News - December 29, 2002

COWBOYS OWNER RISKS VIOLATING
FRESH NFL HIRING POLICY

Statement by Cyrus Mehri
Mehri & Skalet, PLLC

"On September 30th, Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr. and I released the report, Black Coaches in the National Football League: Superior Performance, Inferior Opportunities, because we believed the time has come to create a level playing field for hiring of black coaches in the NFL. In our report, we proposed mandatory diverse candidate slates for top coaching positions to foster fair competition. We also proposed offering owners the right to opt of this requirement by forfeiting a high level draft pick.

Under the leadership of Dan Rooney and Commissioner Tagliabue, on December 20th all 32 NFL owners 'strongly agreed' to interview one or more minority candidates for open head coaching positions.

In the past week, it's come to light that Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has conducted at least two lengthy face-to-face interviews with Bill Parcells.

The key to the new NFL hiring policy is for teams to extend comparable interview opportunities to at least one minority candidate. We believe this means inviting final candidates to participate in a serious interview process, meeting face-to-face with team owners and other decision makers. Simply talking to a minority candidate in a phone interview is not comparable to a several hour, face-to-face meeting between candidate and owner.

Jerry Jones faces a choice; fully complying with his commitment to other team owners, or running afoul of the agreement he made just last week.

We have fought too hard and come too far to allow any one owner to undermine the hard work of the Rooney Committee. This hiring cycle presents an unprecedented opportunity for the NFL to move to the next level in terms of fairness in hiring decisions.

However, if NFL owners, including Mr. Jones, fail to meet their commitment, we are ready, willing and able to hold them accountable for their hiring practices."

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Black Coaches in the National Football League: Superior Performance, Inferior Opportunities can be found www.FindJustice.com.