by Aubrey Bruce, For New Pittsburgh Courier
Newsflash—Hear ye, hear ye, the rebellious ex-Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores was recently hired as the Pittsburgh Steelers’ senior defensive assistant/linebackers coach despite his so-called “allegations” of racially insensitive hiring practices when it comes to the NFL. Brooke Pryor of espn.com recently wrote: “(Brian Flores) will not be a head coach for the 2022 season. It was a risk he acknowledged when he filed a lawsuit against the NFL and three teams, including the Dolphins, alleging racial discrimination in hiring practices and in his firing.”
Alleged? There are five coaches of color out of 32 NFL franchises; don’t ignore the obvious.
First and foremost, why would it be potential penalty and a risk for Brian Flores to honestly state the obvious; that the National Football League punishes its employees for being honest? Could this be part of the Colin Kaepernick syndrome? All Kaepernick did was to help expose the ineffective and biased hiring practices that have been in place since the NFL was founded in 1920. The year of 2022 will “celebrate” the 102nd year of prejudicial hiring methods employed by the National Football League, on and off the field, both administratively and athletically. Even when Black coaches are hired from within NFL franchises from the head coach down to entry-level coaching positions, the expectations are always higher. As far as the Steelers and the Rooney family are concerned, the apple has never fallen too far from the tree. Why? Well, because the Rooneys and the Pittsburgh Steelers have, at the very least, historically put forth far more than minimal and superficial attempts to create racial equipoise in regards to hiring people of color are concerned. Sometimes the Steelers have been forced to paddle upstream against the unforgiving current of outdated traditions in order to create an example and set a precedent for other NFL franchises to emulate decades before the Rooney Rule was even conceived.
Whether the Steelers were wallowing in the mud of defeat or glowing standing on the Super Bowl pedestal of victory; they have for the most part did it: “their way.”
After the great Tony Dungy retired as an active player in the NFL he coached briefly at the college level. Later on the late Steelers head coach Chuck Noll hired Dungy as an assistant coach with the Steelers, making him, at 25, the youngest assistant coach in NFL history. In 1984, the Steelers promoted him to be at the time, the league’s youngest defensive coordinator. Dungy eventually became another piece of fruit produced from a “tree” that was planted decades before in the Steelers’ “orchard of excellence.”
From employing the greatest Black scout in NFL history (NFL Hall-of-Famer Bill Nunn), to at one point in time signing more HBCU players than any other NFL franchise, the Pittsburgh Steelers operated by the mantra of “chatter don’t matter, it’s actions that flatters.”
Critics of the Rooney Rule complain that the mandate had little or no effect on the hiring of minority head coaches and is largely “superficial and ceremonial.”
Mr. Dan Rooney did not make an error by proposing and getting the Rooney Rule ratified. The mistake, if any made by Mr. Rooney, was to trust his fellow owners to do the right thing and operate under the “honor system.” When it comes to the battle against overt racism, the Rooney family is not and has not been the type of generals that fight the battle far from the foxholes of the front lines, lounging in a cushy tent drinking mint juleps. They have led and continue to lead their troops into battle, swords drawn facing the foe of racism and prejudice head on for the good of their team and for the good of professional football and the world at-large. If you require more evidence, you need to look no further than the first Black president of the United States, Barack Obama.
Tim Benz of triblive.com recently wrote about the hiring of Brian Flores in one of his recent columns titled: “3 goals the Steelers can meet by hiring Brian Flores.” Mr. Benz wrote the following. “The Pittsburgh Steelers’ decision to hire former Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores as a senior defensive assistant/linebackers coach attempts to address three things. Two of them appear to be about battles of perception. The other is about the battle to get the opposing team off the field without racking up an insane amount of rushing yards and points. That’s a battle the Steelers lost all too frequently in 2021, especially in the second half of the season.”
Perceptions…how often have we heard that? Perceptions don’t have to be based on facts or reality. The lens through which we view or perceive anything does not have to be validated with facts. The only perceptions that Black athletes, coaches as well as the Black and brown population-at-large should be concerned about are removing unjust expectations of them based on unrealistic and unfounded “perceptions” regarding the past, present or future of their job performance.
The following is actually based on decades of conversations between Black families. For decades Black men, women and children have been warned and instructed that we have to work five times harder as any of our White counterparts or colleagues in order to just attain semi-equality in the workplace. However, the way that our current economic and political system is set up, the probability of equality for people of color in almost any profession doesn’t appear to be forthcoming—well, at least not in my lifetime.
Two of the most recent vacated upper-level coaching positions that were filled by the Steelers were hires from within the organization. They were abject failures. The first was former defensive coordinator Keith Butler and the second was offensive coordinator Randy Fichtner. Both men were effective in previous roles with the team but appeared to be totally outmatched and outwitted after they were promoted to positions as coordinators.
Sometimes the buddy, buddy system can be counter-productive when orders have to be given and carried out. Oftentimes Caucasians with bad job performance just switch teams. Black coaches with average or less-than-average performances often are forced to switch professions.
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