Rooney Rule Tokenism Must End

This cannot be what he meant

Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith, the first and second minority (read: black) coaches in the Super Bowl think the Rooney Rule is doing fine and should not be rescinded, but are hopeful that someday in the future it will be lifted. Some day in the future Earth will be dust too.

Enough is enough. The Rooney Rule is a sad mockery and it is time to get rid of it. A little backstory for those that are unfamiliar with this rule:

In the fall of 2002, Cyrus Mehri and Johnnie Cochran threatened (warning, National Review link) to sue the NFL for discrimination on the basis that black head coaches were more successful but underemployed in the NFL compared to their white colleagues. The league responded by hastily forming a Workplace Diversity Committee, the deliberations of which in December 2002 resulted in an agreement in principle going into the 2003 season that all teams with an open head coaching position would interview a minimum of one minority candidate for the position. Like all rules, there is an exception, when a team promotes from existing coaches.

Immediately there was a test of the rule. In January of 2003, Marty Mornhinweg was fired by the Lions after going 5-27 over two seasons. Steve Mariucci was the only candidate interviewed and got the job in February 2003. Lions president Matt Millen said that he asked five minority candidates to come in for interviews but they either refused or canceled, believing that they were mere tokens, that Steve had the job all locked up.

In July 2003, the league discarded Matt's explanation and fined him 200 thousand dollars for failing to adhere to the Rooney Rule. There has not been an official violation or a fine levied since.

Why is this rule absurd? Why is it racially insensitive and promoting the very type of discrimination it seeks to remedy? Why is it irrelevant today?

1. It is absurd because the members of the NFL Workplace Diverstity Committee are themselves owners of NFL franchises. To believe that any subgroup of owners represents some form of independence from or holds sway over the larger group is not to understand that these owners only compete on the field. In everything else, and in all business rules, they are in a state of collusion. It is after all a franchise system. The NFL is big business and what is good for one team is good for all, and vice versa. There is an intense conflict of interest in the management structure of the NFL, a system that by definition exists to serve the owners that create and manage it.

They make their own rules and choose when and how to enforce those rules on themselves. You don't need four year olds in your house to understand that this leads to two kinds of rules: those that only exist because they cannot be broken and those that only exist because real enforcement is not possible.


2. It is racially insenstive and promoting the the very type of discrimination it seeks to remedy by making Uncle Toms out of minority candidates that were never really in consideration by the team. 2007 marks the fifth offseason of this rule and I read every offseason in coaching carousel coverage of which candidate satisfies the Rooney Rule for this team or that. In 2003, Jerral W. Jones interviewed Dennis Green for the Cowboys job that ultimately went to Bill Parcells. Jimmy Raye, a longtime NFL assistant and former Redskins offensive coordinator under Marty Schottenheimer in 2001, said the Cowboys wanted Bill Parcells and Jerral W. Jones went through the motions with Dennis, who later told the committee he was satisfied with the interview (op. cit. National Review link). Whether or not he was, Dennis had the self-respect to make the issue about his quals as a coach, not his quals against a quota. Oh, and Jimmy Raye is black.

Already this season I am reading the same kind of coverage. In this case I am not picking on the Cowboys as a Redskins fan, I just happened on these stories this week. Dallas Morning News has a story (registration required) on how a Mike Singletary interview satisifies the Rooney Rule. Dave at Blogging the Boys has a cynical take (not specifically his) that goes like this: Norval Turner is the head coach Jerral W. Jones wants, and may want Mike as defensive coordinator, so brings in Mike for an interview, nominally for the head coach spot, boom, satisfies the Rooney Rule. By the way, defensive coordinator would not be a promotion for Mike who has a total of four years of NFL coaching experience. Mike even addresses the Rooney Rule personally here.

Further, where is the logical end to the enforcement of this policy? The exact rule pertains only to head coaching positions. There is no Rooney Rule for assistant coaches, for quarterbacks or for TV analysts for that matter. There is no Rooney Rule for team staff or management positions above head coach, such as general manager, president, et cetera. In 2005 and again in 2006, the Fritz Pollard Alliance for minority hiring in the NFL asked that the Rooney Rule be expanded to include management and front office positions. The league declined both times. There is happy talk from the league every year about a toothless encouragement of teams to interview minority candidates for front office positions, and a vague threat that if teams do not there may be enforcement of this rule at that level at some point in the future. The soft bigotry of low expectations the league practices when it laments the lack of qualified minority candidates for management positions seems to me to be the exact same type of discrimination the owners, who are in charge of hiring, practiced for decades in not hiring black and minority coaches.


3. It is irrelevant today because whatever force may have been against black coaches in the past is disappearing rapidly. The NFL is a money machine first and owners, slowly turning over from old to young, or at least new, love money more than whiteness. Add to this the incredible demands to win placed on coaches in an era of free agency when owners can stock a team with supposedly top-drawer players in one offseason and the laws of economics dictate the market pushes the best man to the job.

Herm Edwards: plucked from a coordinator spot, now a two-time head coach. Lovie Smith was a coordinator. As was Tony Dungy. As was Romeo Crennell. Romeo couldn't get out of New England he was so good at his job. Dennis Green was head coach at Stanford before the Vikings. Marvin Lewis, former coordinator. Ray Rhodes, two-time head coach. Same with Art Shell. There is no Rooney Rule for coordinators yet there they are, working their way up and getting the jobs.

There should be no requirement for teams to conduct pro forma interviews with candidates considered to be unqualified or not potentially a good match for the team simply to check a box. It is a dishonest practice and the economics of the NFL today dictate the best minds get the jobs. This is not to say there should be no advocacy for minorities in the NFL or any profession for that matter, and minority coaches should continue to advocate for minority coaches. Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith are in the Super Bowl because they are damn good coaches and earned it with their skills, not their skin.

End the rule.



Photo of Dan Rooney from here