Episode 5: The NFL's Diversity Problem: Coaching

Hall of Fame Coach Tony Dungy, former Bengals Head Coach Marvin Lewis, Steelers Head Coach Mike Tomlin, Northern Illinois Head Coach Thomas Hammock and NFL Network's Judy Battista discuss why the league has too few Black head coaches and how to fix it.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
During a job interview I had many years ago. I
was put through a very detailed process. I met with
seven or eight different people, and I was asked many questions.
It was intense and challenging, but I thought I was
holding my own and that I had a chance to
be offered the job. Finally, I was asked to meet

(00:22):
with the executive editor. During our conversation, the executive editor
told me that he was seriously committed to diversity. I
asked him how long he'd been the executive editor, and
he said eight years. At this point, I had already
been in the building all day. I hadn't seen or
spoken to another black person. I had seen just one

(00:46):
woman in the newsroom. When he told me how committed
he was to diversity, my sarcastic instinct took over. I
turned and looked outside as office door at about twenty
people in the all white, almost all male newsroom. Then

(01:06):
I turned around and looked at him. Diversity, I asked,
smiling but raising my eyebrows. His face got a little red,
but he smiled back. He got the message. We spent
the next thirty minutes talking about diversity from my perspective
and from his. After I flew back home. The executive

(01:31):
editor called the next day and offered me the job.
I eventually decided not to take it because I just
couldn't bring myself to uproot my family. At that time,
I had mixed emotions about turning down the job, because
if I had taken it, I would have been part
of making that workplace more diverse. But the thing I

(01:51):
remember most about that interview was the conversation we had
about diversity. The executive editor of that newspaper claimed he
was having trouble finding qualified black candidates. I told him
he must not be looking hard enough. So I kept
in touch with that editor, and years later he hired

(02:12):
a black woman that I told him he should consider.
Even if I had nothing to do with her getting
the job, I was happy she got an opportunity that
helped her advance. Creating diversity isn't about giving people jobs
they aren't qualified for. It's about giving all people a
fair opportunity to pursue their dreams. Welcome to Black in

(02:40):
the NFL. I'm your host, Clifton Brown. Today's episode is
the NFL's Diversity Problem Coaching. My guests are Hall of
Fame coach Tony Dungee, Mike Tomlin, the head coach of
the Robe of Pittsburgh Steelers, Marvin Lewis, a former Ravens

(03:04):
defensive coordinator in Cincinnati, Bengals head coach Thomas Hammock, a
former Ravens running back coach and current head coach at
Northern Illinois, and NFL Network reporter Judy Batista. We'll first
look at the statistics on coaching diversity in the NFL
and college football, then explore the reasons why there's a

(03:24):
problem and possible solutions. The barriers that black coaches face
when trying to become a head coach are reflected by
the statistics. Around seventy percent of the league's players are black,

(03:48):
Yet when the twenty twenty season began, only three of
the NFL's thirty two head coaches were black, the Steelers Tomlin,
Chargers Anthony Lynn, and Dolphins Ryan Flores. Two black head
coaches have taken over on an interim basis this season,
Romeo Cornell of the Houston Texans and Raheem Morris of

(04:10):
the Atlanta Falcons, while Ron Rivera of Washington is the
league's only coach of Hispanic heritage heading into the twenty
nineteen season, there were eight head coaching vacancies. One higher
Flora's in Miami, was a black man. Last year, there
were five openings and none went to a black man.

(04:33):
Rivera was hired in Washington. Tony Dungee is one of
the most successful black head coaches in NFL history. It
was part of the reason why the league started to
address its coaching university problem. Dungee also became a trailblazer,
the first black head coach to ever win the Super Bowl.
I asked coach Dungee why it continues to be so

(04:55):
difficult for black coaches to become head coaches. You know,
I think there's a couple of reasons. Number one, I
have to point the finger at the owners. I don't
think owners in the NFL really know what they want
and what they're looking for. So because of that, they
have to rely on other sources. They rely on the media,
they rely on fan reaction, they rely on a lot

(05:18):
of other things. Rather than saying, you know what, here's
what I want, here's what I'm looking for. Let me
go out there and find that. And people talk about
not having enough people in the pipeline. Well, if you're
only looking at quarterback coaches, then it might be a
narrow pipeline. But there are a ton of really really
good coaches out there that don't have to coach the
quarterback that aren't going to get a lot of publicity

(05:41):
in that way. In two thousand and three, the NFL
instituted the Rooty Rule, which mandated that NFL teams interview
at least one minority candidate for job openings. Well, it
has had an impact on the NFL, It's clear that
it hasn't led to enough change. When the Rooney Rule
went into effect in two thousand and three, there were

(06:03):
three black head coaches, the same number of black head
coaches who started this season. Judy Batista has covered the
NFL since two thousand and four with the New York
Times and NFL Network. She has had many conversations with owners,
general managers, and NFL executives about the hiring process for

(06:23):
minority candidates, and she sees the league exasperated by the
lack of more diversity hirings. They're sort of at tearing
their hair out stage of what do we have to
do to make this better? Because I do think you
know a few years ago, when the Rootey rule went in.
It took a little while to gain traction. There were
owners that were resistant, but then we got to eight
minority coaches in the league. So that's twenty five percent,

(06:46):
which is still not commensurate to the number of minority
players in the league, but it's much better than where
we are now. And then they backslid, and so now
I think they are just sort of at this point
where they're like, what do we have to do. We
just can't keep going like this year after year where
you don't have any minority hires or one, you know,

(07:06):
when you have eight jobs open every year. Now, let's
explore why the NFL's diversity problem and coaching persists. The
NFL started to address this problem when there were two
high profile firings of black NFL head coaches. The Rooty
Rule was created after the firing of Tony Dungee by

(07:28):
the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Dennis Green of the Minnesota Vikings.
Dungee had a winning record over his six seasons in
Tampa Bay from nineteen ninety six to two thousand and one.
Green had just suffered his first losing season in ten years.
Shortly afterwards, US civil rights attorneys Cyrus Marie and Johnny

(07:49):
Cochrane released a study showing that blackhead coaches, despite winning
a higher percentage of games, were less likely to be
hired and more likely to be fired then their white counterparts.
When the Rooty rule first came in, some of it
was due to your firing in Tampa Bay where you
had a lot of success. How tough was that for

(08:09):
you to lose that first job? And I guess is
that an indication another that sometimes, you know, black coach
are the fire a little faster? Well, I know there
was a lot talked about then. Cyrus Mary and that
group that started the Fritz Polo Alliance. They looked at
the numbers and said, hey, wait a minute, We've got
coaches who are winning and getting fired. That doesn't seem

(08:33):
to make sense. We've got other coaches who have done
a good job at other levels in college. They've done
a good job asque coordinators, similar to where Eric Vannemy
is right now. Hey, this is the number one offensive football,
They're going to Super Bowls? What is the problem here.
They came out and said, hey, we've got to do something.
And Dan Rooney, to his credit, authored it after being

(08:57):
fired by the Tampa Bay Bucks. Dungee washed by the
indian Apolis Colts the following year in two thousand and two,
he won the Super Bowl four years later. In dungee
seven seasons in Indianapolis with Peyton Manning, they went to
the playoffs every year. With his second chance, Dungee proved
he was one of the best coaches in the NFL.

(09:20):
Only once in NFL history, when Jim Caldwell replaced Tony
Dungee with the Indianapolis Colts, has a black head coach
being replaced by another black head coach. Callwell, by the way,
helped the Coats reach another Super Bowl the year after
Dungee left Jim Calwell when he succeeded. You, it's still

(09:40):
the only time in league history that one black head
coaches replaced another in any way, does that indicate to
you that there's some teams out there to just start
as comfortable hiring a black head coach when they always
have another option, Well, that tells you where we are
in society, you know, and where we are in the
NASA Football League. At first, you know, we couldn't get

(10:02):
hired at all, and then you know, hey, if you
got fired, that was it. And people, you got one
chance and that was it. Well, now you know we've
had teams that have gone through the search process and
they've hired a minority coach. Well, the next time it
comes up, what's wrong, We're going through the search process
again and finding another minority coach if he's the best person.

(10:24):
And we haven't seen that. You're right, Only in Indianapolis
has that ever been done. What you say about Bill
Polly and your former gim and Indie and Jim Erstay
the owner that they were comfortable having black and black
head coaches And is that an example that other hierarchies
need to look at? It is And what that tells
you is that they wanted to win and we got

(10:46):
things going. Jim er Say hired me in two thousand
and one, and I'm very grateful for that. As we
put it together and started winning and going to Super Bowls,
he said, I want this to continue. So Tony, you're
not going to coach forever. What are we going to do?
What's the next step? And we put that in place. Well, hey,
whenever I retire Jim Carwell, we're gonna train him. He's

(11:06):
gonna be ready to go. And it was a progression
that we had in the pipeline. We headed in place
and Jim R say never batted a night, he never
saw I don't want another black head coach or no.
Jim Calwell is the best person for us right now.
We're gonna keep this going. And Jim took him to
a super Bowl. So that just shows that, you know

(11:26):
what this organization wanted to win. Nothing more than that.
Every time a black coach is fired, another black candidate
has to climb a mountain to offset the loss, let
alone try to make advancements. The two thousand at season

(11:50):
was particularly difficult for black head coaches, with Lewis tie Bowls,
Hugh Jackson, Advanced Joseph and Steve Wilks all being fired.
Bolls had four years in New York, Jackson had almost
three in Cleveland, Joseph had two in Denver, and Wilkes
had just one in Arizona. Lewis is criticized for never

(12:14):
winning a playoff game as a head coach, but he
took the Bengals to the playoffs seven times in sixteen years.
Before he arrived, the Bengals had made the playoffs just
seven times in the previous thirty four years. Lewis's sixteen
year tenure with Cincinnati is the longest for any black

(12:34):
coach in league history. Lewis's long tenure with the Bengals
was an exception, not the rule for blackhead coaches. Do
you feel that this is a generalization now that a
lot of times when a blackhead coach takes over, the

(12:54):
so called leash is not as long, that the patients
for success is shorter. I know for you and Cincinnati,
you know you had a long tenure there. You won,
but you did have a long tenure. Other coaches haven't.
Do you think there's sometimes a difference between that with
a black coach or a white coach or do you
feel that's not fair? I think there's been a used difference.

(13:16):
I think if you can look at the numbers and
understand the difference, and the fact that if you look
at the tender of many of the minority head coaches,
when they failed to win within the first two seasons,
they're gone. And that's not been the same with some
of our other counterparts. Again doesn't matter, and I think

(13:38):
that's that's been been proven out time after time again,
and the fact that these men then no longer get
another opportunity to become a head coach or a coordinator
right away, where if you look at just last year's
trend on the guys that were head coaches, look at
how many of them now became coordinators right away the
next year in the NFL, And yet it doesn't happen

(14:00):
all the time for the minority guys. The other part
is just getting a foot in the door. Before you
can get fired, you have to get hired, and it's
hard for black coaches to get that first chance. Shore
minarity candidates are brought in for interviews under the Rooty rule,
but are they actually being considered or our owner is

(14:22):
just checking a box. Marvin Lewis became the first black
coach in Cincinnati Bengals history in two thousand and three,
the same year the rooting rule was established. He beat
out two white candidates for the job, Tom Coughlin and
Mike Mularkey. The Bengals also interviewed their long time black

(14:46):
running backs coach Jim Anderson, reportedly only for three hours.
Lewis was a second black candidate to interview, and he
hit it off with owner Mike Brown over dinner at
the Queens City Club. If the ben goes to simply
fulfilled the rooted rule quota by interviewing Anderson, they wouldn't
have met Lewis. When there's an opening, people question with

(15:10):
regards of a ruined rule that they're bringing in a
candidate just to fulfill the ruining rule. What's your feeling
about how much that goes on? I think that's going
on occasion. They no doubt about it. I agree, I
think that's going on occasion. But you know what, we
can't worry about that. We have to go all in.

(15:31):
I think the experience, the interview for the opportunity helps
you for the next experience, the next opportunity you get
down the line. So I think the preparation, I think
the time spent, meaning with club, exects like that, and
going through the process it builds you. It builds your confidence,
it builds your presentation, and that's a good thing. So

(15:54):
we can't control that end of it. We got to
go in, you know, full blast and go get the job.
And we can't really control if their mind is already
made up, you know. I use the analogy many times
when people go in to buy a car, they walked
through that door, they got a pretty good idea which
automobile they're going to come out with, and they may
sway them a little bit. Is it going to be

(16:16):
leather or cloth interior or whatever might color interior might
change a bit, maybe that outside kind of changes a
little bit. But most times you've got a pretty good
idea when you walk out of that what you went
in there and find. And I think that's the same
thing too with ownership. So when you go in there,
you gotta wound. You gotta get them to change their
mind and go with the other model. If that's the case.

(16:37):
In twenty eleven, there were eight minority head coaches in
the NFL. That was a peak, but since then the
NFL has backslid. Luiser Trivit is that to a change
in mindset among owners, Marvin, Since you entered the NFL,
how much progress do you think has been made if

(16:59):
we go out to making sure to qualify minority candidates
have an equal opportunity to be hired as coaches in
the league. Well, I think since ninety two when I
entered the NFL, I think there's been a lot of progress.
I think over the last three to four seasons we've

(17:19):
seen somewhat a leveling off or a slowing trend for
whatever reason. But I think when I came into the
NFL in ninety two and you looked around the coaching staffs,
you may have had one, maybe two minority coaches throughout
the staff at all, and there were very very few

(17:41):
in responsibility of play calling, responsibility, whether the offense or defense.
Although we've made progress, we really feel like it's been
a leveling over the last you know, three four years
as well. Unfortunately, I should add now, if you had
to take which in your case would be a very

(18:02):
educated guest as to why this leveling off has occurred,
what would you say? A lot of the decision makers
have come from a new breed. They have come from
younger people, and they tend to hire people that are
more like them. The ownership from a lot of places

(18:23):
comes from outside of football now, so they're necessarily not
within football that way, and so you know, they kind
of follow the trends of what they feel is popular
and what's talked about, as opposed to really get down
in the nitty gritty of who are the better coaches
and being able to do that kind of research. That's

(18:44):
more of the trend and the sexy appeal. What sexy
is offense? And black coaches are were often hired for
defensive positions. Now why is that? According to the Global

(19:06):
Sport and Education Lab at Arizona State, from two thousand
and nine to two eighteen, nearly forty percent of head
coaches hired in the NFL were offensive coordinators prior to
their appointment. During that same span, ninety one of those
hired as offensive coordinators were white. Currently, there are only

(19:28):
two black offensive coordinators in the NFL, Eric the Enemy
of the Kansas City Chiefs and Byron Leftwich of the
Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Enemy won a Super Bowl last
year and still couldn't get a head coaching job. He'll
be a hot name again this off season. A lot
of African American coaches have come from a defensive side.

(19:51):
Is it important to develop more coaches coming from the
offensive side? And is sometimes coming from the offensive side
seen as a more sexier or you know, more qualified
way to come up the coaching ranks, But there's no
doubt that it's seemed that way publicly through media and
so forth. Obviously, the scoring points and touchdowns wins football games,

(20:15):
and ask the excitement everybody wants to come to the
game and see weekend and week out or on television.
They want to see points scored. But to me, it's
the ability to lead that entire organization, to lead the rooms,
to get everybody on the same page, to be able
to handle the discipline that takes within the club, to
put together the staff and leave the staff in the

(20:38):
correct way all the time. And I think too much
of that is overlooked. And guys have become head coach
who never stood in front of an offense or defensive times,
and then you know what it shows when they get
to that job because they're not very good at it
because leading people and to me sometimes the steps along
the way are very very important. And but yet again,

(21:01):
when you're in that decision maker, they're making decisions based
on what they feel is the higher that's going to win.
The press conference. Tony Dungee was a defensive coach his
entire career before becoming a very successful head coach. He
coached defensive backs in college in Minnesota, then did the
same for the Pittsburgh Steelers. He became the Steelers defensive

(21:24):
coordinator in the mid nineteen eighties and then held the
same job for the Minnesota Vikings in the early nineties
before becoming a first time head coach in Tampa Bay.
I think it's just the general perception that offense is
the way to go in this whatever decade we're in
the two thousand and twenties, that I need this offensive

(21:46):
guy that's going to really somehow come in and guru
the quarterback, and that's how you're gonna win. The last
I looked, I think New England won has won like
six Super Bowls and they don't have an offensive guru
head coach. And Seattle's won super bowls with Pete Carroll
and it it baffles me that people think that they

(22:08):
have to go that way, but that's what it is now.
Dungee played safety in the NFL for four years, so
it made sense that he would coach on the defensive
side of the ball. But why does he think so
many black coaches come up as defensive coaches. When I started,
those opportunities to coach just came on the defensive side.

(22:29):
There's still that stigma that in order to coach a position, well,
you had to play the position. Well, if you look
back twenty years, we didn't have a lot of African
American quarterbacks, and so now people are saying, well, I'm
looking for a quarterback coach, let me find somebody who
played that position. And when I was coming up, you
had defensive backs, you had defensive lineman, you had some

(22:51):
wide receivers and running backs. You didn't have that a
lot of quarterbacks. So naturally I was a defensive back
in the NFL. I gravitated to defensive coaching. Hermanwards was
a defensive back. Ray Rhodes was a defensive back, and
that's where we got the opportunities. So I think it's
just a matter of where you got the opportunity to play.

(23:15):
I think so much of it is who you know,
who you've been around. You know Bruce arians coach Byron Leftwich,
so he knows Byron Leftwich. And when he's looking for
an offensive coordinator or a quarterback coach, well, who's the
best guy that I've been around, And he turns to
Byron Leftwich. That wouldn't have happened had he not coached him.

(23:35):
So that's where the bias is. I think, not that
we can't do it. We haven't been given those opportunities.
You know, one generation ago, Byron Leftwich would have been
a tight end. You know, it would have said, hey,
this is a big guy and he's smart, he's athletic,
or let's put him a tight end. Well, he gets
to play quarterback. And now he's a quarterback coach and

(23:56):
an offensive coordinator. And it's just been a long time.
I think we're passed that, are we smart enough and
can we do it? But we don't always get the opportunity.
Another part of the problem is that a feeder system,
college football also has minority coaching problems. Over the past

(24:17):
two years, there have been two college coaches who bade
the leap to NFL head coaching positions, Cliff Kingsbury to
Arizona and Matt Rule to Carolina. Kingsbury was particularly surprising
because he had been fired by Texas Tech less than
two months earlier. But both Kingsbury and Rule are white men.

(24:39):
Here's Judy again. As much as we talk about how
bad it is in the NFL, like it's a million
times worse in college football. I mean, college football has
a real problem and it does impact it because we
know college football is impacting NFL now right, I mean,
we're Cliff Kingsbury is a perfect example of somebody who
has rocketed to start him in the NFL. You know,

(24:59):
five minute, it's out of being a college coach. Matt rules,
same thing. So they've had great success, and you can
you know, if you're an owner who's looking for a
head coach in these next few years, you're going to
look at the college coaches, at the innovative college coaches.
And that's a problem because that pipeline is bad for
minority coaches. We sit that on the NFL level in

(25:21):
the last few years about you know, everybody wants an
offensive minded, right, everybody wants an ex Sean McBay, everybody
wants an innovative, offensive minded. That's not good for minority
coaches because most of the minority coordinators are on the
defensive side of the ball. So if everybody is focused
on I got to have an offensive guy, I gotta
have an offensive guy. Well, that pipeline is not as

(25:41):
strong for minority coaches as it is on the defensive
side of the ball. So that's a problem. Well, if
the next trend is I got to get a college guy,
I gotta get this innovative college mind. Well that's not
great either. So the NFL is going to have to
work on that. That is a problem. The NFL can't.
I mean, you know, they can't control college coaches, but
that is a pipeline problem. They've got to work on

(26:04):
getting minority college coaches in front of owners too, and
that is a separate issue because they've only got so
much input on the college level. But there are so
many people who are working on the pipeline from the
NFL side, like improving the pipeline for minority coaches. You
see them, do you know, workshops with college coaches, internships

(26:25):
for college coaches, college coaches visit training camps and things
like that, And that is something they are really going
to have to address. So let's talk to a black
college head coach to see how he made it. My
next guest, Thomas Hammock was a Raven's running backs coach
for five seasons starting in twenty fourteen, who left the

(26:49):
organization in twenty nineteen to become head coach at the
University of Northern Illinois. Hammock is one of just fourteen
black head coaches among the one hundred thirty at schools,
and he's a reflection that the hiring process can work
for black coaches. Who are given a fairest shot. Even
though Northern Illinois is Hammock's alma monor, it's quite an

(27:11):
accomplishment that he became a black head coach and an
FBS school at age thirty seven, having never been a
head coach at any level. When Hammock interviewed with both
the Ravens and Northern Illinois, he knew the odds were
against him. He didn't care because he knew he was qualified.

(27:32):
All he needed was a chance to show it. I
was like most student athletes in college, when your career
is over, you have that moment of you know, I'm
not sure what I want to do. Football, you know,
was a great, great game for me, and you know,
made a lot of friendships and different things. And when
my career got cut short, I felt like something was

(27:54):
missing and had an opportunity to start off as as
a graduate assist center University of Wisconsin under coach Abarez
and learned a great deal from him and his tutelage,
and then had the opportunity to come back to NIU,
my alma mater, and coach the running back for two years.
And from there I went to Minnesota for four years

(28:15):
co officser coordinated my last year and then went back
to Wisconsin under Brett Bilmer who was the head coach
and he was a deep decordinator when I was at GA,
so there was a relationship there with the assistant head
coach and recruiting coordinator. And then had the opportunity in
Baltimore under coach hardbar and spent five years there, and

(28:36):
you know what a great opportunity that was for me
to learn and develop as a football coach, and obviously
that that got me prepared to become a head coach.
You mentioned being a co offics coordinator in Minnesota even
that period of your career, just to become a cloak warnage.
You feel that was a key as far as maybe

(28:58):
how you perceived as being a guy who could take
over as a head coach. Yeah, you know, I think
you know, obviously that steps help. And the thing that
really helped me was, you know, midway through the season,
I was able to take over and become the play caller.
So the last six games of the season, you know,

(29:18):
I called the place and I think, you know, being
twenty nine years old calling plays in the Big Ten,
that obviously helps prepare you for number one, dealing with
the side of the ball, but also being able to
deal with you know, standing in front of a team
and presenting yourself in front of a team, and I
think those those are the critical steps that you have

(29:40):
to be able to take to get up there and hey,
this is the plan for the week and how we're
going to attack the opponent, and these are the plays
we're gonna call, and then obviously calling the plays in
those pressure pack moments I think really accelerated my learning
curve in this coaching profession. Thomas, what do you remember
about your interview with the Ravens who contracted you and

(30:02):
what were you trying to convey to them? The thing
that's surprised is honestly knew no one in the organization,
which I think is where a couple of scouts had
gathered some names. You know, my name had got presented
to coach Hardball, and then I just remember on the
interview process, I'm an interviewed with coach Kubiak. He had
just accepted a job, and then he interviewed me, and

(30:24):
you know, my wife was thinking, you know, you don't
know anybody there, You have no connection to to anybody,
And I just remember thinking to myself, if you're going
to interview me, I'm going to win the job, and
I'm not going to leave any stone unturned. So, you know,
I was fortunate enough to have an interview before and
been through an NFL interview. I didn't get the job,

(30:45):
but it prepared me for the grind of the interview,
because I think a lot of times one there is
no connection, you normally get grinded in the interview process
a lot, a lot harder, and that's exactly what happened
to me. But I was prepared for the moment. So
they really graded you pretty hard. Yeah, they They got
me in there for about eight hours. But you know,

(31:08):
I really enjoyed it. I thought it was a fair
process and obviously it was a great situation for me.
Now you mentioned you an interview with another FL team
before that, and did you learn from that if you
don't mind, who was that with and what did you learn? Yeah?
I think you know. I had an interviewed with the
with the St. Louis Ramps. They was in Saint Louis
at the time, and they interviewed me at the combine

(31:31):
in the train station. If you know anything about the
combining train station as a small hotel room, and they
packed about ten coaches in there, and so they just
had a board and me just standing there. And so,
you know, talking football with with a bunch of coaches
that's probably a lot more experienced than you. Obviously, you
you get out of your comfort zone. There's no packet,

(31:53):
there's no there's no book, right, They just want to
see what you know, how you teach it. And they
peppered me with a bunch of different questions, a bunch
of different scenarios. I think Stephen Jackson was to running
back at the time, and you know we're very similar
in age. How would you handle him? How would you
deal with this? How would you deal with that? I
thought I did a great job. You know, I didn't

(32:14):
get the job, but I learned a lot from that
process that you have to be prepared for every situation
in scenario, even though I have no experience doing it,
I have to at least have a plan of what
I would do, how I would do it based on
pro football. Now, there's only fourteen people in your position
black FBS head coaches. Why do you think the number

(32:37):
of minorities holding your job at your level and so few.
I just think now nowadays, what they've done is there's
so many different added dynamics to becoming a head coach
these days. I think, you know, now you have search
firms that they have a list, right, you have agents involved,

(32:58):
So there's so many other factors involved in the hiring
process that you know, sometime it eliminates guys. You know,
I was able to get this job because the athletic
director I had worked with at Wisconsin, he knew me.
If he did not know me, you're looking at a
search from don't know who Thomas Hammock is, right, Uh,

(33:19):
these agents don't don't know who Thomas Hammock is, you know,
because all I did was working as hard as I
can work at the places that I was at. I
never tried to go out and self promote myself, and
I think that's that's what happens sometimes. You know, there's
a lot of great coaches they named don't get out
or don't go don't get to the forefront of being

(33:40):
able to be in a position where they can have
a chance to go interview. How do you think we
can go about changing that so that more Thomas Hammocks
can get an opportunity to get in front of a
school and a brush them and become the head coach.
Number one. When guys do get a position to become
a head coach and be in that type of role,

(34:03):
they have to help other guys that they think are deserving.
I think that's important. There has to be a pipeline
where guys can help each other as opposed to I
made it now, I forget about everybody else and and
to me, that's how you start to stack it, where
you get guys in position that can, you know, hopefully

(34:24):
elevate themselves and improve themselves to be worthy of having
an opportunity to interview. The good news is there are
many different people in the NFL college and around the
league looking for solutions. Part of the reason they wanted

(34:46):
to do this episode now is because it's in the
news right now. On November tenth, NFL owners approved the
proposal to be war teams for developing minority coaches and
front office executive who have gone on to become head
coaches and general managers for other organizations. Teams that lose

(35:07):
a minority coach or executive to a head coach a
general manager job to another team will receive a third
round compensatory pick for two consecutive years. Thus, there is
a war incentive to create a pipeline of strong minority coaches,
but as rewarding teams with draft picks for grooming and

(35:27):
minority coaches a fair way to go about this. NFL
passed an initiative this week on diversity hirings that would
compensate teams that hire a minority for a head coaching
general manager position with two third round picks. It was
not exactly met with enthusiasm with the people it's supposed
to help. Multi people complain that they were not consulted,

(35:48):
that they don't necessarily approve of the plan. They wonder
if a team liked the Miami Dolphins would have hired
Brian Flores and allowed the Patriots to get two third
round picks. The league is trying to help out and
make a different French, but sometimes some of the people
involved are not entirely pleased about it. As Adam Schefter
of ESPN reported, not everyone is on board with that proposal,

(36:11):
including some minority coaches who the plan was designed to help.
Let's hear from Tony again, I like it a lot
better than the earlier proposal that was rewarding teams giving
them picks for making the selection. Because what this tells
me is, you know what if I am thinking of
a quality control or an assistant defensive backfield coach, you

(36:34):
know what if I hire a minority guy who is
qualified and who can do it, and he turns out
to be Mike Tomlin, I'm gonna get rewarded for it.
So let me look a little bit harder. Let me
not just give that to my nephew or my son.
Let me look around because that could help my team
four or five years from now, I get an extra
draft choice. So that would encourage me not to just say, Okay, well, hey,

(36:56):
I'll give this position to someone I know. Let me
think about how I can help my team get draft choices.
So I like it, I really do. And I know
the Fritz Polite Alliance and several people have talked about
these entry level positions, the quality control coach. Well, usually
that position goes to someone's nephew or someone's son, you know,

(37:17):
and that hasn't been us. Now, if I was still coaching,
i'd hire my son too. I mean, that's the way
it works. But we haven't had a lot of people
in those positions to bring in those entry level guys.
I know when I got the head coaching job at Tampa,
that was one of the things I wanted to do.
I wanted to hire some guys for their first opportunity

(37:39):
in the NFL. I wanted to make sure they were minorities.
So hiring Mike Tomlin at twenty nine years old and
hiring herm Edwards when he was in scouting, and hiring
Lovey Smith when he was at Ohio State, that was
something I wanted to do, and I went out of
my way to do it, and those guys did it
from there. Once they got in, they showed what kind
of coaches they could be. But sometimes for us, getting

(38:00):
that first step is what's so difficult. Batis to believe
it's not a matter of having a stronger pool of candidates,
it's still about getting them in front of the people
doing the hiring. I understand if you're a candidate saying
like wait a second, like that's offensive that you have
to bribe owners to take a look at me, or

(38:21):
bribe owners to develop me. At the same time, I
think if you're the league, you are grasping at straw
us to figure out, like, what the heck do we
have to do to get you as an owner to
sit up and pay attention. Let's be honest, there have
always been qualified minority candidates. I don't think it's a
pipeline problem as much as I think it is getting

(38:46):
them in front of the owners, right. It's getting the
door open, even just a crack for them to get
through and to sit in an interview. So much of
what you hear from owners and top executives is that
owners have to be comfortable. They have to have a
comfort level with a person to hire them to be
the head coach. Because the head coach, he may not

(39:07):
be the ultimate figure in the organization. Obviously the owner
is the ultimate figure in the organization, but he is
the face of the organization, undoubtedly, absolutely. And so owners
always say they have to be comfortable. And I put
that in an air quote with somebody, and I think
the only way you're going to get owners who are
entrenched to be comfortable with people who do not look

(39:29):
like them is to get them in a room and
sit there and talk football with them, you know, And
that has to happen repeatedly. And I mean I think
we're getting closer. There are some owners who I think,
you know, unconsciously, are just never going to be comfortable
with it, frankly, and you've got to try to do
your best to get them comfortable. But otherwise you just

(39:50):
have to minimize the number of owners who feel that way.
I think we're getting better, and I do think this
hiring cycle, I mean, I'd be shocked, and I mean
I think the league would be mortified if they don't
make real progress in this cycle because there has been
such an emphasis on it, and you know, let's face that,
quite a bit of pressure being applied. Now, Mmm. You

(40:11):
mentioned it increasing the FaceTime that potential candidates get with owners.
You think it'd be a good idea to invite entire
coaching staffs to the league meetings and setting up situations where, yes,
all candidates, just not minority candidates. These assistant coaches get
to be in front of a room, in front of owners,
so they can see how some dynamic some of these

(40:32):
these people are. Yes, hum Edwards when he was a
Jets coach. When I covered the Jets, one of the
ways hum Edwards got on Woody Johnson's radar was that
hum was that like a thing. I believe it was
at the scouting combine, okay, you know, and it was
in front of a room and Woody Johnson was in
the room and was impressed by herm which would be

(40:53):
very easy to do as you know, a completely commanding presence,
like absolutely do it them in front of somebody and
he you know, you would follow him anywhere, So that's
just happenstance, like get them in the room, get them.
I've also thought this, like, you know, when we go
to those annual meetings in March where it's the coaches,

(41:15):
the head coaches and the general managers and the owners,
and everybody's got a cocktail party and they've got their
kids there and it's just this sort of great FaceTime mingling.
Everybody's relaxed and in a good mood. Why aren't assistant
coaches there because or at least the coordinator level, where
you would have more minority candidates obviously, and you just

(41:36):
have them in this very relaxed, convivial setting. Nobody's really
you know, it's just FaceTime. It's like networking, like any
other business. Right, it's good to be in front of
the boss, you know, it's good for the boss to
see you, right, and if it's just one owner who
has a fun conversation over the shrimp cocktail with the

(41:58):
defensive coordinator for some team, and then when he's got
a head coach opening, he remembers, Hey, that's the Sun's
a coordinator. You know. It was a pretty impressive guy, right,
you know, like I could see where he would be
a commanding presence in front of a room full of players,
Like maybe I should talk to him and see what
his interest level would be. Right, That's all it takes, Right,
that's all it takes. And so yes, I think there

(42:20):
are little things around the edges that you can do
like that that would increase the FaceTime. And then you know,
just the big picture is like they've got to keep
hammering to the owners, like this is on you owners,
like you, you're the ones who have to change, Right,
There's a lot of people in the pipeline. There's a
lot of people who are committed to developing the pipeline. Further, ultimately,

(42:42):
it is in the lapse of the owners to change,
and they're the ones that are going to have to
do it. And I'm not it doesn't apply to all
thirty two, but you know, there's plenty of them that
have to change, and that's the bottom line. How much
are you surprised, if at all, that, you know, the
success of Mike Tommin and Pittsburgh, the successive Tony Duney
had in his career at least, doesn't seem to create

(43:05):
the clamoring for to fine the next successful minority goes
away team, seeing the clamor for the next so called
offensive genius. Okay, So the Mike Tomlin, not just his success,
but the way he got onto the Rooney's radar, right, Like,
he was not the hot candidate that year that they

(43:27):
hired him. As refact, they were right. They were looking
at their internal candidate who everybody assumed we're going to
get the job one of him. He was not the
hot candidate. And Dan Rooney, who obviously had a knack
for this, considering they've had three coaches in all the lifetimes.
But like, you know, he sort of looked around. He
talked to Tony Dungee, who should I talk to? He'd

(43:48):
heard about Mike Tomlin, and he'd got in the room
with Mike Tomlin, and of course then Mike Tomlin took
him from there, right and right, as we know, is
a commanding figure, right, a really impressive guy. And January
came out of there thinking, like, you know that's my
next coach. That story, to me is the perfectly they
need to put that story in front of the owners

(44:10):
and say, like here, just like this is an incredibly
successful head coach for a wildly successful franchise that has
a great track record, like pay attention to this story.
Tony Dungee was a defensive coordinator of the Tampa Bay
Buccaneers in two thousand and one when he interviewed Mike
Tomlin for an opening as a defensive backs coach. Tomlin

(44:33):
wasn't on anyone's list of hot coaching candidates when he
was hired by the Steelers in two thousand and seven.
He wasn't the favorite to get the job when the
interview process began, but the Steelers owner Dan Rudey was
the chairman of the NFL's diversity committee. He's the man
the Rooty Rule was named after him. When Tomlin crushed

(44:57):
his interview, the Steelers had the foresight to hire him.
Let's hear again from Dungee, who said the Steeler's decision
to hire a chime that is an example of how
the Rooney rule should work. It really is a good
rule if the spirit of the rule is followed and
what Dan Rooney said and his process and how he

(45:18):
hired coaches. Hey, I get my blueprint, I figure out
what I want. I break it down. Hey, I want
a thirty five to forty year old good communicator. I
want a defensive minded coach. Because Pittsburgh's a cold weather city.
We've got to play good defense. So I'm gonna look
at defense. I want a good communicator. I want this, this,
and this. I'll get all my parameters down. Then I'll

(45:38):
start interviewing people. I just want to make sure I
interview one minority that fits those categories. If I do that, hey,
then let the chips fall where they made. That's why
I was put in and when it's handled that way,
it works. But what has happened is people have said, Okay,
I know the deal. I'll just interview coach and then

(46:01):
make out my list of what I really want. They
followed the letter of the law, but they didn't follow
the spirit of the law. I had one of those
interviews when I was much younger. The Green Bay Packers
were looking to hire a coach. This was back in
the late eighties and I was a young assistant at Pittsburgh.
I went up through the interview, I talked to the

(46:21):
general manager, and after it was all over, I said, well,
what are you looking for? What is the perfect guy
that's going to fit this bill And he said, well,
actually we've got a young quarterback. I'm looking for an
offensive coach that has head coaching experience. And I said, well,
I'm a defensive coach. I've never been a head coach before.

(46:41):
Why am I in the I shouldn't even be in
your thought process. And that's what has been happening. And
that's where people say, well the rule it's a sham
and those kind of things. It is if you don't
use it properly. Dan Rooney hired Mike Tomlin by following
his own formula. He said, okay, I hired Chuck when
he was thirty two. I hired Bill Kawer when he

(47:02):
was thirty one. That's what I'm looking for. I'm looking
for a young, defensive minded assistant coach. He got a
lot of recommendations. He interviewed a lot of people, and
then someone told him there's a guy at Minnesota. He's
only been the coordinator one year. He's not a big name,
but you might want to talk to him. He interviews
Mike Tomlin and I'll never forget it. We were preparing
for the Super Bowl and he called me. He said,

(47:23):
I interviewed this guy. He blew me away, tell me
about Mike Tomlin, and I knew right then Mike was
going to get the job. But Dan went through it
with an open mind, and he didn't say I'm just
I'm going to interview this guy to fill a quota
on my interview sheet. I'm gonna try to get the
best people possible, interview them and hire the guy that fits.

(47:44):
And he did it and it's been successful. Mike's taking
him to Super Bowls. He's put a better record together
than Chuck nol or Bill Kawer. But that was because
Dan Rooney went through the process honestly. He followed his
formula and he got the right person. Given that we've
heard so much about Tomlin, let's hear from the head
coach of the Ravens chief rival. He was hired one

(48:07):
year before John Harball came to Baltimore, and the two
have been among the best coaches in the league batting
each other for more than a decade. Coach just wanted
us know what your opinion was on the league's plan
to possibly reward teams with a compensatory pick for hiring
a minority coach or GM having one hired a way.

(48:28):
I'm for all of those discussions. I think we need
to turn over every stone in an effort to increase
minority hiring, and so I'm not opposed to any of
the discussions that have transpired or the possibility of any discussions.
The bottom line is we got to continually keep the
subject in front of us, because right now just the
hiring itself is not up to part. Do you have

(48:48):
any other suggestions to think that maybe just should improve
the situation that we've been talking about for so long.
I have, but I've kept those behind closed doors. Do
you feel like, in your roles, as successful as you've been,
that you serve as an example and need to service
or are serving as a mentor to try and help

(49:09):
other young minority coaches or older minarch coaches get an opportunity.
You know, I just go about my business, and hopefully
I go about it in such a way that brings
attention to the subject, and hopefully I go about it
in such a way that provides opportunities for other deserving men,
and I embrace the responsibility that comes with nurturing the

(49:29):
coaching talent that I come across, and I do. The
NFL isn't the only organization trying to remedy the diversity
coaching problem. The French Pilate Alliance, which first took root
in two thousand and one when two of the league's

(49:51):
three black head coaches were fired, exists to champion diversity
in the NFL. Now, some black coaches in executives are
forming their own alliances. This summer, University of Maryland head
coach Mike Locksley found that the National Coalition of Minority
Football Coaches to help increase minority hiring in the coaching ranks.

(50:14):
The coalition's board of directors include some of the most
influential people in football, including Alabama head coach Nick Saban
and former Ravens executive vice president Ozzie Newsom, the first
black general manager in NFL history. I think the big
thing that opportunity. That's the one area that when we
formed the coalition, our goal was to try to create

(50:38):
and remove some of the roadblocks that we haven't been
able to overcome with just being able to have the
opportunity to get these jobs. We have so many qualified
minority candidates that have trained their entire careers for these opportunities.
And what the Coalition wants to do is the three
pillars of it is to prepare, promote, and produce the

(51:01):
next level of coaches or head coaches to reach and
obtain the jobs that they really want, they want and
that they prepared to do for their careers. You know,
our board of directors are all people that believe in
the mission and vision of the Coalition. I use my
role of decks of people that have kind of served
as mentors in my journey to being a head coach again.

(51:25):
Guys like Nick Saban who I worked for at Alabama,
Mike Tomlin who I came into this business with, Bill Polian,
who's successful, former general manager, Chris Greer, current general manager
of the Dolphins, Debbie Ale, a pioneer in college athletics
for women who came in and kind of broke the

(51:48):
mold for women desiree read over at unlv Rick Smith.
I mean, we have a twelve board of directors that
have all been kind of pioneers in their own rights,
and all have been really successful in the game or
in the sport of football with whether it's hiring coaches

(52:08):
or being successful head coaches, and so really utilizing that
experience of our board to help us put together the
programming as we work to prepare future coaches, future head coaches,
as well as their connections and ties to help promote
the candidates that we've had, and then with the new
the next hiring cycle coming up soon to be able

(52:32):
to produce a list of viable candidates that are minorities
that have the ability to do the job. There are
a lot of smart and devoted people working to try
to fix the NFL's coaching diversity issue. Even though the
rooted rule hasn't solved the problem yet and it continues
to be doubts about new rules put in place, there

(52:53):
is hope. So you think that this time we may
see a change. Yes, I do think so. I mean, look,
they've been mortified the last few years or whatever, the
last two years. The hiring secle has just been awful.
It's an embarrassment and it's a black mark. And Roger
Goddell knows this. You know, and I think he's among

(53:15):
those who are mortified by it. I do think we'll
see progress this year because I do think they've put
mechanisms in place. The League is seems to be doing
everything they possibly can to encourage owners to consider minority candidates,
to encourage franchises to develop more minority candidates. We just

(53:36):
saw that a few weeks ago that you rule that
would reward teams with compensatory draft picks if they lose
a coordinator or a personnel executive. So I think the
League has raised has heightened the awareness of this so
much that I do think owners, more owners will take

(53:58):
seriously the minority candidate who are already in the pipeline.
And again, there's always been qualified minority candidate. It's not
like Eric the Enemy just became a qualified to candidate.
You know, He's been a qualified candidate for a few
years now, as have others. I mean, Jim Caldwell has
been a qualified candidate for years. I'm hopeful that we
will see progress. That's hopeful, it's the word I would use.

(54:20):
I'm hopeful we will see some progress this year. So
are you optimistic, Tony that we're going to see more
diversity among head coaches in the next coming coach and
go rounds when the job's open. I really think we will.
I think the NFL is doing some things to stimulate that.
I think ownership has to look at how can I win?

(54:40):
And that's still what it comes down to. And there
are people out there that can help people win, and
Eric the enemy is going to help somebody win, and
that's what it's got to come down to, and that's
what the owners will fall in line that way. They
may not know who everybody is, they may not understand
everything exactly what they want, but they do want to win.

(55:03):
So I think we in the media, and I talked
to my bosses at NBC all the time, We've got
to do a better job. We've got to talk about
some of these young minority coaches who can do the job,
not just leave it up to the old school media
to talk about, oh, well, this guy was the quarterback
guru and this is the next Sean McVeigh. We've got
to say, you know what, hey, Leslie Frazier is an

(55:25):
excellent coach. He's doing a great job in Buffalo. He
has head coaching experience. He went to the playoffs in Minnesota.
We've got to start pumping those kind of guys up.
Pep Hamilton. Pep Hamilton was on that that course to
be a head coach, and Andrew Luck retired. That's not
Pep Hamilton's ball. He's still a good coach, Okay, so

(55:48):
let's not forget about him. We've got to do that
as a media Marvin Lewis is a youthful sixty two
years old. He started his coach as an out to
host state linebackers coach in nineteen eighty one, and he
has passed the coaching bug to his son, Marcus, now
the running backs coach at Hampton University. Lewis believes there

(56:12):
will be more opportunities for his son than when he
was rising into coaching ranks, Like that's a minute, longtime.
He's gonna be twice as good. And once you get there,
you're you're carrying the torch for all of us. And
that's what the Tony Dungeons to Denny Greens and those
people have done for me to help me get the
opportunity that I got. And I'm not I wasn't gonna

(56:33):
let them down or all the coaches that I looked
up to when I was at college coach to Ron Dickerson,
Fed Lambert's Bishop Harris, these guys, so Lester Chrome, the
guys that I looked to that were college assistant that
I used to look at and I wanted to be
like that guy. You know, you wanted to be like
that guy when you grew up and uh, and so

(56:53):
you're not gonna let him down when you get that opportunity.
Are you optimistic that things are going to improve as
far as you know, giving minority coaches affair shot to
be coaches and gms not. I am optimistic, There's no question.
I'm optimist to God, Cliff, and I really I believe
that there's been some some positive steps taken put in

(57:17):
place to be to be optimistic about it. I think
we have a great pool. One of the things this
pandemic has brought forth is there was a lot of
time we spend a lot of coaches spent a lot
of time fellowshipping together, and it was I'm incredible the
wealth of talent within the pool. So that's not an issue.
There is a wealth of talent within the pool of coaches,

(57:38):
and so I'm excited about that and that opportunity and
and I think as we move forward, I think those
things though hopefully those those numbers will change both at
the head coach level and also it's got to change
the GM level, as we talked about, and you know,
it really has. There's many many deserving of an opportunity.

(58:00):
Discussed the lack of black general managers and decision makers
in our next episode of Black in the NFL. I
do believe that many people in football have a strong
desire to see more minority candidates considered for head coaching positions.

(58:22):
For the first time, this year, all thirty two teams
will host a coaching fellowship geared toward minority candidates. The
league already has two other developmental coaching programs in place,
the Bill Walsh Diversity Coaching Fellowship and the nun Wooton
Scouting Fellowship Program. In August, the NFL appointed Jonathan Bean

(58:45):
to the new position of Senior Vice President and Chief
Diversity Inclusion Officer, and he is now leading the league's
inclusion strategy. I'm encouraged that the NFL recognizer it has
a problem in regard to giving more black coaches a
fair chance to rise to the top. Acknowledging a problem

(59:06):
is the first step towards solving it. Black in the
NFL is powered by Blue Wire. This show is produced
and edited by Noah Eberhart, an executive produced by Michelle Andres,

(59:27):
Ryan Mink, John Yales, and Peter Moses. Tuned to the
Ravens Podcast Network for two other podcasts, The Lounge hosted
by Garrett Downing and Ryan Mink and What Happened to
That Guy? Hosted by John Isenberg. Thanks so all my guests,

(59:47):
and join us for the next episode of Black in
the NFL. Until then, be blessed and thanks for listening.
Being n