an extent, that's to be expected. Fair, even, in some circumstances. NFL teams have trended toward seeing ex-player expertise as an advantage for coaching since even before Vrabel and Garrett, and that advantage isn't had unless you played. But in the coaching universe, there are plenty who don't have this advantage, and if there's room for them, there is room for women too.

Curiously, in reffing, you don't generally see a lot of ex-players. These guys tend to be attorneys or actuaries, both fields well represented by women.

 

[Mindsink]

What makes you (and a lot of others) so certain of this? Why is it so easily assumed that all human beings posses the same level and type of mental ability, and that those differences cannot be grouped by gender, race, cultural background, etc?

Scientists can't isolate a gendered brain, or a black brain versus a white brain. So far, there is no proof of a concrete brain advantage based solely on genetic destiny. Many people in racial categories (especially blacks and Latinos, increasingly Asians) are in fact multiracial.

Certainly, cultural background and expectations have something to do with it. And to an extent, that's to be expected. Fair, even, in some circumstances. NFL teams have trended toward seeing ex-player expertise as an advantage for coaching since even before Vrabel and Garrett, and that advantage isn't had unless you played. But in the coaching universe, there are plenty who don't have this advantage, and if there's room for them, there is room for women too.

Curiously, in reffing, you don't generally see a lot of ex-players. These guys tend to be attorneys or actuaries, both fields well represented by women.

Agreed. I think with most things, there are reasons why certain people are better than others at any given profession, or activity. It can't be simplified as "well people of this race or from this country are smarter". There are more factors than raw intelligence, and intelligence itself is such a multi-faceted thing in of itself that cannot be easily quantified.

 

[Popeyejones]

Curiously, in reffing, you don't generally see a lot of ex-players. These guys tend to be attorneys or actuaries, both fields well represented by women.

Nice observation.

IIRC for the most part gender sorting into occupations hasn't really changed much in the last 30 years, whereas it changed a lot in the 30 years before that.

We're seeing some of it (IIRC in the medical field more men are going into nursing and more women are becoming doctors) but for the most part it's pretty stable.

I'd guess a lot of that stability is just because people self-sort into occupations based on their gender impressions OF the occupation. That is, men don't become elementary school teachers because they don't see a lot of men as elementary school as teachers, so they assume it's not for them, and vice-versa for stuff like women electricians, and so on (just picking two good jobs that are gender segregated and maybe more or less pay around the same?)

Another thing that happens though is that when occupations rise in pay women tend to start to get pushed out of them, which is definitely what happened in art and literature, partially explains what happened in computer science, and seems to explain some of what has been happening in nursing.

I'm not sure how true it is or not, but some have argued that 15% representation is kind of a tipping point at which it's not a huge additional pain in the rear to be in an occupation (you're no longer tokenized), meaning that once you can get to over 15% female refs, the lack of female refs becomes less of a deterrent to women even considering becoming refs.

 

[Mindsink]

What makes you (and a lot of others) so certain of this? Why is it so easily assumed that all human beings posses the same level and type of mental ability, and that those differences cannot be grouped by gender, race, cultural background, etc?

Because this hypothesis was studied to death for well over a half a century by the best and brightest minds across generations and has been thoroughly debunked every which way from Sunday by scholarship across both the natural and social sciences.

TWO QUICK EXAMPLES:

1) Many Western European white people are more genetically similar to African black people and Aboriginal Australian people than they are to Eastern European white people because of the relative absence of Neanderthal DNA across these three groups. Central American native people also end up oftentimes being more genetically similar to Scandinavians than they are to South and North American native populations for the same reason.

It's but one small example of the general truth that there is more genetic variation within racial groups than between racial groups, meaning the genetic side of the Race/Genetics argument doesn't make a lick of sense.

Long story short, genetic arguments about race and ability don't make any sense from the perspective of genetics.

2) The racial classification system you'd use to even try to make the argument is both historically and geographically contingent on the time and place in which you're making the argument. If you happened to be living in Brazil all the people you think of as white people would not be a racial group, and all the people you think of as black people would be split across different racial groups too. In South Africa the majority of people that you think of as black people in the U.S. are not legally or socially classified as black people. That you even think Asian is a racial group is something that has happened in the last 50 years in the United States. It's the same deal with Hispanic which is still kind of a racial group but not really, and with Middle Eastern, which seems to have started to become a racial group in the United States in the last twenty years or so.

This means that the race side of the Race/Genetics argument is also a hot ass mess.

There's common agreement on the junk of this argument across both the natural and social sciences not because it's "impolite" to suggest that the argument is untrue, but because people HAVE ACTUALLY SPENT A LONG, LONG TIME STUDYING THIS and the argument is just gobbledygook junk nonsense that doesn't make any sense across every field of study that used to waste their time studying it.

What's more probable...

a. There are more white head coaches because they are incorrectly assumed to be smarter, wiser, or whatever positive non-physical attribute you wish to add; AND because owners/GMs are inherently racist and that supersedes their desire to win.

b. There are more white head coaches because they are simply more qualified, not because they're white?

And when it comes down to coaching, many more factors go into it aside from how smart you are. I wasn't trying to make a genetic argument for intelligence. I am simply saying that it is likely that there ARE differences in mental ability (not simply IQ) based on the evidence of our world demographics.

Forcing black coaches into the league does no good for the coaches who are trying to get jobs, regardless of their skin color.

 

[SantaClaraHawk]

Agreed. I think with most things, there are reasons why certain people are better than others at any given profession, or activity. It can't be simplified as "well people of this race or from this country are smarter". There are more factors than raw intelligence, and intelligence itself is such a multi-faceted thing in of itself that cannot be easily quantified.

Exactly. How you ascend in coaching is based largely on prior experience coaching or playing. People who played have a legit a leg up, but there's still a lot of room, and for the non-players, it starts with maybe youth football. When coaching PeeWee in Oakland, Marshawn was confronted by a mom upset that her son had been benched, and his response was to ask for the man with her. That is totally inappropriate.

With refs, there is little expectation of either being much of a factor. Certainly not for physical strength past or present. What the league values is fast eye coordination, good communication, and the ability to judge plays much like a lawyer or an actuary might, which is why so many of them are in those professions. Which women are as well. There is no plausible reason given the skill set why this sector, even more than playing or coaching, is dominated by 55-70 yo white men.

 

[Mindsink]

Agreed. I think with most things, there are reasons why certain people are better than others at any given profession, or activity. It can't be simplified as "well people of this race or from this country are smarter". There are more factors than raw intelligence, and intelligence itself is such a multi-faceted thing in of itself that cannot be easily quantified.

With refs, there is little expectation of either being much of a factor. Certainly not for physical strength past or present. What the league values is fast eye coordination, good communication, and the ability to judge plays much like a lawyer or an actuary might, which is why so many of them are in those professions. Which women are as well. There is no plausible reason given the skill set why this sector, even more than playing or coaching, is dominated by 55-70 yo white men.

The plausible reason is that women generally do not aspire to have 2nd jobs refereeing sports. See Popeye's comment regarding gender impressions also.

If we're talking about refs at the collegiate or professional level, don't they go through a test? I would naturally assume that the best performers get hired. Maybe the hiring pool is mostly made up of older white men, for whatever reason.

 

[Popeyejones]

The plausible reason is that women generally do not aspire to have 2nd jobs refereeing sports. See Popeye's comment regarding gender impressions also.

If we're talking about refs at the collegiate or professional level, don't they go through a test? I would naturally assume that the best performers get hired. Maybe the hiring pool is mostly made up of older white men, for whatever reason.

Yeah, I'd also guess MOST of this is about selection effects (meaning the hiring pool to begin with).

That said, I'd be suspicious of "best performance" as something that can actually be identified.

For this I'm thinking of a now classic analysis in econometrics of the gender composition of symphony orchestras.

The basic gist of the story is that about 5% of symphony musicians were women, and to help correct for what might potentially be gender bias in hiring musicians, the industry started having people audition behind a screen (you only need to HEAR them play, what they look like is beside the point), and the industry shifted from 5% women to 20% women. That one decision alone (to have people audition behind a screen) explains 25-50% of the rise of female musicans in orchestras.

https://www.nber.org/papers/w5903

 

[SantaClaraHawk]

If we're talking about refs at the collegiate or professional level, don't they go through a test? I would naturally assume that the best performers get hired. Maybe the hiring pool is mostly made up of older white men, for whatever reason.

I know NFL refs go through some sort of test and school. But here too, that doesn't explain the paucity of women beyond well, speculation that for some reason older white guys just seem to be more interested.

A ref gets paid about $220K/year, which is about the best gig work ever that anyone could expect--and something that would be expected to interest those in the legal/actuarial fields, most of whose FT jobs don't equate that in a year. There really is not a solid ground to assume women would not be interested or would be less qualified just based on gender.

You can even say this about the cheerleaders. Clearly, male cheerleaders were interested, they were then included, and the culture went so far as to change the name of the cheer squad to be gender-neutral (Seahawks Dancers). Whatever interest the team had in insisting that only pretty women with certain assets could join their squad as a business decision was seen as going out the window.

What riles me is the example that I put in the other-topics forum, which was the seahawks.com pub pictures of all the dancers. The men uniformly are standing there, arms crossed, in what appear to be large and very comfortable oversize baseball-jersey style shirts. The women, meanwhile, are posed holding in their bare abs with their butt and breasts in view in bra tops and hot pants. That to me goes totally against the decision to allow males in the first place for equality when in fact what they're showing is the opposite.

 

[Popeyejones]

What's more probable...

a. There are more white head coaches because they are incorrectly assumed to be smarter, wiser, or whatever positive non-physical attribute you wish to add; AND because owners/GMs are inherently racist and that supersedes their desire to win.

Yeah, all of this, plus what I was trying to get at, which is that even down at the high school level on Day 1 of Freshman ball all the white kids got sorted into "coach on the field" rolls because of their race, myself included, and over time that got reinforced and reinforced and reinforced in a way it didn't for my black teammates who on Day 1 got sorted into non-"Coach on the field" rolls, which is one of the major reasons IMO that I don't find it surprising that me and my white teammates ended up going into coaching than my black teammates did (at least proportionally, the majority of our team was black so IIRC overall the number of people who went into coaching ended up roughly equal?)

b. There are more white head coaches because they are simply more qualified, not because they're white?

We actually have good data to get at this, and it suggests this isn't the case. The clever strategy here is that you look to SECOND and THIRD head coaching opportunities, because then you can rely on record during first coaching opportunity (in addition to a bunch of other stuff) as an actual measure of quality.

The story there, as we'd expect, is that even controlling for quality, is that after getting fired white head coaches are more likely to get second head coaching opportunities than non-white head coaches, and it's the same for third head coaching opportunities too.

By way of example, what this suggests is that if Pete Carroll was exactly Pete Carroll but happened to be black, after failing as the Jets head coach he'd have been less likely to get a chance again as the Pats head coach, and after failing as the Pats head coach he'd again be less likely to get a third chance as the Seahawks head coach.

The implication is that there is VERY LIKELY some pool of non-white head coaches who are just as good as Pete Carroll, but have never gotten second and third chances to show it.

And when it comes down to coaching, many more factors go into it aside from how smart you are. I wasn't trying to make a genetic argument for intelligence. I am simply saying that it is likely that there ARE differences in mental ability (not simply IQ) based on the evidence of our world demographics.

Yeah, just to be clear, I'm unaware of anyone credible who would argue that there is no variation in mental ability across the human population.

My point wasn't that, my point was that I'm unaware of anyone credible who has studied this stuff and believes this variation exists along (whatever) racial lines (you happen to be using right here right now) for genetic reasons.

Forcing black coaches into the league does no good for the coaches who are trying to get jobs, regardless of their skin color.

Can you offer an example of a black coach who has been forced to coach football in the NFL? I'm not sure I follow what you're saying.

 

[Mindsink]

The plausible reason is that women generally do not aspire to have 2nd jobs refereeing sports. See Popeye's comment regarding gender impressions also.

If we're talking about refs at the collegiate or professional level, don't they go through a test? I would naturally assume that the best performers get hired. Maybe the hiring pool is mostly made up of older white men, for whatever reason.

Yeah, I'd also guess MOST of this is about selection effects (meaning the hiring pool to begin with).

That said, I'd be suspicious of "best performance" as something that can actually be identified.

For this I'm thinking of a now classic analysis in econometrics of the gender composition of symphony orchestras.

The basic gist of the story is that about 5% of symphony musicians were women, and to help correct for what might potentially be gender bias in hiring musicians, the industry started having people audition behind a screen (you only need to HEAR them play, what they look like is beside the point), and the industry shifted from 5% women to 20% women. That one decision alone (to have people audition behind a screen) explains 25-50% of the rise of female musicans in orchestras.

https://www.nber.org/papers/w5903

Yep. I'm familiar with that study.

So going back to the original topic then ... If we're assuming a racial bias in NFL hiring, then I don't think forcing minority interviews is the right way to address it.

 

[kobebryant]

It is certainly a little disconcerting to be sure. But there may not be much you can do affect the biases, both implicit and explicit, of NFL owners. The Rooney Rule came about because of the threat of litigation from Johnny Cochrane, and NFL owners likely fearing what would come out during discovery if it did go to court.

Frtiz Pollard was the first black coach, his last season was 1925; the next time a black Head Coach was hired was Art Shell in 1989! That's insane!

Being the Offensive Coordinator for Andy Reid was a pipeline to being a Head Coach elsewhere (Pederson and Nagy); but not for Eric Bieniemy, not when it was the black guys' turn. Being the Defensive Coordinator for Pete Carroll was a pipeline to being a Head Coach elsewhere (Bradley & Quinn); but again, not for the black guys.

Jim Caldwell had a winning record with Detroit! Detroit! That is so hard to do. But Matt Patricia keeps his job no matter how crappy he performs.

It's all just so blatant and disheartening.

 

[Popeyejones]

So going back to the original topic then ... If we're assuming a racial bias in NFL hiring, then I don't think forcing minority interviews is the right way to address it.

Ah, okay, that was your "force" from your last post.


Gonna post this and then edit beneath it in case you see it before responding to my prior one (know that I'm already responding and following you now). :2thumbs:

EDIT: And I'm back. :lol:

So on the topic of the Rooney Rule, we kinda got clear the decks first, because in me experience there tends to be three things swirling together, and what where people fall on these three different things tends to REALLY change what conversation you end up having.

THING 1: Is there agreement that there is racial bias in NFL hiring for head coaches? AFAIK all the data suggests that there certainly seems to be, but not everyone agrees on this, so if both people don't agree on it there's not really any point in getting into the weeds on the Rooney Rule as a good or bad METHOD to address it. :lol:

THING 2: If two people agree about Thing 1, do they ALSO agree that an intervention should be made to create equality of opportunity in this case? Some people might think Thing 1 is true, but they don't think this really matters that much and they don't think ANY intervention should be made to address it. If Thing 2 isn't true, again, there's no point in really talking about the Rooney Rule, as these people aren't opposed to rule itself, they're opposed to ANY intervention because they don't think there should be one.

THING 3: The Rooney Rule. :lol:

If we agree on Thing 1 (inequlaity in opportunity exists) and Thing 2 (it is worth doing something about) the Rooney Rule could be the right or wrong way to address it for sure.

The idea behind the Rooney Rule is that (a) it guarantees that non-white head coaches will get the opportunity to hawk their wares, and (b) by increasing their network diversity across the league it can lead to longer-term change even if it doesn't work in the short term case of each hire (e.g. we're going with the white head coach but we're now going to consider you for a coordinator roll because we like you more than we knew we would).

The other thing about the Rooney Rule is it's a little bit more of a politically palpable way to make this type of intervention, again, assuming we're on board about #1 and #2. It's why I got confused about your "force" langauge, in that (a) teams can interview as many people as they want (meaning nobody LOSES a chance because of the Rooney rule), and (b) it doesn't actually incentivize HIRING a black coach, it just requires considering one.

By way of an example, an alternative method to the Rooney Rule to address this is to actively incentivize at the HIRING stage, not at the consideration stage. This is what happens in TV writers rooms for the major networks, for which there is a "diversity hire" slot in which the network pays for the hiring of one non-white staff writer and that one staff writer doesn't get charged to the show's budget (the method is that if you hire a non-white writer you get a non-white writer for free).

This seems to be pretty effective, as a fair number of the VERY TALENTED now younger-middle aged non-white people we now know got there start through this program. Off the top of my head, Aziz Ansari, Donald Glover, Hannibal Burress, and Mindy Kaling all got their foot in the door through these diversity talent programs, and once they got their feet in the door, over time they had the opportunity to they likely wouldn't have otherwise gotten to show their wares.

For the NFL what this would mean is that for coordinator and head coach positions, instead of the Rooney Rule the NFL would offer to pay (say) 20% of the median coaches salary for teams when they hire non-white coaches and coordinators. It's a direct incentive to do so.

It's an alternative METHOD (as in Thing #3) to try to achieve the same result, so if we really agree on #1 and #2, we kind of have to evaluate the Rooney Rule against alternative methods like this, not just in a vacuum. As I kind of hinted at above one of the reasons I think we have the Rooney Rule and not something like this is that Rooney Rule -- although likely less effective -- is also more politically palpable than this alternative and likely more effective method (one of the reasons diversity hires were for writers rooms and not actors is that nobody gives a crap about writers rooms, so nobody protested that the networks did it -- unlike staff writers head coaches are public-facing and high profile, and ALL the people who disagree on #1, disagree on #2, AND disagree #3 would disagree with the method even more strongly than they disagree with the Rooney Rule method).

 

[Mindsink]

Pete Carroll is an interesting example, and I see your point. But for the Seattle hire specifically, I think it had more to do with his USC career than anything he's done in the NFL prior.

 

[ivotuk]

I'm really glad to see this conversation discussed in a calm, and mature way. It's refreshing.

I'm for the Rooney Rule as i think it might get someone in front of an owner that just blows them away. That someone will never be Marvin Lewis, and IMHO, anyone that interviews him, already has the coach in mind that they want. They just want to fulfill the Roonery Rule as no one's going to hire Marvin Lewis.

I always wondered if the Rooney's were thinking of handing the HC job to Ken Whisenhunt, but were blown away by Mike Tomlin, and hired him instead. Whiz was so pissed when they hired Tomlin over him, and maybe he was told that he was pretty much a shoe in? I dunno, but I can't really see him getting that mad if he thought ahead of time that he was just another candidate.

I imagine African American players are glad to see a Black coach on their team, but none of them want to see someone like Marvin Lewis, or Leslie Frazier as their head coach. They want to win, and IMHO, those 2 have shown that they aren't cut out to be head coaches.

I think that owner's don't research coaches enough ahead of time, then start to panic once they fire their HC at the end of the season with the draft coming up. Then they talk themselves in to retreads, thinking "I can get him to be an elite head coach with my business acumen."

I also wonder if there's enough African American coaches in the "pipeline," in order for them to get experience, and show what they're capable of.

It's a difficult proposition, but I think saying that "it's shameful," is over the top. They can't force feed African American head coaches in to the position if they don't have anyone with enough history to decide whether or not they're good coach.

 

[Popeyejones]

Pete Carroll is an interesting example, and I see your point. But for the Seattle hire specifically, I think it had more to do with his USC career than anything he's done in the NFL prior.

Yeah, I hear you.

If someone was so inclined they could spend the six months to collect and clean all the data and do the predicted probabilities of next move for each move across Pete Carroll's coaching career as based on race, but that DEFINITELY ain't me. :lol: :lol: :irishdrinkers:

TBF I have no idea if people looking at this stuff incorporate something like going down a level as HC and then back up a level as HC into their models (I'd guess not?) but I'd also be fairly surprised if it wasn't the same predicted pattern ("fairly surprised" NOT meaning "true/untrue" AT ALL, just meaning what it says, how I'd guess based on what we know).

 

[Popeyejones]

I also wonder if there's enough African American coaches in the "pipeline," in order for them to get experience, and show what they're capable of.

Yeah, my guess is there's probably somewhat of a pipeline problem swirling around in this too.

Not to self-reference, but if you see my "diversity hires" thing above, I'm realizing I've missed an obvious way that the NFL could implement that, and in a way that actually mirrors what the TV networks do.

Basically, the NFL agrees to pony up the 50K or whatever for a non-white (or female) assistant position coaches for every team every year, and just like the diversity writers program, that inches us closer to diversifying the pipeline.

And unlike I was suggesting above, I don't think 95% of NFL fans even know or care who assistant position coaches on their teams are, meaning there wouldn't be much blowback on that from those who are so inclined to blowback.

Something like that + the Rooney Rule would have more long term effect, I'd imagine, although it's the NFL, and unlike the Rooney Rule, they NFL would have to actually put its money where its mouth is for that one, which c'mon. :lol: :roll:

 

[Osprey]

The problem with obsessing over % of XYZ is what I like to call chasing indicators (and ignoring results).

Having been in various corporate leadership roles for decades, I've seen numerous examples of losing focus on the end goal by over focusing on something that's considered a KPI. I've lived through 'The Year of Growth' followed by 'The Year of Profitability' to be followed again by another 'Year of Growth'. Each year perverse incentives were created on one KPI that worked to the detriment of overall corporate health.

For those non business oriented, picture that guy in the gym who obsesses over his glorious pecs and skips leg days.


The NFL is a pretty simple equation of wins uber alles (with the possible exception of the Brown family in Cincinnati). If an advantage can be gained by hiring a trans gender Inuit vegan, it will happen.

I see the argument about development bias factors having some validity. However, even if that was 100% of the problem it has to be addressed at the beginning of the cycle, not the end. I'm all for the NFL taking some of those SJW dollars they set aside to establish mentoring programs, etc. Simply forcing candidates into the Head Coach role that are unprepared / qualified will only create the perception of lack of ability in XYZ group.

 

[Popeyejones]

The problem with obsessing over % of XYZ is what I like to call chasing indicators (and ignoring results).

Having been in various corporate leadership roles for decades, I've seen numerous examples of losing focus on the end goal by over focusing on something that's considered a KPI. I've lived through 'The Year of Growth' followed by 'The Year of Profitability' to be followed again by another 'Year of Growth'. Each year perverse incentives were created on one KPI that worked to the detriment of overall corporate health.

Yep, although I think the major perverse incentive when it comes to diversifying ranks is that the incentive is in GIVING THE IMPRESSION of doing something rather than actually doing something. :lol:

It takes a lot less work to pretend to be doing something than to actually do something, and it's the non-white employees who end up getting tasked with this impression management work.

Heck, even as a college student (I went to a small very white college) I remember my non-white friends complaining about being called in to pose for pictures for various campus and departmental catalogs all the time :lol: :lol: (it created resentments and did nothing, but the whole point was to do nothing while giving the public impression of there not even being a problem at all :lol: )

The NFL is a pretty simple equation of wins uber alles (with the possible exception of the Brown family in Cincinnati). If an advantage can be gained by hiring a trans gender Inuit vegan, it will happen.

If that's true how do we explain fired white coaches getting second and third chances at higher rates than do non-white fired head coaches? This was in the most recent report, but IIRC it has also been modeled by academics outside of that report too (and IIRC again even across different sports at the college level; a lot of these studies happen at the college level just because the N is bigger).

Simply forcing candidates into the Head Coach role

Addressed this above, but I'm strongly opposed to this claim, as it is simply untrue.

The statement "forcing teams to consider 1 non-white candidate of their choosing among all the candidates of their choosing" and "forcing candidates into the head coach role" are VERY VERY VERY different statements. :lol:

The former is a statement of fact and the latter just ain't. :2thumbs:

(I assume you meant the former and just wrote the latter, and I'm just being a prig about this, but still)

 

[Osprey]

If that's true how do we explain fired white coaches getting second and third chances at higher rates than do non-white fired head coaches? This was in the most recent report, but IIRC it has also been modeled by academics outside of that report too (and IIRC again even across different sports at the college level; a lot of these studies happen at the college level just because the N is bigger).

Would have to dig into the internals to know for sure, but In the NFL I'd be worried about sample size creating a distortion.
Just off the top of my head (added a couple from a quick Domehawk level of 'research')... recycled minority Head Coaches:
Ron Rivera
Hue Jackson
Lovie Smith
Tony Dungy
Jim Caldwell
Dennis Green
Tom Flores
Herm Edwards
Ray Rhodes

Is there any doubt Tomlin would be snatched up instantly if let go? Not going to be shocked to see Lewis resurface if he's actively interviewing and Flores is creating a name for himself with the Miami late season turn around.

Simply forcing candidates into the Head Coach role

Addressed this above, but I'm strongly opposed to this claim, as it is simply untrue.

I wasn't referring to a current practice just advising against incrementalism i.e. We've had the Rooney Rule for X years and only Y results therefore we need to mandate Z minority hires.

 

[SantaClaraHawk]

I"m surprised frankly that there ISN'T a league-wide effort to fund a diversity scholarship/internship program or incentives for minorities and women, given that the league has implemented both the Rooney Rule (for minorities) and a "sister Rooney Rule" saying that at least one woman has to be interviewed for any executive position.

These rules exist b/c participation in these ranks was seen as so low (Thing One) that something needed to be done about it (Thing Two) that wasn't happening at the organic level. The same occurs across industry; the sheetmetal and electricans' unions, for example, do similar things for women.

So far, of course, the paucity in women/minority candidates can be partially explained by so few of them existing in the pipeline, which leads to arguments that there's no one really good to interview when the problem is scarcity. It is only when sufficient people are in the pipeline that we can then see whether there are discrepancies in how they as a class are treated on the field and how they advance. And the more of them that do, the more likely that they will be judged not as "minority hires" but based on their own individual record.

Someone asked about "reverse racism." This can certainly occur--CMC admitted that in his combine days, he felt some skepticism from teams about playing RB as a white man. But in general, men and especially white men are more than others are apt to get a hearing, a foot into, any door they wish.

Popeye talked about the ease with which men entered prior female-dominated fields as said fields became more lucrative or high-profile--telephone operators and punchcarders used to be women; now those who do the equivalent tech jobs are mostly men. You can't say men (especially white men) are excluded in the same way, as it's always been that when white men knock on doors, they've gotten at least an opportunity to compete, and often get treated in a more "dignified" matter when they do succeed.

This is true even down to the cheerleader level, one in which jobs are incented almost totally based on pub rather than pay. They are barely compensated and certainly not enough to maintain the personal routines that are necessary for the job, but clearly, the PR exposure/fame/changing times has drawn some men, who have not only been accommodated but held to a different and easier standard as to how their body is expected to be displayed and judged.