We were covering a Trumpet Awards recognition dinner at the Mirage Resort Hotel in Las Vegas in 2007 when a history-making announcement turned the upscale affair into pure bedlam.
Atlanta radio personality Frank Ski dared interrupt the Trumpet gala, but for a very good reason: he announced that Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith had just become the first two African American coaches to take their teams to the Super Bowl. The Mirage ballroom exploded. It was quite a sight to see pristine and powerful African Americans in tailored suits and glamorous dresses leap to their feet and unfurl a roof-rattling ovation — even though the objects of their adulation (Dungy and Smith) were thousands of miles away in Super Bowl nirvana.
That moment not only took me by surprise, but it also crystallized how important that achievement was to those in attendance — including those who don’t even like the game of football.
Including that barrier-breaking 2007 NFL title game, at least one African American head coach has taken his team to the Super Bowl in three of the last four years, with Dungy of Indianapolis and Tomlin of the Pittsburgh Steelers taking home the Lombardi trophy. This year, Jim Caldwell, who was promoted to head coach after Dungy retired from the Colts, has the opportunity to become just the third black head coach to win it all.
Since the Rooney Rule was established in 2002, the percentage of African American coaches has jumped to 22 percent from 6 percent, though there is debate at how much the Rooney Rule has contributed to the higher number. For example, Dan Rooney, the owner of the Steelers for whom the Rooney Rule is named, had already satisfied his minority interview requirement when he interviewed Ron Rivera in 2007 after the revered Bill Cower retired. As he continued interviewing candidates, Rooney was bedazzled by the young genius Mike Tomlin. Tomlin has already vindicated Rooney’s risky hire of an unproven head coach as Tomlin brought a record sixth NFL championship trophy back to Pittsburgh in just his second year.
And here’s another powerful testimony about the importance of hiring talented black men: After Tony Dungy languished in assistant head coaching purgatory for the longest time, being passed up time and time again for the top job, the head coach finally gave the Colts their first championship since moving to Indianapolis. And get this: No other team was willing to hire a young upstart named Mike Tomlin as an assistant except Dungy. And now, Tomlin also has a Super Bowl ring. And we all know that Jim Caldwell would never have gotten his chance for a head coaching job except that he, too, was an assistant under Dungy. And now he, too, has a chance to win a Super Bowl ring. And you can take a wild guess who Lovie Smith coached underneath. Yes, Dungy. Amazing — hiring one black man (Dungy) leads to four black men being Super Bowl head coaches in four years. No white coach can boast of such a feat.
However pundits debate the importance and influence of the Rooney Rule, there is no question that the requirement has cast a long-overdue and welcoming spotlight on young talents who deserved head coaching consideration and hiring. The climate has improved to the point where legal scholars have suggested the Rooney Rule, or some variation of it, be adopted in the collegiate ranks where only 6 percent of all Division I head coaches are African American.
–terry shropshire
