News - September 30, 2002

COCHRAN, MEHRI CALL ON NFL
TO REFORM HIRING PRACTICES

Civil Rights Lawyers Release Report Highlighting Inequities In NFL Hiring, Firing;
Offer Plan For Change, Opportunity To Avoid Litigation

WASHINGTON, DC - Employment discrimination attorneys Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr. and Cyrus Mehri, along with a labor economist and two leading authorities on race in sports today released a report calling on the National Football League to reform its hiring with new procedures that ensure black coaches have a fair chance to compete for open positions. The report, Black Coaches in the National Football League: Superior Performance, Inferior Opportunities, documents how black coaches are last hired and first fired, despite outperforming their white counterparts.

"The unprecedented data presented in this report proves what we've known anecdotally for years-that black coaches face higher hurdles in becoming head coaches in the NFL and are held to a higher standard when hired," said Cyrus Mehri, of Mehri & Skalet, PLLC, a leading civil rights and employment discrimination law firm that prepared the report. "Despite the best of intentions, Commissioner Tagliabue's playbook is not getting the job done. We propose a new gameplan that will ensure African-American coaches a fair chance to compete for head coaching positions," said Mehri.

Mehri & Skalet attorneys have won the largest race discrimination settlements in history against Texaco and Coca-Cola for $176 million and $192 million respectively. Civil rights lawyer, Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr. presented the report at a Baltimore news conference today and said "We're hoping that the League will take the opportunity to voluntarily reform its hiring practices as a way of avoiding litigation down the road." Cochran also praised current and former black head coaches Art Shell, Dennis Green, Tony Dungy, Ray Rhodes and Herman Edwards, "as pioneers who broke through the glass ceiling and performed well."

Superior Performance, Inferior Opportunities, applies statistical analysis and methodologies developed in civil rights enforcement cases to the hiring and firing of black coaches in the NFL. The foundation of the report is a new database that includes the regular season, playoff records, and race of each Head Coach in the NFL over the last 15 years.

The data was analyzed by labor economist Dr. Janice Madden of the University of Pennsylvania, who compared overall performance of the five African American coaches in the database (Art Shell, Dennis Green, Tony Dungy, Ray Rhodes and Herman Edwards) with all other coaches.

The report finds that black coaches outperform their white counterparts. Dr. Madden determined that:

  • Black Coaches won 1.1 more wins per year than white coaches.
  • Black Coaches made the playoffs 67% of the time versus 39% for white coaches.
  • In their first season, Black Coaches average 2.7 wins more than first year white coaches.
  • Terminated Black coaches won an average of 1.3 more games than terminated white coaches.

But black coaches who are hired, are not rewarded for their superior performance and often find themselves the victims of a "quick hook." Art Shell was fired after two straight winning seasons. Ray Rhodes was given one season in Green Bay. Tony Dungy was fired after transforming the Tampa Bay Bucs into a playoff contender. Highly qualified African-American coaches such as Marvin Lewis, Art Shell and Sherman Lewis, are repeatedly excluded from serious contention for vacant head coaching positions.

The report also offers a solution to the inequities in NFL hiring practices: a "Fair Competition Resolution." The Resolution outlines a process by which the NFL would award draft picks each year to teams diversifying front office positions by hiring qualified minority and female candidates. The Resolution also calls for each team to seriously interview a racially diverse final candidate slate prior to selecting head coaches, assistant coaches or offensive or defensive coordinators. Teams would have the option of opting out of this requirement, but at the cost of a significant draft pick.

"If adopted by the NFL, the Commissioner will have the tools to do more than encourage the hiring of Black head coaches," said Richard E. Lapchick, Chair of the Sport Business Management Program, University of Central Florida. "This represents a step forward in making the debate about minority coaches more than just a debate," said Lapchick.

The full report is available at www.FindJustice.com