In school leadership, football and our lives, diversity must improve more quickly | Opinion
On the last Sunday of Black History month, NFL 360 aired “Fritz Pollard: The Forgotten Man,” the story of the first Black player coach in the NFL, who with nine peers was removed from the league in 1926 by a white owners’ ‘gentleman’s agreement’ — no further African Americans in the NFL.
While much painful history is carefully avoided by institutions and politicians , NFL360, CNN and the Lexington Herald-Leader are looking directly into the ugly stories impacting today.
In an interview with Doug Williams, the first Black quarterback to win the Super Bowl about the two Black quarterbacks who would face each other in the big game,CNN’s Jim Acosta opined that Black quarterbacks seemed now a ‘norm’ in the NFL. “When will that be true for coaches?” he asked.
The Lexington Herald-Leader asks a similar question underneath the pictures of five of the six Black superintendents heading six of the 171 public school systems in Kentucky.
“Why Kentucky has so few Black superintendents. Is bias blocking progress?”
On Thursday, Feb. 9, another headline, and another startling statistic went by with little notice.
Three African American head coaches — Todd Bowles, Tampa Bay Bucaneers; Mike Tomlin, Pittsburgh Steelers and Lovie Smith, 2022 Houston Texans — will receive the prestigious Blanton Collier Award for Integrity On and Off the Field… established by the Kentucky Pro Football Hall of Fame in the name of the NFL’s legendary “teaching coach.” Among previous recipients , a virtual NFL who’s who: Jim Brown, Gale Sayers, Tony Dungy, the Manning family, the Harbaugh family, Nick Saban, Anthony Munoz, Dermontti Dawson. Excellence describes each, not the color of their skin.
The award is not given because the coaches are Black, but because they are coaches of excellence, who have reached the pinnacle of their profession in an industry which has challenged them beyond their excellence as leadership minority.” “We are proud,” it states, ‘to honor these coaches for continuing in their lives and work to model leadership today, to encourage leadership for tomorrow, and by so doing, continuing the historical struggle for diversity, equity and inclusion in the National Football League.”
In 1946, the Cleveland Browns signed Bill Willis and Marion Motley, in a culture where the Black players could not stay in hotels or eat in restaurants with their teammates. Today, 70% of players on NFL rosters are Black. Along the way to this statistic, we in Kentucky experienced the late integration of the South Eastern Conference, Black high school quarterbacks not allowed their position in college; star Black college quarterbacks moved to less primary positions in the pros.
Now it is 2023. Six Black superintendents; 171 school systems. Three Black head coaches; 32 teams; 70% Black players. Too many steps sideways and backwards on a march that must go forward.
Hope points to the Big East Conference, where seven of 11 basketball coaches are Black — an example of African American player majority reflected by team leadership… ahead of schools and industries reflecting the demographics of the country. A ‘new boys network’ could derail the positives, as despite efforts to provide equal opportunities for leadership hires, corporate search firms more concerned with industry bottom lines hover in the wings.
The Kentucky Pro Football Hall of Fame and the Blanton Collier Sportsmanship Group are celebrating examples of excellence in the industry; educating all who will listen to the stories that need to be heard, in order that we remember to go forward, not slipping backward or settling for things being ‘a little better’ than they used to be.
Kay Collier McLaughlin, PhD, a former Herald-Leader Community columnist, is Chair of the Board of Directors of the Kentucky Pro Football Hall of Fame, a founding member of the Board of Directors of the Blanton Collier Sportsmanship Group and a leadership and organizational development consultant.