Sports Provide Reasons to Celebrate Holiday Too

On the day set aside to honor the life and hopes and dreams of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., it might be a good time to celebrate the progress that has been made in sports.

All his life King stated in lyrical, eloquent words that the United States and all humankind should progress to a place where race doesn’t matter. Be vigilant and persistent. Don’t give in, don’t give up.

And so, in all parts of life, people keep a scorecard. To bring this country and humankind and even the sports world to a place where race doesn’t matter, we seem to need to count color. We tally the times we fall short.

Only four of 119 NCAA Division I college football coaches are African American. Only one of 32 NFL head coaches is African American. Those numbers are repeated so often it seems that on our sporting fields, in our front offices and coaching booths we have made no progress. To keep the hammer coming down on the shortcomings, it seems prudent to ignore the improvements. Sometimes it seems as if all things regarding race are getting worse and not better, that the news is always bad.

Tony Dungy is fired. Dennis Green is fired. The NFL is going backward.

And in pointing to the negative all the time, the conversation becomes skewed. Perception is not reality. If we talk always of failures, we are ignoring some of the things Martin Luther King stood for. King, after all, said the goal is to count character and not skin color.

If all that is taken from Tampa Bay’s firing of Dungy is that an African American coach lost his job, then the point has been missed.

The men who look bad are the owners of the Buccaneers, the Glazers, who clumsily fired the talented, admired, classy Dungy in a greedy clutch for an egotistical has-been. And the has-been looks even worse now.

Bill Parcells has been uncovered as selfish and self-centered, and the Glazers have been left without a coach. Dungy is choosing between offers to coach the Indianapolis Colts and Carolina Panthers. Those are two places where white coaches were fired.

It is natural, when change is needed, to pinpoint only the bad things that have created the need for change. It is embarrassing, when we speak of race, to point out things that should always have been.

But in just the last year there have been good things.

For example, on a Sunday afternoon last March, when Kentucky faced Mississippi in the Southeastern Conference championship men’s basketball game, both coaches and all three officials were African Americans. And what was great about this is that almost nobody seemed to notice. No one felt the need to point and say, “My, aren’t we great?”

Tubby Smith at Kentucky and Rod Barnes at Mississippi were hired for those head coaching jobs in cities where four decades ago they wouldn’t have been allowed to play basketball.

When Smith replaced Rick Pitino as Kentucky coach four-plus years ago, a Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader columnist wrote that Smith was making a mistake in taking the job because the racists in Lexington would run him out of town, would never give him a chance.

Smith hasn’t been run out of town. He has won a national championship and been worshiped. He has played his son at point guard and been ripped on talk radio. When the Wildcats win, Smith is God. When the Wildcats lose, Smith is a bum. In other words, his treatment is no different from that received by any basketball coach at Kentucky. And that’s the point. When Pitino returned to the town last month as coach of in-state rival Louisville, it was Pitino, once God himself in Lexington, who was booed.

And isn’t that what King was aiming for? “Tubby, Tubby, Tubby,” they shouted at Rupp Arena. In an arena named after a legend who tarnished himself by refusing to recruit African Americans for far too long, an African American was embraced as one of their own.

As long as racism was institutionalized in our country, in our sports, it couldn’t just disappear.

For those who say that it is unfair that there are so few African American coaches and general managers while retread white men are recycled, that the good, old boys’ club keeps propping up losers, guess what?

African American men are now in the recyclable pipeline too.

Dungy is going to be recycled immediately. Green, who is going to spend a year doing television, will be in demand when he decides to coach again. Count on it.

There are seven NFL assistant coaches being touted as head coaching prospects. Four of them--Ted Cottrell of the New York Jets, Lovie Smith of the St. Louis Rams, Greg Blache of the Chicago Bears and Marvin Lewis of the Baltimore Ravens--are African American.

And it isn’t only in football where African Americans have filled the pipeline and moved to the head of the interview pool.

When Pat Riley suddenly bolted the New York Knicks, it was the man sitting next to him on the bench who got the job: Jeff Van Gundy. This year, when Van Gundy suddenly bolted the Knicks, it was the man sitting next to him on the bench who got the job: Don Chaney. An African American. It was the natural progression. Chaney got the job the same way dozens of white men did. By moving up the chain.

It happened that way in Charlotte too. Dave Cowens got fired, Paul Silas was next in line. Maybe Silas waited longer in line than some thought he should have, but the wait is getting shorter. John Lucas--ex-Philadelphia coach, ex-San Antonio coach--is now Cleveland coach. Recycled, same as Don Nelson.

When Notre Dame hired Tyrone Willingham as coach last month, Notre Dame needed Willingham far more than Willingham needed the Notre Dame job. And Notre Dame didn’t need Willingham for his race.

Notre Dame needed Willingham because Willingham knows how to recruit talented football players with the highest academic and moral standards. He has done that at Stanford.

Certainly there aren’t enough minorities yet in major league baseball front offices or on the sidelines of big-time college football programs. But if a survey was done, those four head coaches out of 119 teams probably constitute a higher percentage of African American leadership in the football programs than you’d find in the chemistry, engineering, law or history departments at those universities. Sports does better.

And it will keep getting better. Why? Because sports is about competition. And you can’t compete by keeping out talent of any color or any sex.

If all we do is browbeat owners or athletic directors or university presidents with the negative racial statistics, we demean so many others. Talented men and women of all races don’t need to beg for jobs. They need only stand tall and say, “Pass me by at your own peril. I can win for you or for somebody else.”

Last Tuesday night, Martin Luther King’s birthday, the NHL celebrated Diversity Day. There was a special ceremony before the Edmonton-St. Louis game. It included a photo of players representing cultures throughout the world.

“The message Dr. King gave was not strictly one for people of color,” Frank Brown, NHL spokesman, said. “It was of embracing all cultures.”

Baseball is better for the Latino and Japanese and Korean players who have arrived to strengthen the game. Hockey is better for the Finns and Swedes, Russians and Czechs. The Olympics keep getting better with the increasing prominence of women’s sports.

King would approve.

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Diane Pucin can be reached at diane.pucin@latimes.com.