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The goal of National Coalition of Minority Football Coaches is clear. The path to achieving it isn't

Shalise Manza Young
Columnist
·4 min read

NEW YORK — On Wednesday more than two dozen Black professionals gathered in a New York City hotel ballroom, compelled to meet in response to and support of Brian Flores' groundbreaking lawsuit against the NFL and its member clubs.

They were brought together by the National Coalition of Minority Football Coaches, a young but growing group founded by University of Maryland head football coach Mike Locksley. The organization counts former Houston Texans general manager Rick Smith, retired Baltimore Ravens GM Ozzie Newsome, Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin, and Alabama head coach Nick Saban among its executives and board members.

The goal was clear: to get equity in the coaching ranks, at the NFL and NCAA level.

The path to get there, however, isn't so clear.

That's not to say the symposium shouldn't have happened. Events like these are informative and can stimulate those in attendance to use whatever levers they have at their disposal to push for change.

There was a panel with Locksley, Tomlin and Flores — in the interest of full disclosure, this writer was a last-minute replacement to moderate that discussion — as well as a panel on civil rights and possible legal avenues that can be explored, along with addresses from NFLPA head DeMaurice Smith and broadcaster Roland Martin.

While information, organization and action are important, something was missing. It was namely some of the very people who can implement strategies and make hires. There were no NFL team owners, team presidents or college athletic directors in the room.

Look up photos of the executive offices in nearly all of those places, and you'll see they're exceedingly homogenous. The Ravens announced Thursday that Sashi Brown is officially the organization's new president, making him the second Black team president in the 102-year history of the NFL. Roughly 15 percent of NCAA Division I athletic directors are non-white.

And we know what the ownership class looks like in the NFL.

The efforts of Mike Tomlin, Brian Flores and the rest of the National Coalition of Minority Football Coaches are noble. But absent white accomplices who can push for change, the fight remains a challenge. (Photo by Joe Sargent/Getty Images)
The efforts of Mike Tomlin, Brian Flores and the rest of the National Coalition of Minority Football Coaches are noble. But absent white accomplices who can push for change, the fight remains a challenge. (Photo by Joe Sargent/Getty Images)

It's not good enough anymore (not that it really was in the first place) for NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to have virtual meetings and photo opportunities with leaders from groups like the NAACP or Urban League. Goodell works for team owners, not the other way around.

Even if one of them, the Atlanta Falcons' Arthur Blank, says Goodell should call teams "into the principal's office" if they're not hiring in a diverse and inclusive manner throughout their clubs, as Blank said in February, that's just more grandstanding. As well-meaning as we're supposed to believe he is on this issue, Goodell doesn't currently have a lot of power to make sure teams' leadership is diversified. And what power Goodell does have — fining teams for not following the Rooney Rule — he has seemingly abandoned

(As an aside, Blank saying what he said is high comedy. Though the Falcons hired their first non-white general manager last year, they remain one of 13 teams that have never had a full-time Black head coach. Blank once called himself "color blind," which is impossible and insulting. And after it was noted to him in late 2020 that for someone who claims to believe so much in diversity and equity Blank’s executive team with the Falcons was almost entirely white, he didn’t, as far as we can tell, make any changes. He had the “front office” page on the team website edited down to four names instead of the 20-plus it used to have.)

If anyone should be taking part in meetings like Wednesday’s in New York, it’s Blank and his fellow franchise owners, the team presidents they’ve hired and general managers who influence head coach picks.

On Wednesday, as there has been time and again over the years, there was mention of changing “hearts and minds.” It’s those hearts and minds that have to be changed, not rules. Unless there is a sweeping change in the demographics of NFL ownership and NCAA school presidents, it’s those men and women, so many of them born into a lily-white, wealthy world where diversity is a new salad on their country club’s lunch menu, who have to be committed to making change and believing that Black people in particular can lead and win. That the tropes about their intelligence are just racist hatred that lives on because of insecure people like Urban Meyer, the disgraced and disgraceful former Jacksonville Jaguars head coach who hires assistants with a history of being abusive toward non-white players and makes barely disguised bigoted comments about Black players' intellect.

Flores' lawsuit was a necessary and incredibly brave act, and it inspired the NCMFC to organize this week's summit. Everyone in that Times Square ballroom is accomplished and motivated to work to see that the NFL and NCAA fix their glaring lack of non-white faces in leadership positions.

But they can't do it alone.