Rooney Rule Reporting

When the football season begins in the summer as teams report to Training Camps around the country, fans experience formulaic sports commentary.  As they used to say at the start of the old Dragnet TV shows:

“Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent.”

There is always one player in every Training Camp who shows up 15 pounds heavier than he was in the last season and the story goes that he added that weight/strength so that he will better be able to withstand the physical rigors of the season.  Often, there is another player in camp who shows up 15 pounds lighter than he was in the last season and the story goes that he cut weight to make him faster.  The stories write themselves; most of them have next to no real content.

It is now approaching the end of the football season; you can count the remaining college and pro football games left in the season on two hands without using either thumb.  And at this time of year, we now see another manifestation of formulaic reporting.  I am referring to stories about the wonderfulness of the “Rooney Rule” and how it has been soiled by an evil team owner who adhered to the letter of the law but flouted its intent.

This year’s focus on Rooney Rule Reporting begins in New England with the Pats.  The team announced that it had completed interviews with two minority candidates – – Pep Hamilton and Byron Leftwich – – and in almost the same breath announced that they had hired Mike Vrabel as their new head coach.  As is always the case in this genre of reporting, the newly hired coach is a white male.

I think it is time to put this sort of reporting out to pasture.  Before someone accuses me of being a racist, let me outline why I think that should be done:

The “Rooney Rule” requires teams to interview at least 2 minority candidates for any head coaching or General Manager vacancies.  It’s stated intent is to give minority candidates an entry into the interview process which in turn gives them an opportunity to get one of those prestigious jobs.

• The “Rooney Rule” is well intentioned.  It provides a mechanism that seeks to provide equal opportunity for minority employment.
• The “Rooney Rule” has no real enforcement mechanism.  If a team owner has already made up his mind to fire his current coach and hire Joe Flabeetz – – a white male in this case – – then all his interviews with minority or majority candidates will be a sham.  However, as long as he “checks the box” with interviews of two minority candidates, he is free and clear of any punishment save for the cries of foul play in “Rooney Rule Reporting” stories.
• [Aside:  The Pats added fuel to this year’s fire by interviewing two minority candidates who were not openly proclaimed to be head coaches in waiting by the same reporters now engaged in “Rooney Rule Reporting”.]

There is a fundamental problem here.  The NFL does not assign incumbents to head coach or General Manager positions for the teams.  Were that the case, there would be no need for a “Rooney Rule” assuming that the folks at NFL HQs are people of good will; however, that is not the case and there is no real probability of it ever becoming the case.  The logical consequence of this condition is:

• Team owners will hire the people they want to hire for those positions every time they decide to go through that exercise.

At least once a year, a team and/or a team owner will be chastised for doing what the Pats did this year – – interviewing two minority candidates and then hiring the “white guy” that they had been rumored to want for the job for at least the last 6 weeks.

It has happened before; it happened now; it will happen again.  Lather … rinse … repeat.  The reporting here has no surprise element or informative element.

• The team fired last year’s coach – – who by the way was a Black male – – and set out to hire a new one.  That is old news.
• Previous reporting said that the team really wanted to hire Mike Vrabel who used to play for the team.  That is either old news or old speculation depending on the sources used by the reporters.
• The team hired the guy they “wanted” fulfilling the rumors.  That is news in the sense that the hiring decision was made, and it confirmed previous reporting.

And then the “Rooney Rule Reporting” tends to go off the rails:

• Some have called for the “Rooney Rule” to be scrapped because there is no enforcement, and owners make a joke of it.
• Some have imputed not-so-subtle racism inspired motives behind the firing of the previous Black coach and the hiring of the new White coach.

Getting rid of the “Rooney Rule” because it does not produce results that coincide with the beliefs of the reporters is tantamount to saying that it should never have been in force in the first place.  Think about that for a moment.  The rule is there to provide opportunity not certainty simply because certainty is reserved only for the owners who make these decisions and not the reporters of those decisions.  So, because the outcomes do not conform to reporters’ preferences, get rid of the rule itself.  That makes no sense at all.

Calling into question the owners’ racist motivations in hiring decisions – – explicitly or implicitly – – is less effective in having minority head coaches and GMs hired than the “Rooney Rule”.  If that is the “best shot” an owner needs to endure after hiring the coach he really wants, I imagine that he will lose about a nanosecond of sleep over it.

The “Rooney Rule” is not particularly effective, but it is better than nothing and it is the best thing we’ve got until someone comes up with something better.  So, I am not interested in joining the chorus of people who want to get rid of the “Rooney Rule”; rather, I would really like to see a moratorium on “Rooney Rule Reporting”.

Finally, the “Rooney Rule” is aspirational.  So, let me close with words about hope from FDR:

“We have always held to the hope, the belief, the conviction that there is a better life, a better world, beyond the horizon.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………