BLACK COACHES IN THE NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE

Superior Performance, Inferior Opportunities
by Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr. and Cyrus Mehri

Executive Summary

Football is "America's game." But it is more than a game. It is deeply woven into the fabric of our society and part of our shared culture as Americans. In city after city around the country, football provides a rich common ground for a diverse fan base. Each week people of all backgrounds discuss, debate, celebrate and agonize - together - over the fortunes and disappointments of their teams. We prepared Black Coaches in the National Football League: Superior Performance, Inferior Opportunities because we, too, love the sport and we believe that America's Game should represent America's diversity and the best values in our society.

A. An Unprecedented Statistical Analysis

This Report examines the plight of African-American head coaches and head coaching candidates in the NFL. We are the first to apply methods of statistical analysis developed in civil rights enforcement cases to this issue. We bring the knowledge and experience gained from years of battling race discrimination at major corporations such as Texaco, Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson and BellSouth. That experience has made us national experts on the effects of glass ceilings and glass walls in denying minority employees a fair chance to compete for positions of leadership.

The parallels between the struggles of African-Americans at these companies and within the NFL coaching ranks are striking. For years, we have discovered and documented how minority professionals are forced to significantly outperform their white counterparts to advance half as far. And even those employees who break through the glass ceiling are afforded far less room for error than similarly situated whites. The same is true among NFL coaches, and we have the numbers to prove it.

Wins and losses - the currency of football and all team sports - form the statistical heart of this Report. We created a database including the win/loss records of each head coach in the NFL over the last fifteen years. We then asked labor economist Dr. Janice Madden of the University of Pennsylvania to analyze this database and compare the overall performance of the five African-American head coaches (Art Shell, Dennis Green, Tony Dungy, Ray Rhodes and Herman Edwards) with all other head coaches during this period.

Dr. Madden determined that:

• the black coaches averaged 1.1 more wins per season than the white coaches
• the black coaches led their teams to the playoffs 67% of the time versus 39% of the time for the white coaches
• in their first season, black coaches averaged 2.7 more wins than the white coaches in their first season
• in their final season, terminated black coaches win an average of 1.3 more games than terminated white coaches
• the black coaches inherited teams with an average of 7.4 wins per season and, during their tenures, increased the average wins for their teams to 9.1 per season.

Statistical analysis thus demonstrates that by virtually every objective criteria, black head coaches in the NFL have outperformed their white counterparts. And indeed, as the Report and accompanying profiles illustrate, the coaching tenures of the five African-American NFL coaches are a living testament to this outstanding performance.

B. Last Hired, First Fired

The cruel counterpart to the superior performance of black coaches in the NFL is inferior hiring opportunities. Our Report describes several manifestations of such limited opportunities, including the higher bar set for black coaches before they are seriously considered for top coaching positions ("moving goal posts") and the tendency to quickly terminate black coaches. In case after case, NFL owners have shown more interest in - and patience with - white coaches who don't win than black coaches who do.

As the saying goes, black coaches are the last hired and the first fired. This reality is well known in the world of football. During Super Bowl Week XXXV this February, a panel of ESPN experts were asked their opinion on the most important issue facing the NFL today. The most frequent response was poor minority hiring in the head coaching ranks. (Clayton 2002) Commentators such as Richard Lapchick, holder of an Endowed Chair at the University of Central Florida and author of the Racial & Gender Report Card, have been documenting this phenomenon for years and speaking out against it.

Our Report also discusses several explanations for the dismal record of minority hiring into NFL head coaching positions. Among them: lack of diversity among decision-makers and lack of diversity in final candidate slates. Or, as sports commentator Frank Deford has described the problem,

"Football coaches are executives…[T]he people who hire football coaches probably fail at getting to know young black coaching candidates, there is almost surely some kind of submerged racism, which presumes that, sure, a black man can handle a little basketball club, but a heavy-duty football operation is really too complicated to trust to a minority. " (Deford 2002)

C. A Game Plan For Change

NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue has responded to this situation with informal efforts to cajole team owners, but his efforts are far from adequate. The situation has gotten worse, not better, in recent years. This season the number of black head coaches among the 32 NFL teams has dropped from (a never-impressive) three to two. During the 2002 hiring cycle, NFL fans watched African-American coaching pioneers such as Tony Dungy and Dennis Green terminated despite their winning programs. Meanwhile Marvin Lewis, arguably one of the most dynamic and gifted head coaching candidates, could not obtain a meaningful opportunity to compete for a head coaching position.

Despite the success of other professional sports leagues, notably the NBA, in providing greater opportunity for African-American coaching candidates, the owners of the NFL franchises continue to disappoint. To prompt real advancement on this issue, we include with this Report a Fair Competition Resolution, which we call on the Commissioner to bring before the team owners for a vote, prior to the next hiring cycle.

To ensure increased opportunities for minority coaching candidates, at a minimum there must be diversity among the key decision-makers (i.e. , in the front office) and among the final slate of coaching candidates for each open position. The Fair Competition Resolution would empower the Commissioner's Office to reward one or more teams per year with a draft pick for engaging in noteworthy hiring practices that encourage diversity among management decision-makers. (For example, the decision to hire Ozzie Newsome as the General Manager of the Baltimore Ravens would be the kind of decision to merit such consideration. ) Our proposed Resolution would also mandate that individual teams place qualified minority candidates into the finalist pool for all open head coach, assistant head coach and coordinator positions, unless the team chooses to opt out of this requirement for a particular hiring selection by forfeiting a draft pick.

We believe that our Fair Competition Resolution can accomplish what no amount of cajoling has - it will make diversity matter to the team owners. The foundation of any fair competition is a level playing field. It is high time America's Game was played on one.

Click here to send a message to NFL Commissioner and Team Owners
NEWS ARTICLES
PRESS RELEASES
Black Coaches in the NFL, Superior Performance Inferior Opportunities (.pdf)

Exhibits to the report (.pdf)
A. The Database [.pdf]
B. The Madden Report [.pdf]
C. Profile of Black Coaches [.pdf]
D. Top Black Coaching Candidates [.pdf]
E. Hiring Cycles [.pdf]
F. Fair Competition Resolution [.pdf]
Proposed Fair Competition Resolution [.pdf]
Statement by Richard Lapchick [link 2.1.8.9]
Print the Entire Report [.pdf]