I read a quite lengthy story today about Jerry Jones, the owner of the Dallas Cowboys for the past 33 years, who has never hired a Black head coach.
Jones’ record is not an anomaly: 12 of the other NFL franchises (out of 32 total) have also never hired a Black head coach. On the other hand, all of the 32 NFL franchises have profited extensively from their Black players, scores of them have been elected to the Hall of Fame, many have gone on to become head coaches in college, many have become respected assistant head coaches in the NFL.
Tony Dungy, a Black ex-player and later head coach of the Indianapolis Colts, won the Super Bowl in 2007. One would think that this achievement would have broken the “color barrier”. And yet, at the current time, there are only 3 Black head coaches (ten percent) in the NFL, while 60 percent of the players are Black.
When I was young, the prevailing wisdom in the NFL was that Black players didn’t have “what it takes” to be a quarterback. Over the decades, as the skin color of the average NFL player darkened, some teams began to experiment with Black QBs. This changed in 1988 when Doug Williams became the first Black quarterback to start a game in a Super Bowl. He led his Redskins team to a 42-10 rout of the Denver Broncos and was named the Super Bowl Most Valuable Player. Since that time, three Black quarterbacks have been named NFL Most Valuable Player.
In 2022, Black quarterbacks started the season for 10 of the 32 teams, including the Dallas Cowboys.
So, it could be said that progress is being made, in terms of reversing decades of racial discrimination in the practices of NFL teams. “It’s better than it used to be!”, might be the positive spin. On the other hand, why did it take so long?
Going back to Jerry Jones, the Cowboys’ owner, the article pointed out that Mr. Jones, who is now 80 years old, grew up in the segregated town of Little Rock, Arkansas. It appears from the article that his grandpa was a Klansman and that his Dad was similarly un-enlightened when it came to racial discrimination, and that this attitude was passed down to young Jerry. Back in the mid-Fifties, when attempts were being made by Blacks to integrate schools in Little Rock, Jerry Jones (then a 15-year-old) was among a bunch of football players who stood on the high school steps to block entrance of prospective Black enrollees. In the interview for the article, Jerry Jones (who was photographed at the time blocking the steps into the school) claimed that he only “dropped by” to see what was going on. It should be noted that segregation by race in public schools had been ruled unconstitutional in 1954. Jones, his parents, the voters of Arkansas, and elected officials remained involved in obstructing integration in public schools until August of 1959.
Jerry was a product of his environment back in the Fifties. Who knows what he’d be like if he’d grown up in New York, Michigan, or California? Or grown up twenty years later?
Jerry’s generation (mine as well: Baby Boomer) was the last generation that saw segregation in schools, Jim Crow laws in the South, blatant redlining in residential real estate, and brutal police treatment of minorities in big cities all over the Nation. So, we grew up at a time when our parents, and certainly our grandparents, experienced (and participated in) in-your-face discriminatory practices against Blacks, Latinos, Asians, and non-Christian believers. If we heard our grandparents and parents (and uncles and aunts) saying some very nasty things about non-WASPs at the Thanksgiving dinner table, we youngsters assumed that the truth was being spoken… because we were taught to listen to and respect our elders.
Baby Boomers are the last generation that can realistically use that “excuse”, if one can call it that. Succeeding generations have seen the Civil Rights Act, the outlawing of redlining, and a multitude of laws, local and National, which have reduced discriminatory behavior. Barack Obama, a Black man, was even elected President in 2008 and served two terms!
I noted earlier the NFL’s long-time aversion to hiring Black head coaches. This might have something to do with the folks who own the NFL teams. For the most part, they are Jerry Jones’ peers: the average age of an NFL owner is 70. Like Jerry, most of these team owners grew up when racial discrimination was normal, and in the South it was a regional sport of its own.
The only hope for our country, in terms of becoming color blind and a Nation of true equal opportunity, is for all of us Baby Boomers to die off and let the younger generations “carry the pigskin”, so to speak: we oldsters have too much baggage.
Analysis of recent elections throughout America reveal that our children, and their children, are far less religious, conservative, and narrow-minded that we old fogies are. With every passing election cycle, there are fewer old, White people voting… which scares the hell out of the M.A.G.A. folks. That’s why we see efforts to limit voting by minorities, suggestions to raise the voting age, and antics to deny election results.
So much for the good ol’ days.