A while back the NFL implemented what is known as the Rooney Rule, which requires teams to interview minority candidates when hiring a new head coach. Then they turned around and fined the Detroit Lions for snapping up the best head coach on the market with NFL experience, who was a native of their area, and of an ethnicity that had been considered a minority at one point (Steve Mariucci, presumably Italian, an ethnicity with fewer presidents than Africans have, at this point). The whole point, was to force teams to consider black candidates for coaching jobs, despite there being something like 20% at the time.
Not long after that, the rumor circulated that some teams were just having minorities come in for interviews, even though they intended to hire other people. And so what? That's what the rule said they have to do, right?
Well now, the NFL has decided there's STILL too much of teams hiring the people they want, instead of people who make the league look good, so now the rule is that the owner has to actually sit in on the interviews. Isn't that what every black person wants? The opportunity to abase himself before a rich old white man who doesn't want to be there? Also, the interviewees have to be from a list of people the NFL thinks are good choices.
And this will go on for a while, and when they don't hire enough black players for trouble-making columnists' satisfaction, the NFL will start giving the teams a list of questions they have to ask or demanding they submit their chosen hires to the league office for approval.
There is a lot more to hiring a coach than his win-loss record. Not least of which is the ability to get along with other people in the organization. Successful coaches have been fired by their owners with no possible racial motive. There is no telling for sure what makes a prospective coach good, as there have been innumerable coordinators or college coaches who looked like sure things, and flamed out as NFL head coaches. Even prior history is no indicator of success. Bill Belichek had a lousy record his first time as a head coach. His mentor, Bill Parcells won the Super Bowl twice in his first coaching job, quit abruptly in a way that made things harder for his team to seek a replacement, and his successive career has featured diminishing returns for each time that hired him. His second team reached the Super Bowl but lost. His third team reached the conference championship and lost. His fourth team made the playoffs but never advanced far. He was absolutely loathed by fans of his first two teams for the circumstances of his departure.
But racism is the only reason anyone believes for the NFL having a percentage of black head coaches that's only a bit higher than the black proportion of the US population. So they're going to keep twisting the rules in the belief that people are going to stop being people, that teams are going to pursue minority success over organizational success and profits. Because that always works.
“Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions.” GK Chesteron
Inde muagdhe Aes Sedai misain ye!
Deus Vult!
*MySmiley*