Rooney Rule

The Rooney Rule is a National Football League policy that requires league teams to interview ethnic-minority candidates for head coaching and senior football operation jobs. It is an example of affirmative action, even though there is no hiring quota or hiring preference given to minorities, only an interviewing quota.[1][2][3] It was established in 2003, and variations of the rule are now in place in other industries.[4][5]

History and origin

The rule is named after Dan Rooney, the former owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers and former chairman of the league's diversity committee.[6]

It was created as a reaction to the 2002 firings of head coaches Tony Dungy of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Dennis Green of the Minnesota Vikings, at a time when Dungy had a winning record and Green had just had his first losing season in ten years. Shortly afterwards, U.S. civil rights attorneys Cyrus Mehri and Johnnie Cochran released a study showing that black head coaches, despite winning a higher percentage of games, were less likely to be hired and more likely to be fired than their white counterparts. Former NFL players Kellen Winslow and John Wooten then put together a self-described "affinity group" of minority scouts, coaches, and front-office personnel, to advocate for the rule's creation.[7]

Its purpose was to ensure that minority coaches, especially African Americans, would be considered for high-level coaching positions. Fritz Pollard was the only minority head coach in NFL history (which was during the league's early years in the 1920s)[8] and by the time the rule was implemented, only Tom Flores, Art Shell, Dennis Green, Ray Rhodes, Tony Dungy, and Herman Edwards had ever held head coaching jobs. (Only Dungy and Edwards were actively head coaching at the time of the rule's implementation, though Shell and Green would later return to head coaching).[9] Dungy in particular had struggled for years before getting a head coaching job; he was often promoted as a head coaching candidate by Chuck Noll when Dungy was an assistant under Noll in the 1980s with the Steelers, but he would not become a head coach until 1996 when he took over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Another former Steelers assistant, Marvin Lewis, also struggled to find a head coaching position despite immense success as the Baltimore Ravens defensive coordinator and would not find a head coaching position until being hired by the Cincinnati Bengals in 2003, the year the Rooney Rule went into effect.[10]

Impact

Since the Rooney Rule was established, several NFL franchises have hired African-American head coaches, including the Steelers themselves, who hired Mike Tomlin before their 2007 season.[11] (The Steelers, however, had already interviewed Ron Rivera, who is ethnically Hispanic, to fulfill the requirement before interviewing Tomlin, and Rooney himself contends that Tomlin's hiring did not result from the Rule.)[12] At the start of the 2006 season, the overall percentage of African-American coaches had jumped to 22%, up from 6% prior to the Rooney Rule.[13]

In the next 12 seasons under the rule, the NFL added 14 non-white head coaches, although many lost their jobs after a few seasons.

For the 2019 season, eight NFL teams had head coaching vacancies to fill, but only one team, the Miami Dolphins, hired a non-white coach.

As of 2020, the NFL has three African-American head coaches, the same number as in 2003 when the Rooney Rule was adopted.[14]

Application

The rule does not apply if an assistant coach has language in his contract guaranteeing him the head coaching job in case of an opening.[15] For example, this was the case when Mike Martz took over as head coach of the St. Louis Rams before the 2000 season. Also, the requirement does not apply if the assistant coach taking over the head position is a minority, as was the case with Mike Singletary and the San Francisco 49ers in late 2008.[16]

As of June 15, 2009, Rooney Rule requirements apply to all searches for senior football operations positions within the NFL, regardless of a team's title for that position. It now also includes all ethnic minorities, not just African Americans.

As of December 31, 2018, two of the 32 head coaches in the NFL are African-American, with one Hispanic head coach.[17] Recently, some legal scholars have advocated for extending the Rooney Rule to college football, where the number of minority head coaches hovers around 6%,[18] well below the 12.6% of the total US population which is African-American.[19]

Detroit Lions case, 2003

In 2003, the NFL fined the Detroit Lions $200,000 for failure to interview African-American candidates for the team's vacant head coaching job. After Marty Mornhinweg was fired, the Lions immediately hired former San Francisco 49ers head coach Steve Mariucci (a native of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan) to replace him without interviewing any other candidates. The Lions claimed they attempted to interview other candidates but that the African-American candidates withdrew from interviews, believing Mariucci's hiring was inevitable.[20] The Lions would not have a minority head coach until hiring Jim Caldwell in 2014.

2012 controversial non-hirings and possible rule revision

In the wake of no minority hirings to fill eight head coaching and seven general management vacancies following the conclusion of the 2012 NFL regular season, NFL Executive Vice president of Human Resources Robert Gulliver stated, "While there has been full compliance with the interview requirements of the Rooney Rule and we wish the new head coaches and general managers much success, the hiring results this year have been unexpected and reflect a disappointing lack of diversity."[21] Analysts have pointed to the lack of interview offers for Baltimore Ravens' Offensive Coordinator Jim Caldwell, who, as head coach, led the Indianapolis Colts to a 14–2 2009 season along with winning the 2009 American Football Conference title before losing in Super Bowl XLIV, as evidence that the rule needs revision.[22] Some sports analysts have called upon the NFL to modify the Rooney Rule by requiring NFL teams to interview a minority candidate outside their respective organizations, and extending the rule to include interviews for offensive and defensive coordinators.[23]

2020 controversy

In recent years, the trend of hiring head coaches in the NFL has shifted towards looking for successful offensive coordinators; a role in which minorities only hold two out of the 32 available positions.[24] In 2020, five new NFL teams had head coaching vacancies to fill, and only one of them hired a non-white coach. Controversy arose when the Cleveland Browns hired Kevin Stefanski, the offensive coordinator for the Minnesota Vikings, and the New York Giants hired Joe Judge, whose highest position on an NFL has been Special Teams Coordinator.[25] This caused controversy because many figures around the league believed that Eric Bieniemy, the offensive coordinator for the Super Bowl winning Kansas City Chiefs, was the candidate most deserving of a head coaching position. Under Eric Bieniemy, the Kansas City Chiefs had the leagues top-ranked offense in the 2018 season, and the 5th ranked offense in 2019.[26]

The 2020 NFL offseason led to many figures questioning the effectiveness of this rule due to Eric Bieniemy not receiving serious consideration for a head coaching position and other such controversies since the rule's inception. To fulfill the requirements of this rule, many teams interview non-white coaches that have been around the league for years and have had previously unsuccessful stints as head coaches.[27] Critics of the rule argue that the rule has been largely ineffective, and in some situations, it has even had the opposite effect; with non-white coaches being interviewed without being given serious consideration just to fulfill the requirement.[28]

Proposal

There was a proposal to upgrade the draft picks of teams who hired minority coaches and kept them in that position for over a year.

Outside the NFL

In association football (soccer), players' representatives have been campaigning for a similar practice in England. Gordon Taylor, Chief Executive of the PFA (the players' trade union) said in September 2014 the sport "has a 'hidden resistance' preventing black managers getting jobs," pointing out that "you see so many black players on the pitch, yet we have two black managers out of 92."[29] Garth Crooks, a prominent black former player, was especially scathing of the failure of the English Football League (a large association of clubs below the top-tier Premier League) to pursue the matter, suggesting the league lacked courage.[30] Black coaches Kieron Dyer and Titus Bramble spoke out against the idea of Rooney Rule, saying they did not want to be perceived as having their roles because of a "quota".[31] On January 9, 2018, it was reported that the England national football team would implement the Rooney Rule for all future interviews for the manager position.[32]

On August 2, 2020, the West Coast Conference (WCC), an NCAA Division I league, announced that it had adopted a similar policy effective immediately, calling its initiative the Russell Rule after Basketball Hall of Famer Bill Russell, who played in college at charter and current WCC member San Francisco. The WCC became the first Division I conference to establish such a policy. According to the WCC,[33]

The “Russell Rule” requires each member institution to include a member of a traditionally underrepresented community in the pool of final candidates for every athletic director, senior administrator, head coach and full-time assistant coach position in the athletic department.

Outside sports

Some companies outside of sports, such as Pinterest, Facebook, Patreon and Checkr, have put similar rules in place for their hiring processes.[34][5][35][36] In general, the Rooney rule in these companies focuses on the diversity of the applicants in the pipeline for a particular position; the rule requires pausing at some stage of the hiring process until some diversity benchmark has been reached for the pool of applicants at that stage.[37] Inspired by the Rooney Rule, Diversity Lab created the Mansfield Rule in 2017, which is named after the first woman admitted to the practice of law in the U.S., Arabella Mansfield. The Mansfield Rule measures whether law firms have affirmatively considered (at least 30 percent of the candidate pool) historically underrepresented lawyers for leadership and governance roles, equity partner promotions, and lateral positions.[38]

List of minority NFL head coaches

Key:

W	Wins
L	Losses
	Interim head coach only
	Active head coach
	Hall of Fame Coach

Note: List is correct through May 2020.

Head coach	Teams	Years	Regular season				Playoffs			Best results
			W	L	T	Win %	W	L	Win %
Fritz Pollard	Akron Pros, Hammond Pros	1921, 1925	8	4	0	.667	0	0	0
Tom Flores	Oakland/LA Raiders, Seattle Seahawks	1979–1987, 1992–1994	97	87	0	.527	8	3	.727	Won Super Bowl XV and Super Bowl XVIII
Art Shell	Los Angeles Raiders	1989–1994, 2006	56	52	0	.518	2	3	.400	1990–1991 AFC Championship Game
Dennis Green	Minnesota Vikings and Arizona Cardinals	1992–2001, 2004–2006	113	94	0	.546	4	8	.333	1998 and 2000 NFC Championship Game
Ray Rhodes	Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers	1995–1998, 1999	37	42	1	.468	1	2	.333	1995 NFC Divisional Game
Tony Dungy	Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Indianapolis Colts	1996–2001, 2002–2008	139	69	0	.668	9	10	.474	Won Super Bowl XLI
Herman Edwards	New York Jets and Kansas City Chiefs	2001–2005, 2006–2008	56	78	0	.422	2	4	.333	2002, 2004 AFC Divisional Game
Rooney Rule Instituted, 2003
Marvin Lewis	Cincinnati Bengals	2003-2018	131	122	3	.518	0	6	.000	1st in AFC North, Lost all AFC Wild-Card games played
Lovie Smith	Chicago Bears and Tampa Bay Buccaneers	2004–2012, 2014–2015	89	87	0	.506	3	3	.500	Won 2006 NFC Championship, Lost Super Bowl XLI
Terry Robiskie	Washington Redskins*, Cleveland Browns*	2000, 2004	2	6	0	.250	—	—	—	3rd AFC North (with Cleveland)
Romeo Crennel	Cleveland Browns, Kansas City Chiefs	2005–2008, 2011–2012	28	55	0	.337	—	—	—	2nd AFC North (with Cleveland)
Mike Tomlin	Pittsburgh Steelers	2007–	133	73	1	.645	8	7	.533	Won Super Bowl XLIII
Emmitt Thomas	Atlanta Falcons*	2007	1	3	0	.259	—	—	—	4th NFC South
Mike Singletary	San Francisco 49ers	2008–2010	18	22	0	.462	—	—	—	2nd NFC West
Jim Caldwell	Indianapolis Colts and Detroit Lions	2009–2011, 2014–2017	62	50	0	.554	2	4	.333	2009 AFC Champion, Lost Super Bowl XLIV
Raheem Morris	Tampa Bay Buccaneers	2009–2011	17	31	0	.354	—	—	—	3rd NFC South
Perry Fewell	Buffalo Bills*, Carolina Panthers*	2009, 2019	3	8	0	.273	—	—	—	4th AFC East
Leslie Frazier	Minnesota Vikings	2010–2013	21	32	1	.382	0	1	.000	2nd NFC North
Eric Studesville	Denver Broncos*	2010	1	3	0	.250	—	—	—	4th AFC West
Ron Rivera	Carolina Panthers and Washington Redskins	2011–2019, 2019-	76	63	1	.546	3	4	.429	2015 NFC Champion, Lost Super Bowl 50
Todd Bowles	New York Jets	2015–2018	26	41	0	.388	—	—	—	2nd AFC East in 2015
Hue Jackson	Oakland Raiders and Cleveland Browns	2011, 2016–2018	11	44	1	.205	—	—	—	3rd AFC West
Anthony Lynn	Buffalo Bills*, Los Angeles Chargers	2016, 2017–	26	23	0	.531	1	1	.500	2018 Divisional Round (2nd AFC West)
Vance Joseph	Denver Broncos	2017–2018	11	21	0	.344	—	—	—	3rd AFC West
Steve Wilks	Arizona Cardinals	2018	3	13	0	0.188	—	—	—	4th NFC West
Brian Flores	Miami Dolphins	2019–	5	11	0	.313	—	—	—	4th AFC East

References

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