Shula’s hiring last month breathed new life into a controversy that won’t go away: professional sports’ abysmal record promoting minorities to head-coaching and major front-office positions. With eight head-coaching jobs open in the NFL following the 1991 season-the most in any year since 1983-only one job so far has gone to an African-American, Stanford University’s Dennis Green, hired by the Minnesota Vikings in mid-January. Despite years of jawboning about reform, critics point to numerous factors, from endemic racism to the “old-boy network,” to explain the lack of progress. “It should not take courage in 1992 to hire a black coach, [but] not much has changed in [decades],” says Richard Lapchick, director of the Center for the Study of Sport in Society at Northeastern University. NFL vice president for labor relations Harold Henderson, the highest-ranking black in league history, says: “There is definitely [still] a barrier.”
The barrier has eroded slightly since 1987, when Los Angeles Dodgers executive Al Campanis made his infamous remark on “Nightline” that blacks “may not have some of the necessities” to become head coaches or executives. Following the controversy, Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth hired a consulting firm, Alexander & Associates, to address the minority-hiring problem. Baseball’s current commissioner, Fay Vincent, has also been outspoken, criticizing hiring practices when the New York Mets and Detroit Tigers appointed white general managers on the same day last September. Yet Vincent’s public frustration reveals the powerlessness of league commissioners. Owners still have autonomy over whom they hire, and they’ve done little to expand minority recruitment. For example: despite more than two dozen managerial openings last year, only one black, Hal McRae, got a job. (Bill White, an African-American, became the National League president in 1989.) McCrae, manager of the Kansas City Royals, now joins the Toronto Blue Jays’ Cito Gaston as one of two major-league pilots. “Baseball [isn’t] the national pastime,” says consultant Clifford Alexander. “It’s white America’s pastime.”
The NFL has improved somewhat under Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, who appointed blacks to top positions in the NFL office. Yet Green was the first black hired as head coach since Art Shell took the top field job with the Los Angeles Raiders in 1989. Green is “young, motivated, a leader, a builder, [with] a good record at Stanford and Northwestern,” says Vikings president Roger Headrick. In the National Basketball Association, where nearly three quarters of the players are black, 9 percent of front-office management jobs are held by blacks, the highest of the three sports. (In the NFL, the figure is 7 percent; in major-league baseball, 4 percent.) But only three of 27 NBA coaches are black. “Management has to be reminded not to rely on its normal contacts,” says Deputy Commissioner Russ Granik.
While attitudes among many owners have changed during the last five years, certain factors persist in preventing minorities from getting hired:
Owners often pass over qualified blacks and recycle the same white faces. For instance, baseball manager John McNamara compiled an overall losing record with six teams in 17 years, most recently the Cleveland Indians. While many recycled white coaches are winners, critics charge that owners too often fall back on tired veterans. “You don’t hear people saying, “I’m not going to hire the black guy’,” says NFL vice president Henderson. “But the way the system works, it’s status quo.” Owners discount charges of favoritism, saying they hire people who they think can bring victories. “The teams are trying to run a business and be successful,” says Lamar Hunt, owner of the Kansas City Chiefs.
Many blacks say they lack the social, business or family connections that give a boost to whites such as Dave Shula. Tony Dungy has been waiting for the call for three years. He served three years as a Pittsburgh Steelers defensive back, eight years as a Steelers assistant coach and defensive coordinator and three as defensive back coach with the Kansas City Chiefs. The media have touted him as a potential coach since 1989-but during the current hirings, his phone hasn’t rung once. “I had two strikes against me-I was young and black,” he says. “Mean” Joe Greene, the legendary lineman with the Pittsburgh Steelers, now the team’s defensive line coach, looked like the favorite to replace coach Chuck Noll, who resigned last season after 23 years. But some published reports now suggest the top candidates are whites. Greene says he lacks support within the owners’ network. “It’s a question of familiarity,” Greene told The Philadelphia Inquirer. Pittsburgh president Daniel Rooney last week insisted that Greene is in the running. “You can hang your hat on it,” he says. As of last Saturday, Rooney hadn’t made a decision.
Although the number of black assistant coaches in the NFL has risen from 14 to 51 in the past decade, there is only one black coordinator out of 56. Owners haven’t facilitated black mobility. In 1990, when Atlanta Falcons coach Jerry Glanville offered Indianapolis Colts assistant coach Milt Jackson the offensive-coordinator position, owner Robert Irsay refused to release Jackson from his contract. “Milt’s too important to our coaching staff,” Irsay said. Jackson, a 12-year NFL veteran, remains a Colts assistant and was passed last fall for the interim head-coaching job; Irsay picked Rick Venturi, another longtime Colts assistant. The Colts say the issue was seniority, not racism. “Irsay felt more comfortable with Venturi,” says a Colts official.
White owners aren’t the only culprits. Henry Aaron, vice president of the Atlanta Braves, has been an outspoken executive on minority hiring. But The New York Times pointed out that in the 13 years Aaron ran the Braves’ farm system, he hired only two minority managers. (Aaron declined to talk to NEWSWEEK. A Braves spokesman disputed those numbers but said he “doesn’t know” how many Aaron had hired.)
“The perception is that blacks can run the ball, can make the jumper but just can’t do the mental work,” insists Charles Farrell, a lobbyist for college and pro athletes. Concedes one team owner: “Of course there is racism. But it will change by virtue of whites and blacks being together, and the passage of time.”
Some experts aren’t optimistic about the pace of progress. Lapchick remembers that when Frank Robinson was made baseball’s first black manager in 1975, pundits predicted blacks would pour into those jobs. Thirteen years later, although others had come and gone, Robinson was still the only black manager. There are more hopeful signs, including the NFL front office’s new coach-scouting program and internships to prepare black athletes for the business side of sports. “To me the glass is half full,” says Bernie Bickerstaff, the Denver Nuggets general manager. Bickerstaff himself is a promising case: he rose from Washington Bullets assistant coach at 29 to Seattle SuperSonics head coach at 41 and landed the front-office job in 1990. “It’s a question of people creating an opportunity,” he says. But until owners make a concerted effort to change practices they’ve followed for years, successes like Bickerstaff could remain a token exception.
FOOTBALL Black Players: 60% Black Head Coaches: 7% BASEBALL Black Players: 18% Black Managers: 8% BASKETBALL Black Players: 72% Black Head Coaches: 11% STATISTICS: CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF SPORT IN SOCIETY, ALEXANDER & ASSOC., NBA, NFL
