Super Bowl Ignorance!

You may have seen Mr. Boswell's post earlier this week regarding the significance, or lack thereof, of Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith being the first African-American coaches in the Super Bowl.

Now to say the Big 12 was better this year in football than the SEC or to say Adrian Peterson is overrated I can laugh at as playful homerism. But this no laughing matter. This is absolute ignorance.

Scott says let's stop the bickering. I haven't heard any. Seems the NFL has been unanimous in its celebration of the achievement of these two men. Those coaches, who this year have been helped by the Rooney Rule in having opportunities for interviews they likely would not have had continue to sing the praises of the Rule. Dungy and Smith haven't panned it. Neither have he likes of Romeo Crennel or newly hired Mike Tomlin. They celebrate the Rule, though I think it is not quite strong enough. In fact, they have pointed out that even if they were first interviewed as a token candidate, those interviews led to legitimate interviews that led to their first head coaching gigs.

And to point at Mike Singletary's interview in Dallas as an example of how it creates a dog and pony show is misguided. To say that is to ignore the talk over the last year suggesting that NFL insiders believe he is about ready to be a head coach. It also ignores the fact Jerry Jones already interviewed African-American secondary coach Todd Bowles. Per the Rooney Rule, he would not have been required to interview Singletary. Or consider he is now reportedly going to interview minority candidates Jim Caldwell and Ron Rivera before making a final decision.

Is Jones clearly leaning toward Norv Turner? Yes. Hell, they were hanging out in Miami together yesterday waiting to find out if Michael Irvin was elected to the Hall of Fame. But that doesn't mean he's not legitimately taking his time to make sure his judgment isn't clouded by his friendship with Turner.

But those weren't not the worst of the arguments Mr. Boswell put forth. Take, for example, the thought that a big deal wasn't made when the Texas Rangers hired Ron Washington. Well, Washington is, by far, not the first African-American manager to be hired in Major League Baseball. Nor would he be the first to manager in or to win a World Series. Major League Baseball, for all its flaws, crossed this social barrier long ago. And this is with baseball having a relatively low percentage of African-American players.

But in football should it be a big deal. Basketball's been there. I believe the NHL can still count the number of its African-American players on one hand. But football, with a majority of African-American players, took the longest, other than the NHL, to have an African-American coach, let alone one who reached the pinnacle of the profession. And you can rest assured the pinnacled would have been reached much sooner if more opportunity had been presented.

And don't talk to us about the idiocy of no one caring if a white running back was in the Super Bowl. Show me the white athlete denied the opportunity to run the football today that had the skills to do so. Because, fact is, I can find a tome of names of coaches and quarterbacks who were denied that opportunity. Remember, it was Warren Moon who had to go to Canada and play QB in order to open the doors for African-American quarterbacks. The only shot he was offered in the NFL coming out of college was a wide receiver. And we were right to celebrate his induction to the Hall of Fame last year the way we did.

So, Scott, if you are going to decry people mixing sports and politics, be sure you know what you're talking about before committing the hypocrisy of doing so yourself.