Tony Dungy: Teams Must Hire The Right Black Coaches
Tony Dungy stopped one step shy of saying that token hires of minority coaches conspires against them keeping their jobs.
It’s important not to take him out of context. The Hall of Famer and first black Super Bowl winning coach was making a broad point about the qualities needed in coaching.
However, he does raise a salient point about how and why coaches of coloured are hired.Â
After the Chargers fired Anthony Lynn this week, there are only three minority head coaches in the NFL. This is down from eight two years ago.
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For minority coaches to succeed, teams must hire the right minority coaches, rather than any minority coaches.
“Now we got a situation where we do have some young minority offensive coaches, but we got to get the owners to understand that they need to be looking for leaders. Leadership is what wins for you,†said Tony Dungy.
“Sean McVay is a great offensive coach, but Sean McVay is a leader. Bill Belichick is a leader. He’s a great coach. He doesn’t have to coach quarterbacks but he can win Super Bowls. That’s what we got to get people to understand.â€
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“I’ve been frustrated in the times Commissioner [Roger} Goodell has had me talk to someone, or people just call me and say, I’d like some recommendations,” Dungy shared. “And my first question is, what are you looking for? And you’d be surprised that 80 percent of the time they can’t tell you.
“Many of these owners cannot tell you that, they don’t know what they’re looking for, so they don’t end up hiring the right person, and then when they do end up hiring someone they don’t stick behind them because they really weren’t their guy. They were the media’s guy or they were some search firm’s guy, and then when you hit a little bump in the road, they don’t want to stand behind them. So, it’s a two-way street. But I think the first step is really defining what you’re looking for.”
