NFL Should Dump or Change the Rooney Rule
Mike Florio - SportingNews.com
Jan 11, 2010
Faced with not-so-subtle threats of a lawsuit from Cyrus Mehri and the late Johnnie Cochran regarding the gross under-representation of minorities in head-coaching positions, the NFL passed the "Rooney Rule" in 2002. Implicitly recognizing that billionaires can't be bullied into hiring anyone, the rule creates a simple mandate -- a minority candidate must be interviewed for every head-coaching vacancy.
"The idea of the rule is to slow down the process and get teams to do their homework and investigate a lot of candidates, not just minority candidates," former Colts and Buccaneers coach Tony Dungy recently told the Associated Press. "You went through the process, and in doing that, sometimes you uncover people."
The early years of the Rooney Rule included efforts to comply with the letter but not always the spirit of the mandate, such as a phone interview of Dennis Green by Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who at the time already had targeted Bill Parcells, and the out-of-the-blue hiring of Dennis Erickson by the 49ers following a perfunctory interview of Greg Blache.
After the league slapped Lions CEO Matt Millen with a $200,000 fine for failing to persuade former Detroit offensive coordinator Sherm Lewis to sit for an interview at a time when the job was going to Steve Mariucci, teams seemed to largely respect both the literal requirements and the broader purposes of the rule. The man for whom the provision was named -- Steelers owner Dan Rooney -- gave the measure extra legitimacy by hiring Mike Tomlin three years ago, after Bill Cowher resigned (and after, as legend has it, the job was promised to Russ Grimm).
More recently, however, two teams have turned the rule on its head. The Redskins interviewed an in-house minority candidate before Jim Zorn was fired, at a time when it was apparent the target was Mike Shanahan. On Friday, the Seahawks fired Jim Mora after scoping out Pete Carroll, and then scrambled to interview Vikings defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier.
In both cases, everyone knows the teams engaged in sham efforts to interview minority candidates. Everyone, that is, except John Wooten, the chairman of the Fritz Pollard Alliance, which oversees the application of the Rooney Rule.
So with such superficial efforts to circumvent the purposes of a rule that focuses on the most superficial aspects of humanity, why does the league even bother to keep the rule in place?
It serves only to engender hostility among folks of all races who believe that a rule based on the color of a person's skin hardly represents the best strategy for ensuring that decisions are based on something than the color of a person's skin. And if, in the end, the teams will hire whomever they choose to hire, the rule rarely makes a difference.
Besides, if the unstated goal in passing the rule was to provide the league with evidence of diversity if/when a claim is made that the hiring practices aren't, a good lawyer would be able to twist the NFL's witnesses into Turk's head knots based on the repeated examples of Rooney Rule shenanigans.
Coach Dungy is right -- the rule works when it forces teams to hit the pause button on a predetermined outcome. So instead of making race an issue by requiring at least one minority candidate to be interviewed, the league should simply require a total number of interviews (e.g., five) without regard to any specific characteristics of the candidates.
It would be nice to think that the NFL's teams have evolved beyond the mindset that resulted in so few minority head coaches and front-office executives. If they haven't, then they should be prepared to face the consequences imposed by external forces like public reaction, and private litigation.
Either way, adherence to the letter of the Rooney Rule without respect for its purposes creates far more problems than it ever will solve, and it makes a supposedly progressive and diverse business appear narrow and small-minded.
The NFL succeeds because it constantly searches for ways to improve. While the Rooney Rule might have been an improvement when passed, changing it or getting rid of it would be an improvement now.
Mike Florio writes and edits ProFootballTalk.com and is a regular contributor to Sporting News. Check out PFT for up-to-the minute NFL news.
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