NEW YORK _ The NFL made a commitment Thursday to “try and accelerate progress in the area of minority hiring and diversity” by forming a five-owner committee to study the issue.
The league had been under fire since September when attorneys Cyrus Mehri and Johnnie Cochran Jr. threatened legal action if quick steps weren’t taken to systematically diversify the hiring process. The NFL took action Thursday, naming Pittsburgh’s Dan Rooney chairman of the committee assigned to study the issue of diversity. Atlanta’s Arthur Blank, Philadelphia’s Jeff Lurie, Denver’s Pat Bowlen and St. Louis’ Stan Kroenke will serve with Rooney, the league said as its two-day owners meetings ended.
“I think we want to do what is the right thing,” Rooney said. “That’s the way we’re looking at it. … We want to help the situation. We do want to have diversity in the league. I think that’s our commitment. Whatever that takes, that’s what we’re going to do.”
NFL Players Association executive director Gene Upshaw, who is black, denounced the attorneys’ proposal to use draft picks as a bargaining chip. Mehri and Cochran recommended that supplemental draft picks be used to encourage teams to interview minority candidates and that current picks be taken away if they don’t.
Upshaw said the union would not agree to such a plan.
“You can’t say: ‘If you do this, you’ll get some picks, and if you don’t do this, you’ll lose picks,’ “ said Upshaw, who spoke to owners Wednesday. “You’ll end up with sham interviews and sham lists.”
Tony Dungy of Indianapolis and Herman Edwards of the New York Jets are the only black head coaches in the NFL. Three is the most black coaches the NFL has had in a single season. In 1989, Art Shell of the Oakland Raiders became the first black NFL head coach during modern times.
The league has tried to promote minority hiring since Paul Tagliabue became commissioner in 1989. The NFL had 14 black assistants, none of them coordinators, in 1980. By 1997, there were 103 black assistants, and now, 154 of the 547 assistants (28 percent) are black, including 12 coordinators.
“I think the mindset, the culture, all that’s changed. That’s history,” Tagliabue said. “ … We’ve had eight teams now with black head coaches. Some of these things have their roots in history. Going forward, when you already have 25 percent of the league having had a black head coach, it’s about identifying talent. It’s about talent that’s highly competitive, irrespective of race and developing the skill sets that people feel they need.”
Upshaw told owners that the mechanism already is in place to ensure more minorities on the sidelines and in the front offices.
“It’s ridiculous,” Upshaw said. “I said use what we’ve already got. It’s the RownersS in that room. We don’t need Johnnie Cochran to remind us. Somebody else talking about the issue is fine. We should have discussions, and we’ll see what happens as a result. RThe ownersS have to use the resources around them, make sure they get a diverse group of candidates.
“We were saying the same thing a few years ago about black quarterbacks, and now there’s a ton of them. We have to get to the level where it becomes, ‘Oh, it’s not a black head coach; it’s just another head coach.’ “
