Super Bowl

We're heading into the Super Bowl and I'm reminded over and over that there are two black head coaches running the Bears and Colts. This sort of takes me back to when Halle Berry won the first best actress academy award for a black woman. Leading up to her award, and for years, all we heard from Halle was how she just wants to be an actress, not a black actress. Then, when she gets the award, all she can talk about is how it's so important for a black woman to win.

Now, I'm not racist or anything. In elementary school, at the start of the 70s, I wrote report papers about Crispus Attucks, George Washington Carver, Bill Russell, and Kareem Jabbar (then Lew Alcindor). I also happen to be a Bear fan, so I couldn't be happier than to see Lovie Smith's team make it to the Super Bowl. But it's not a victory over racism to identify people by their race. Tony Dungy said it would be great when one day no one discusses the race of the coach, but if that's so, why did Dungy feel it necessary to make the point? Where's the coverage about Art Shell, coach of the NFL's worst team?

Getting head coach jobs in the NFL was never about race, it's about all the inside, silent crap that goes into getting a lot of the chief type jobs in America. Take a look at a couple of unsuccessful pro sports men of color: Isiah Thomas and Bernie Bickerstaff. Being black hasn't prevented those men from rising far above their level of competence in coaching and management. Why do they rise? Probably because they mingle with people who run basketball teams and they're considered safe inn keepers, in a sociological sense.