Filling Coaching Vacancies Shouldn’t Be a Skin Game

This is the time of the NFL season when most folks cheer for favorite towns, inspirational teams, exciting players.

Me, I’m cheering for a coach.

I hope Dennis Green of the Minnesota Vikings outworks Vince Tobin of the Arizona Cardinals today.

I hope he outsmarts Dan Reeves of the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC championship game.

I hope he proves to be a better leader than Mike Shanahan of the Denver Broncos in the Super Bowl.

Then, maybe, an owner will not be afraid to hire somebody exactly like Dennis Green.

Not only a coach who is smart, works hard, and is a good leader.

But one who also happens to be black.

A society crazy about streaks has somehow missed one achieved by the NFL. It’s still going and going.

Owners have hired 21 consecutive white coaches to lead their predominantly black teams.

The last black coach to be given a chance? Tony Dungy, of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, in January 1996.

Since then he has been strong and successful, and it has made absolutely no difference.

With the recent firing of Ray Rhodes by the Philadelphia Eagles, Dungy and Green are the only black coaches in a 30-team league whose players are nearly 70% black.

None of this is suddenly news because some people are whining. Some people are always whining.

The worst thing about any sort of affirmative action is the affirmation it gives to those who figure they should be given a break because of their skin color or nationality.

This is suddenly news because, for the first time since Dungy was hired, the people whining have a point.

This month there have been openings and suitable black candidates to fill them.

A once-empty pipeline is slowly filling with black assistants who have paid dues and met criteria.

Yet nobody seems to notice.

Available is the veteran offensive coordinator for one of the most exciting offenses in football.

Yet the Green Bay Packers’ Sherman Lewis continues to be snubbed.

Available is the veteran defensive coordinator for one of the league’s toughest defenses.

Yet the Oakland Raiders’ Willie Shaw is still waiting for a chance.

Available is the veteran offensive line coach for the league’s most surprising team.

Can somebody please explain how the Atlanta Falcons’ Art Shell can go 56-41 as a head coach in a league of losers and not be able to get another top job?

This is not about some disgruntled running back coach or college assistant who wants to skip steps simply because of his skin color.

Just because somebody such as white kid-coach John Gruden can do that doesn’t make it right.

This is about time-tested candidates who would be legitimate if they were blue.

Yet are treated as if they are invisible.

Or, worse, given token interviews just before the “real coach” comes along.

The list of teams will grow to 31 this year with the Cleveland Browns. They want an offense-minded coach, and the leading candidate appears to be not Lewis, but a white offensive coordinator from Denver named Gary Kubiak.

The rap on Lewis has always been, “How hard can it be to coach the offense of a team run by offensive whiz Mike Holmgren?”

Well, uh, how hard can it be to coach the offense for Bronco offensive whiz Shanahan?

“People always say, ‘Well, Sherman Lewis doesn’t call any plays,’ ” Green said in a phone interview the other day. “Guess what? Gary Kubiak doesn’t call plays either.”

The San Diego Chargers extended the white streak last week with the amazing hiring of Mike Riley, the Oregon State coach whose previous head-coaching experience was in the Canadian Football League.

Ignored was Shaw, who used to coach in San Diego and understands the AFC West.

“Look at all Willie Shaw has done, and I only ask San Diego, ‘Why is this guy not right for your program?’ ” Green said. “To me, it’s all about criteria. What is the criteria? Why does it always keep changing?”

The streak of 21 white hires has included such luminaries as Joe Bugel, Kevin Gilbride, Bruce Coslet and Ted Marchibroda.

All of whom have only one thing in common.

And it’s not an ability to coach.

Not that some of the moves haven’t been good ones.

George Seifert deserves a shot with the Carolina Panthers. The Seattle Seahawks are smart indeed to have hired Holmgren.

Brian Billick, offensive coordinator for the highest-scoring team in NFL history in the Minnesota Vikings, has earned the head-coaching job that he will surely get.

And this isn’t saying that Lewis or Shaw, who both would be NFL head-coaching rookies, would be a good fit for a team on the verge of a championship.

But are you saying that Lewis couldn’t do the job for the Chicago Bears, whom he has beaten in 10 consecutive games while spending seven years in the NFC Central?

Or that Art Shell or Willie Shaw couldn’t make a difference with the indifferent Baltimore Ravens?

“Just tell us the rules,” Green said.

Dungy accidentally discovered one rule during an interview with another team before he was hired by the Buccaneers.

An owner asked him what assistants he would hire. Dungy mentioned several names.

“Aren’t a lot of those guys black?” the owner asked.

“Well, uh, yeah,” Dungy said.

“I’m sorry,” the owner said. “This town just won’t accept that many black coaches here.”

The problem is not with the league, whose equal-opportunity programs have filled the pipeline with a record number of black assistants. There are 112, among them 10 coordinators, out of about 400 overall.

Even though the league’s idea of videotaping interviews with some black assistants is naive, at least it is an effort.

The problem is, the NFL could project those images on an IMAX screen and it wouldn’t convince the wealthy white men who own its teams.

They want to hire someone who looks like they do.

They want somebody they would be comfortable bringing home to dinner.

And these guys’ comfort zones don’t stretch very far.

“I think most owners think that any white guy you see with headphones on with a clipboard on the sidelines can coach,” Packer safety Leroy Butler told reporters. “A lot of people don’t think black people can run an organization.”

Look at how long it took the owners to hire their first black head coach. It was Shell by the Raiders in 1989, a shamefully late date in this seemingly enlightened society.

Some owners would like to blame the rebel-flagged good ol’ boys of the NCAA, where only four black head coaches are among the 112 in Division I-A, but that’s a poor excuse.

There is no better training ground for the NFL than the NFL. The most popular head-coaching hire is still the hot coordinator or coach, not the guy from the school down the street.

So aside from black ownership, still slow in coming, what can anyone do?

Tom Williams, the first black football player at Stanford and now a Bay Area management consultant, has an idea. It’s a Web site called “The Level Playing Field.”

Found at https://www.tlpf.com, it is a databank of black coaching candidates Williams is selling to colleges, conferences and, he hopes, the NFL.

“One of the things you always hear from employers is, ‘Well, we didn’t know anybody,’ ” Williams said. “This will get everybody’s name out there.”

As well as informing the owners, the league could also try to embarrass them, asking public questions after every hire. But then, guys such as San Diego’s Alex Spanos and Bobby Beathard are obviously beyond embarrassment.

For now, there’s really only one solution.

Dennis Green has to win the Super Bowl.

“John Thompson succeeded in basketball, and suddenly everyone is hiring black coaches,” Green said. “Maybe it can happen here.”

A Super Bowl victory transcends black and white. A Super Bowl victory is all about green. A color everyone understands.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at [email protected].

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Green Pastures

Dennis Green has led the Minnesota Vikings to the playoffs in seven of his eight seasons, and has won three NFC Central Division championships: *--*

Year Record Finish 1992 11-5 1st 1993 9-7 2nd 1994 10-6 1st 1995 8-8 4th 1996 9-7 2nd 1997 9-7 3rd 1998 15-1 1st Total 71-41 .634

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