“The equality in political, industrial, and social life which modern men must have in order to live, is not to be confounded with sameness. On the contrary, in our case, it is rather insistence upon the right of diversity…human equality does not even entail…absolute equality of opportunity…but there is more and more clearly recognized minimum of opportunity….”
So wrote W.E.B. Du Bois in his seminal work “The Soul of Black Folk,” published in 1903. One of the most effectuating figures in the history of this country, Du Bois was a leading intellectual of his time, a social scientist, civil rights activist, and the first Black man to earn a Ph.D from Harvard University. His words to open this piece aptly applies, 123 after he penned them, to the current state of the National Football League.
The NFL, the most popular sport in the United States, began this season with six Black head coaches of its 32 franchises. It is now down to three, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Todd Bowles, the Houston Texans DeMeco Ryans and the New York Jets’ Aaron Glenn. There was a league all-time high of 10 head coaching openings during this current hiring cycle. No Black man filled any of the vacancies. The Las Vegas Raiders are the only team with an availability that has yet to officially name its new head coach but it has been widely reported that Klint Kubiak, the offensive coordinator for the Seattle Seahawks, who will be facing the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl this Sunday (6:30 p.m.) at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, is a lock for the job.
It can be logically construed that the social construct of structural racism is at the root of NFL franchise owners overwhelmingly favoring white coaches over Black coaches. Cultural comfort and familiarity is at play in a league that is composed of mostly Black players, the numbers fluctuating between 57 to roughly 70% over the past decade.
There are no majority Black owners. And if there were, it isn’t a certainty they would put their multi-billion asset under the leadership of a Black man either. However, the conscious or unconscious bias demonstrated by owners in their head coaching hiring practices is comparable to the state of America when Du Bois authored the “Soul of Black Folk.”
Opportunities for Black men to ascend to the highest rungs of the corporate ladder still remain scarce. And the NFL is one of this country’s most well known and followed corporations. In line with the lack of Black NFL coaches, there are only four Black general managers: the Cleveland Browns’ Andrew Berry, the Detroit Lions’ Brad Holmes, the Chicago Bears’ Ryan Poles and the Atlanta Falcons’ Ian Cunningham. The NFL’s Rooney Rule, established in 2003 with the purpose of increasing opportunities for general manager, head coaching, and coordinator opportunities for minority candidates has failed at closing the disparity of Black and white GM and head coaches.
“We need to continue to make progress,” said NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell on Monday in a session with the media at the leadup to the Super Bowl. “I think we have become a more diverse league across every platform, including coaching but we have more work to do.”
In an economic, social and political environment in which Fortune 500 CEOs and some of this country’s preeminent educational institutions are dismantling their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives under threats from President Donald Trump, who has used gangster-like extortion tactics to achieve racist objectives, NFL owners have mirrored much of the larger society.
The song “A Change is Gonna Come” by legendary crooner Sam Cooke was released in 1964. The prevailing question that still permeates the NFL, and America, is when?