Where Are Black NFL Head Coaches? : Several Very Able Candidates Wait . . . and Wait

There is no denying that Tony Dungy, defensive coordinator for the Pittsburgh Steelers, wants to become a head coach in the National Football League.

His feelings are no different from those of any other man climbing the ladder to success.

What he doesn’t want to become is a savior, or the leader of some social cause. Like it or not, though, Dungy has reluctantly become the people’s choice as the NFL’s first modern-day black head coach.

He is so uncomfortable in the role that he has put a one-year moratorium on discussing the subject. Dungy, only 31, has vowed to remain silent in the wake of the Al Campanis controversy, which has refocused attention on the minority hiring practices of professional sports franchises.

These days, there is particular light being shone on the NFL, which has not hired a black head coach since the league’s formative years in the middle ‘20s, when Fritz Pollard coached the Hammond Pros of Hammond, Ind., for three seasons. There are black coaches in pro basketball and there have been black managers in major league baseball in recent years.

But there are no black NFL head coaches. And many people want to know why. Or, rather, why not.

Dungy says he doesn’t have the answers.

“People have tried to make me the spokesman,” he said. “I don’t want to be a spokesman. Everyone wants to make me the No. 1 candidate. I don’t know if that’s good in a lot of ways.”

Dungy said that too much attention on him only deflects attention from some other worthy candidates. Among them are Johnny Roland of the Chicago Bears, Billie Matthews of the Kansas City Chiefs, Dennis Green of the San Francisco 49ers, Jimmy Raye of the Atlanta Falcons, Willie Brown of the Raiders and Al Lavan of the Dallas Cowboys.

“It’s the easy way out, just to pick one guy and wait for him,” Dungy said. “But maybe 15 other guys get passed up for that guy.”

Dungy’s uneasiness is shared in front offices around the league and in the NFL office, where the question of when a black head coach will be hired is now being asked routinely.

“Unfortunately, we were not the first league to hire a black (head coach),” said Joe Browne, a spokesman for Commissioner Pete Rozelle’s office. “And that’s the focus of the media and I don’t know if it’s entirely fair.”

The NFL maintains that great strides are being made to hire and promote black employees and coaches across the board. Browne and others say it’s only a matter of time before a black head coach is hired; that Rozelle himself addressed the issue in a December meeting with seven black employees in the league.

“The focus of the media has been the lack of a head coach, and there’s no way of explaining that,” Browne said. “On the other hand, Pete is interested in hiring positions throughout the league and not just with coaches.”

The numbers show that progress is being made. In 1979, there were only nine black assistant coaches in the league. Today, there are 39. Six new black assistants were hired since the end of last season.

The big hire, of course, rests with the league’s owners and general managers.

And Matthews, who moved from the Indianapolis Colts to the Chiefs this season, doesn’t expect things to change soon.

“The power structure is such that those jobs have gone to Caucasians,” Matthews said. “That’s the way things have been and people are reluctant to change, especially when dealing with minorities like blacks. It’s hard to turn over power to someone that has long been looked down upon.”

Art Modell, president of the Cleveland Browns, said that some NFL teams may be waiting around for someone to make the first move.

“It’s coming,” Modell said. “I can’t predict when. All I can tell you is that I’m optimistic that the barriers are down.”

Modell said that the growing number of qualified black assistants makes a move to a black head coach inevitable. He said it’ll probably happen within five years.

However, some NFL black assistant coaches interviewed had statistics of their own.

Last year, for instance, there were six openings for head coaches. But none of the black coaches contacted for this story were interviewed for the positions.

In fact, it is believed that only two black coaches, Dungy and Jimmy Raye, have been interviewed for head coaching positions in the last 50 years.

Dungy was interviewed in 1986 by the Philadelphia Eagles for the job that eventually went to Buddy Ryan. And Raye, the former Ram assistant now with Atlanta, was up for the job in New Orleans that eventually went to Jim Mora.

“As far as my career aspirations, I’m optimistic,” Raye said of his chances of someday becoming a head coach. “But how realistic that is I’m not sure. There’s no evidence pointing that progress has been made. I mean, there hasn’t been (a black head coach) in 60-something years.”

Some black coaches were frustrated by the way some of last year’s openings were handled. Openings in Buffalo and Tampa were filled by two former NFL coaches, Marv Levy and Ray Perkins, who were out of the league at the time.

“It bothers you that they had to go outside to guys that weren’t active in the league when there were capable guys in the league,” Roland said of the Bears. “I’m not saying it doesn’t wash, but it’s at least a real bad rub in the eyes.”

The league is asking the black coaches to be patient. In time, it says, they’ll get their due.

Said Browne: “Unlike other businesses, like fast-food chains, we have a static pool of employees. There’s little turnover. We’re not a growth business. We’re not hiring hundreds of people every month.”

Dennis Green, receivers coach for the 49ers and a former head coach at Northwestern University, shares the NFL’s optimism. He thinks there could be a black head coach as early as next year.

His reasoning is that team owners cannot forever ignore the increasing numbers of viable black coaching candidates. In other words, it will not serve their best interests which, of course, are winning and winning.

“The times will call for the best available person,” Green said. “People can’t go eight or nine years without going to the playoffs. People are trying to win, and along with that will come responsible people who owe their fans the best opportunity to win. And the color of skin should not stop someone from getting the best candidate.”

Still, Green will believe it when he sees it.

“It’s not done until it’s done,” he said. “When it happens, we can talk about something else.”

Some coaches, like Roland, Chicago’s running back coach, aren’t going to wait forever for the chance.

Roland, 44, has been an assistant NFL coach for eight years. But he vows he is not going to be one all his life.

“I own a couple of radio stations (in St. Louis and Montgomery, Ala.)” he said. “And if I can’t be my own boss in one business, I’ll be one in another. If I’m not named, I’ll get out. I enjoy my job in Chicago, that takes out some of the frustration. But I’m a realistic person. If it doesn’t happen in five years, I’m going about my life.”

Following is a brief look at five of the men who could be the first modern-day black coach in the NFL. The list could also include Willie Brown of the Raiders and the Cowboys’ Al Lavan.

TONY DUNGY

Team: Pittsburgh Steelers

Age: 31

Though Dungy is trying to deflect attention from himself, it’s easy to see why he’s perhaps the top candidate. After a brief pro career as a safety, Dungy joined the Steelers as an assistant at age 25. He’s been the team’s defensive coordinator since 1983 and is generally considered one of the NFL’s great young coaching minds.

Dungy, a quarterback at the University of Minnesota, was drafted by the Steelers to play safety. He led the Steelers with six interceptions in 1978 before being traded to San Francisco. He was released by the New York Giants in 1980 and returned to coach at his alma mater before being hired by the Steelers.

There are several reasons why Dungy is reluctant to talk about becoming the league’s first black head coach since Pollard. One reason is his age.

“If it takes me 15 more years to become a head coach, I’ll still only be 46,” he said. “And I’d probably still be considered young.”

Dungy also says he lacks the insight to be a spokesman for the struggle of black coaches.

“There are other guys who have been around and have seen the obstacles,” he said. “I’ve been in one organization and not for a great number of years. I don’t think I’m the person to say what it’s like out there.”

Dungy has said that he doesn’t expect to see a black head coach in the NFL until 1992.

JOHNNY ROLAND

Team: Chicago Bears

Age: 44

Roland, a former star running back, was a fourth-round draft choice of the St. Louis Cardinals in 1965. He was the NFL’s Rookie of the Year in 1966 and played twice in the Pro Bowl. He began his coaching career in 1974 as an assistant to Dan Devine with the Green Bay Packers. He recently completed his fourth season as the Bears’ running backs coach.

Roland, the most outspoken of the five coaches interviewed, is pessimistic of a black becoming a head coach soon.

“In 1978, I said it would be 10 years before we had a black head coach,” he said. “We’re coming up on 10 years and I don’t see it happening for another 5, 10, maybe 20 years. I hope I’m wrong. With recent criticism and baseball coming under fire, it probably opened some eyes. It couldn’t have hurt. Inadvertently, I think the Al Campanis thing might have done some good.”

Roland also said, though, that it would be a mistake to hire a black coach to ease social pressure.

“I hope the equation is that you find the best coach and he happens to be black,” he said.

DENNIS GREEN

Team: San Francisco 49ers

Age: 38

Green, the 49ers’ receiver coach, was one of the few black head coaches in college football. He spent five seasons at Northwestern and was named the Big Ten’s coach of the year in 1982, though his team won just three games. One of those wins, though, snapped Northwestern’s 34-game losing streak.

Green was a running back at Iowa and played briefly in the Canadian Football League. He coached at the University of Dayton and Iowa before joining Bill Walsh at Stanford. He rejoined Walsh with the 49ers as a receiver coach in 1979 before taking the Northwestern job in 1981.

Though Green is frustrated that there are no black head coaches in the NFL, he remains optimistic.

“I’m always positive,” he said. “There’s probably going to be a breakthrough, then there’s going to be a great deal of publicity. After that we won’t have to worry about all the hoopla.”

JIMMY RAYE

Team: Atlanta Falcons

Age: 41

The offensive coordinator for the Rams in 1983 and 1984, Raye joined the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 1985 and remained there until he was fired along with head Coach Leeman Bennett last season. He recently joined the Falcons’ staff. Raye is a former Michigan State quarterback who played one season as a defensive back with the Philadelphia Eagles in 1969. Raye’s coaching career began in 1971 at Michigan State.

Raye, as mentioned before, is one of two black coaches to have been interviewed for a head coaching position in the NFL. Although he lost out to Mora in New Orleans, Raye said he was treatly fairly.

“I don’t think they would have wasted their time if they didn’t have a genuine interest,” he said. “Just sitting through the interview, I was glad to get the opportunity.”

He doesn’t know, though, when the next one will come.

“The one thing thing you have to be aware of is that there are no written rules,” Raye said. “You can do all these thing to become a head coach, but these guys are not following any hiring guidelines. Guys are hired for all kinds of reasons. And sometimes no reason.”

BILLIE MATTHEWS

Team: Kansas City Chiefs

Age: 57

Matthews is the oldest of the candidates with almost four decades of football experience as a college player or coach. He started coaching as an assistant at Kansas in 1970. He spent the next eight years at UCLA, where he helped Wendell Tyler and Theotis Brown to 1,000-yard rushing seasons.

Matthews was offensive coordinator for the Colts last season before taking a job with Kansas City this season.

Matthews, unlike the others, is running out of chances and time.

“I’d like to be a head coach,” he said. “I wouldn’t care if I was the first or the second or the fifth. Being the first black head coach wouldn’t give me as big a thrill as just being a head coach.

“I’m not really frustrated about it. I’d certainly like to get an interview, but a lot of other people also deserve it. I’m just one of them. But if a guy has something to offer, I think the talent should be exploited.”

The NFL Draft: There could be some last-minute maneuvering before today’s draft. Bob Oates’ story, Page 5.