Following the dream

By Mason Williams Sports Central Columnist

The weeks immediately following the Super Bowl are always a time of tremendous upheaval and change in the NFL. The 2002 offseason has already gotten off to an interesting start with NFL news racing in all sorts of directions; not all of which are positive.

The Pro Bowl, the expansion draft, conference realignment, and coaching changes are the talk of the NFL right now, but one story looms over the league like a black cloud full of portent. Inequity, plain and simple, threatens to send the NFL reeling back 30 years if a whole-hearted effort from everyone from the Commissioner to the Players Union is not put forth.

February is designated as the month in which the contributions of African-Americans to the development of the United States are recognized and saluted. The month also focuses the collective mind of the nation on pursuing the "Dream," as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stated on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. The dream means the journey toward equality and social progress with the intent of strengthening the bonds between people of all races and walks of life. Unfortunately, the dream, as it pertains to the world of sport, has often met serious roadblocks on its path.

Perhaps no other industry has benefited from the accomplishments of the Civil Rights Movement than sports. Beginning with the Jackie Robinson and Joe Louis, and culminating with the dominance (in numbers) of black athletes all professional sports today, the American sports scene has been continually enriched by the efforts and accomplishments of blacks. However, a glaring gap exists in the numbers of black coaches, managers, executives, and owners, who truly control most of the power in the sports industry.

Each NFL offseason coaches are fired and hired with very few new names being thrown into the hat of potential candidates. For the last few years, Marvin Lewis, Sherman Lewis, Ray Rhodes, and a couple other black coaches have been in the potential coaching hat, and yet not one has been hired. This past week the Tampa Bay Buccaneers owners, the Glazers negated a deal that would have signed Marvin Lewis to become their head coach. The press pegged Lewis as the Bucs man after they failed to reel in Bill Parcells and Jon Gruden.

Last year, Lewis, who is now the Redskins' defensive coordinator, interviewed for the Buffalo Bills head coach position the day after the Ravens won the Super Bowl. The Bills passed over Lewis for Gregg Williams, a coach whose resume was not strikingly better than Lewis'.

A similar situation exists for Sherman Lewis, who has excelled as a coordinator, but seems to always come up short in his bids for the head position. Furthermore, Dennis Green, the former Viking coach, has not been mentioned in any capacity. Green's tenure in Minnesota was the longest of any current coach in the league, he brought a failing organization back to prominence, and he rekindled Minnesota's revenue by consistently putting together a competitive and exciting football team for the past decade.

At some point, the non-hiring of black coaches becomes more than a series of coincidences that can be rationalized by owners and the league with the cliche sentence, "we just feel that he wasn't the right man for this job." This is a reflection of a social problem the league must seriously look at and honestly focus on solving. The solution requires the input of all parties in the NFL, most importantly its' black players.

In the 1960's, Dr. Harry Edwards, now a tenured professor of sociology at U.C. Berkeley, led what we now call the revolt of the black athlete. Under his guidance, black athletes from all sports united together to express their grievances with the status quo of the social structure within sport.

In 1968, Jim Brown, Muhammad Ali, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Curt Flood, and several others all rallied behind Dr. Edwards' leadership as he called for prominent black athletes to boycott the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. The coordinated organization of black athletes affected change, altered popular conceptions and misconceptions, and without the accomplishments of this group no professional black athlete today would be enjoying the status they attain.

The time has arrived for black athletes in the NFL to embark on a similar social mission with the intent of fully integrating the league. The players themselves must unite and vocalize their beliefs on the status of the NFL. A league that is almost 75 percent black must have more than one black coach and almost no black executives.

In 1968, Dr. Edwards referred to his movement as the revolt of the black athlete because sport was reinforcing a slavery mentality that still permeated society as a whole. The stakes are equally as high right now, and yet there is no voice of the black athlete. Perhaps the fears of losing endorsements, or of devaluing oneself in the free agent market, or shear apathy, keep the players from uniting.

An organization of black NFL players could affect a great deal of change. Imagine if Donovan McNabb, Marshall Faulk, Randy Moss, and Warren Sapp vowed to boycott games next season until the NFL addressed its hiring practices and the inequity in numbers of black executives. I assure you the potential financial problems the NFL would face would coerce the powers that be into looking in the mirror.

We are conditioned to look back on the Civil Rights Movement as it is a thing of the past, but in reality, it is a constant work in progress. The NFL is not a blatantly racist institution by any means, but it is far from the utopia of sport some people revere. Change must occur and it takes a courageous few to step up to the forefront and lead the charge. This is the dream that must be followed.

Article courtesy of Sports Central.