20 April 2016

African Americans in National Football League Executive & Managerial Work:

A Review and Proposal

Okpalefe Edevbie, Wayne State University

Preface
My research will take a close look at minority workers in the National Football League
(NFL), and their standing within the community as players, coaches, and executives. Its purpose
is to reveal and shed light on any potential racial biases in the league, and how they might work
in favor or against certain races and ethnicities. Narratives about racial discrimination in sport
have played themselves out in the media and into the public spotlight. Such narratives have
grown awareness for the issue and have put pressure on high-ranking sport officials to make
changes. By better understanding possible racial tensions and discriminatory practices, the NFL
and other concerned or related parties can more effectively work towards achieving equality for
its minority members. And by continuing the conversation of institutionalized racism, the sport
management discourse community as a whole can find, propose, and enact solutions.
For the past couple decades (extending back into the early to mid-1900s), the United
States has made significant progress towards ending racially discriminatory practices - Brown
vs. Board of Education, the 60s Civil Rights Movement, and the Montgomery Bus Boycott are
just a few examples. As a country, we have taken a stand against racism and its unjust nature.
That being said, we are still far away from achieving an ideal level of equality. Institutionalized
racism in the workplace (and in this case, the NFL) is one area of concern. I am aiming to draw
out and bring light to this concern, and hopefully, provide a solution to the problem.
This paper will start with a literature review, analyzing the potential racial rifts in NFL
hiring practices. The paper will end with the proposal of a comprehensive research study, along
with a description of its methods, limitations, and implications.

Literature Review
Introduction
The National Football League has an unfortunate history with racism and discrimination
towards black and minority1 workers, dating back to 1934 to 1946 [when] blacks were excluded
from the labor force, (Lomax 1999, p. 165). The NFL made its first baby steps toward racial
equality in 1946 with the signing of Kenny Washington to the Los Angeles Rams, who ended the
12-year absence of black players (Britannica 2014).
Since then, we have seen some major triumphs for African American football figures.
Doug Williams became the first African American starting quarterback to win a Super Bowl in
1988 and Tony Dungy became the first African American head coach to win a Super Bowl in
2007.
It does not seem, however, that these accomplishments have truly changed the
landscape for minority players in the NFL. There are few African Americans and minorities in
executive positions in the NFL - including head coaches, coordinators, general managers,
presidents, and etc. After the firing of Lovie Smith in January 2016, only four African American
head coaches remained in the NFL2 - which equates to 12.5% of the entire league. However,
African Americans make up 68.7% of the NFL (Lapchick & Robinson 2015). To the average
person, this might seem disproportionate and out of whack.
While trying to find solutions and answers to this perplexing dilemma, I asked myself two
questions: Does the NFL perpetuate institutionalized racism? And if it is confirmed that it does,
how and in what ways?
Within any field of sport management - which is defined by Brenda G. Pitts and David K. Stotlar
in Fundamentals of Sport Marketing as the study and practice of all people, activities,
1 With the primary focus of this literature review being on African Americans, the terms black and
minority are often used interchangeably and in tandem. However, all minority groups were taken into
consideration and thought of during the composition of this paper.
2 Hue Jackson was subsequently hired by the Cleveland Browns, increasing the number back to five.

businesses, or organizations involved in producing, facilitating, or organizing any sport-related

business or product, (Pitts & Stotlar, p. 4) - it is important to evaluate hiring practices as a
potential area of discrimination and injustice.

Hiring Practices
Like any field of work, hiring/admissions practice protocol is an area of business that is
subject to scrutiny when it comes to the issue of racism and discrimination. The NFL (and any
other professional sports league for that matter) is no different. With sports, the act of hiring
personnel can be looked at in two parts. The first is through the traditional lens, or the average
American business recruitment/hiring process, which deals with the typical job interview (i.e. the
printed out resume, the discussion of goals and objectives, and etc.). In the area of sport
management, this involves executives and non-player professionals (i.e. coaches, general
managers). The second is through an arena unique to professional sports - the sports drafts and
free agency. A team drafting a certain player in a certain round is the equivalent of getting hired but it is a hiring practice in which the athlete has little to no say (outside of unique cases that
include athletes such as Eli Manning or John Elway3, the player has minimal leverage and
power in deciding which sports team/organization that they initially work for). The free agency
aspect is much more indicative and relatable to common hiring practices in the business world,
as the workers (players) have more of an equal say - they seek out employment, and based on
their credentials and background, the employer (sports team) will be willing to hire the worker for
a certain rate/salary/contract.
A significant question in the sports world and in the NFL is if these hiring practice
protocols are influenced and altered by a candidates race. A point argued by Brian W. Collins
about the hiring of coaches in Tackling Unconscious Bias in Hiring Practices: The Plight of the

3 After refusing to play for the teams that drafted them, both Eli Manning and John Elway were able to
parlay their way onto different teams, by way of trade.

Rooney Rule, is that The NFL's longstanding hiring practices and networking systems have
consistently allowed front-office decision makers to avoid interacting with qualified African
American candidates, (Collins 2007, p.872). Like many fields of work, African Americans have
little history in executive and leadership roles in pro sports and in the NFL. Embedded within the
NFLs history is a systemic issue for black managerial candidates. While African Americans
have tried to break into the executive industry, it is one primarily composed of caucasian and
non-minority members - who have historically hired and recruited caucasian and non-minority
members. As referred to as old boy networks by Collins, these networks tend to reinforce
traditional power structures by limiting hiring practices and/ or business transactions to other
elites or acquaintances within the network, (Collins 2007, p. 876). Essentially, this old boy
network has thrived due to the idea of unconscious bias, (Collins 2007) - meaning that
individuals tend to hire and associate themselves with individuals who are similar (in this case, it
is similarity based off appearance and race).
It is important to note that the National Football League has recognized the problem to
an extent, and has taken steps to help remedy the situation. In 2003, the league implemented
the Rooney Rule - a mandate that requires all NFL teams with head coaching vacancies to
interview at least one minority candidate for the position. While the Rooney Rule seems to come
from good intentions, Christopher I. Rider, James B. Wade, Anand Swaminathan, and Andreas
Schwab assess in their piece Racial disparity in leadership: Performance-reward bias in
promotions of National Football League coaches, that the rule is a distraction from more
fundamental lower-level mechanisms that shape racial disparities in leadership, (Rider, Wade,
Swaminathan & Schwab 2016, p. 7).
Rider and his team point out two issues - 1) Black/minority coaches are pigeonholed into
entry coaching positions that do not have great promotion prospects and 2) The typical white
candidate is much more likely to receive a promotion over any of his black peers. When
discussing the first issue, the authors noted that black coaches are generally more likely than

white coaches to begin their NFL coaching careers in positions with low prospects for upward
mobility (e.g., DL4, RB5) while white coaches more often begin their NFL careers in positions
with better prospects (e.g., DC6, OC7, QB8), (Rider, Wade, Swaminathan & Schwab 2016, p.
27). This note seems to suggest that white coaches are immediately put on a better career
trajectory when they start out as coaches - a trajectory that can take them to an executive
position (i.e. head coach). Conversely, black coaches seem to face much worse job prospects,
and are more likely to remain at or very close to their starting level (as a position coach or
coordinator). This information leads the authors into their second issue, which is based around
the studys central idea of performance-reward bias, or the favoring of one candidate over the
other despite two similar performances. The authors, using statistics from their models and
tables find that a white coachs promotion likelihood is [1.56 to 1.74] times higher than an
observationally-equivalent black coachs likelihood, (Rider, Wade, Swaminathan & Schwab
2016, p. 31-32). This equation seems to establish and confirm a systematic problem - not only
are white coaches being put into optimal position early in their careers, these same coaches are
being rewarded over black/minority coaches for essentially the same performance.
This trend seems particularly perplexing when evaluating the performance of white and
black coaches when it comes to their head coaching track records. In Differences in the
Success of NFL coaches by Race, 1990-2002: Evidence of Last Hire, First Fire, author Janice
Fanning Madden takes an in depth look at the performance of black head coaches vs. white
head coaches, and found data that suggests that black coaches outperform white coaches
when given the opportunity to become a head coach. As written by Madden, between 1990 and
2002, African American coaches averaged 9.1 wins and White coaches averaged 8 wins
[and] sixty-nine percent of teams coached by African American coaches made the playoff, but
4 Defensive Line Coach
5 Running Backs Coach
6 Defensive Coordinator
7 Offensive Coordinator
8 Quarterbacks Coach

only 40% of those with White coaches did, (Madden 2004). These findings by Madden show
that black coaches have performed consistently better than their white counterparts in head
coaching roles (when they actually do have the opportunity to have them). While the stereotype
of black head coaches are more successful than white head coaches should be avoided, the
fact that black coaches have done very well in their limited head coaching opportunities should
be noted and highlighted. Combined with the results of Racial disparity in leadership, it is clear
that performance is not (or should not be) a negative factor working against African American
coaches.
The heavy presence of older white male executives - such as the white head coach or
general manager - in the National Football League has also caused a racial rift when it comes to
the hiring of league workers, or the professional athletes. In a study done by Mikaela J. Dufur
and Seth L. Feinberg called Race and the NFL Draft: Views from the Auction Block, the author
dives into the hiring conventions of the NFL combine and draft, discovering that there seems to
be a preferential treatment and handling of white candidates than that of their minority
counterparts after interviewing several players who attended the combine.
With white executives leading the way and running the show, many of the minority
players [Dufur and Feinberg] spoke with had been subjected to more thorough investigations of
potential deviant behavior in their families and their backgrounds than their white peers
reported. Several minority workers described conversations in which their girlfriends were asked
about [possible domestic abuse] [and] they were also quizzed in detail about relatives who
may have been jailed or involved with drug problems. None of the white players [Dufur and
Feinberg] interviewed reported the same experience, (Dufur & Feinberg 2008, p. 61). The
information Dufur and Feinberg found suggests that minority and black players were judged and
evaluated on a different criteria than that of their white colleagues - possibly stemming from a
misunderstanding and ignorance to minority cultures.

Conclusion and Proposal

This literature review sought to highlight some of the bigger racial disparities in the
National Football League (NFL) in relation to the institutions hiring practices. Close study of the
leagues hiring practices reveal that there is likely a systematic problem when it comes to the
hiring and promotion of African American and minority candidates, as white candidates seemed
to be hired on a preferential standard and under a different set of criteria.
There have been many suggestions made and actions taken to alleviate the NFLs race
issue (i.e. the Rooney Rule), but Ill choose to focus on one partially inspired by Dufur and
Feinberg in Race and the NFL Draft for this conclusion. The authors make the claim that the
NFL will continue to employ symbolic racism until the racial composition of those who own and
operate the professional football teams is diversified, (Dufur & Feinberg 2008, p. 69). With this
in mind, I propose a qualitative research study and survey about underlying racism and
discrimination in the NFL. I hypothesize that this study will render certain results and come to
certain conclusions - results and conclusions that confirm that there is institutionalized racism in
the NFL. If this hypothesis is true, I suggest that the NFL take an important step towards
bettering race relations by investigating the possibility of a minority executive/administrator
developmental program, one in which minority candidates are put on a career path and guided
towards executive positions in the league.

Methodology
With all of this in mind, I propose a research survey and study that will seek to shed
more light on racism in the NFL and give power to NFL employees who have been marginalized
in their field of work.
The first part of the initiative will be a survey administered to every NFL player, coach,
management executive and league executive. The leagues top executives (such as
commissioner Roger Goodell) would ideally be the ones to oversee the project - as it should be

hoped that the most important and high-ranking NFL officials have some concern of their league
potentially (and most probably) fostering racism and discrimination. The survey would offer a
range of questions (short-answer, true/false, etc.) asking NFL employees about their thoughts
on racism in the workplace, and more specifically, in the NFL. Questions would run along the
lines of Do you believe there is proportional representation of minorities in NFL executive
positions (i.e. head coach, general manager) and If no, do you believe this holds the NFL back
from being as efficient as a workplace as it can be? The questions are geared towards
unnerving and surfacing NFL employees attitudes about race. Overall, the survey would aim to
gain applicable information about racism in the NFL.
The second part of the initiative would be a research study, looking to piggyback off and
continue the work of the authors in this papers literature review. The study would entail the
further willingness of participation from NFL general managers, other front office executives, and
NFL team owners and would primarily focus on those who have a significant role in hiring a
teams head and assistant coaches. A list of popular potential head coaching candidates would
be generated, based off the opinions of these executives and also NFL media personnel, who
are in constant contact with these executives. Once the list is generated, the coaches on the list
would be examined by race and performance. The next step would be to go back to these NFL
executives and ask why they believed these heading coaching candidates should be considered
for NFL head coaching vacancies, in an interview type style. Overall, the study would aim to find
the characteristics NFL executives look for in head coaching candidates (whether it is race,
performance, or etc.). To control for possibly untruthful or disingenuous responses, the
participants would not be told that the study would be used in an institutionalized racism case
study.
The survey portion would ideally be conducted sometime during the NFL offseason,
most likely during the beginning of training camp, when rosters have not been cut down on
players and there are more participants available (increasing the sample size). The survey could

be administered at any given NFL facility or team headquarters. The research study portion
would ideally be conducted sometime during the NFL regular season, when possible head
coaching vacancies are being discussed and an assistant coachs season performance can
start to be thoroughly analyzed.

Discussion
Though I believe this proposed research study and survey could play a significant role in
adding to the conversation of racism in the NFL, there are some limitations that should be
noted. The proposal requires and is predicated on full cooperation with the National Football
League, and in a professional league that is so inclusive, it is somewhat concerning as to
whether or not the league would allow the type of access necessary for the success of this
qualitative study. The study is also dependent on the truthful and unbiased response of several
hundred participants, which might be particularly difficult to achieve in the survey portion. NFL
players - black, white, Hispanic, Polynesian, and etc. - are asked and questioned on race in
their workplace very often. It is very possible that they have been pre-conditioned to give certain
responses and certain answers to certain types of questions. With the survey being so upfront
about race, it might sway a participant's answers one way or another (this, of course, could be
minimized by the careful wording and outlining of survey questions). Perhaps the biggest
limitation of the study (as it relates back to the first concern), is that the NFLs participation and
cooperation would essentially mean that they agree that there is some type of problem of
institutionalized racism in their company. For an institution so heavily in the public eye, the NFL
may conclude that any type of participation would generate a bad public image for the league.
However, if the NFL does decide to fully engage in the proposal, I anticipate that the
results rendered will call for a more drastic initiative. Based off the studies outlined in the
literature review, I have no reason to believe that my proposal will conclude with different
results. It is more probable that not that there is significant institutionalized racism in the NFL. In

an ideal scenario, the NFL would fully recognize this and decide to take a significant step
towards ending it.
I further propose a NFL executive developmental program, in which minority assistant
coaches could be put on a path to a NFL head coaching role. In this affirmative action program,
qualified minority coaches would have the opportunity to apply, and if accepted, they would
learn about the several ins and outs of NFL head coaching from former NFL head coaches9. In
this course-like setting, the former NFL head coaches (the instructors) would have an
opportunity to refer their top pupils to NFL teams searching for head coaches. Overall, the
program would give minority and black coaches more of a chance to showcase their aptitude for
being a NFL head coach. A similar program could even be started for minority candidates
looking to become NFL general managers, vice presidents, and etc.
The aforementioned qualitative study and survey and the executive development
program, again, will only work if the NFL chooses to face its problem with institutionalized
racism head-on. It is time to stop running around and avoiding this issue. It is time for change.

9 The NFL already helps conduct a media bootcamp in which players nearing the end of their playing
careers are given the opportunity to learn skills necessary to be successful in sports media. The proposed
executive developmental program is partially inspired by this.

Works Cited
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