A Duke University study from late October of 2002 backs Rush Limbaugh's point. Specifically, the study finds that network executives cater to viewers' preference for diversity in an effort to drive up ratings and therefore profits. Therefore, a dismal or mediocre black quarterback will be hyped-up beyond that which is done for his dismal or mediocre white counterparts. The success of such a mediocre black quaterback generates much more revenue for the networks than does a white counterpart. In the midst of all the hoopla, Duke University has blocked access to the original pdf version of the report with this message: "The paper "Race, Football and Television: Explaining the Black Quarterback Effect" has been removed from this site. Our contract with Neilsen Media Research requires us to refrain from posting the results of this study online." A Yahoo! cache of the paper can be found here: http://216.109.117.135/search/cache...sfih0J:trinity.aas.duke.edu/~jvigdor/nfl5.pdf
Exactly which QB is hyped who sucks? Aaron Brooks is off the national radar screen. Kordell Stewart (who doesn't suck but is inconsistent) hasn't been hyped since he was Slash. Jeff Blake is almost invisible. Steve McNair--who I would say is the second best quarterback in the NFL--doesn't get the second most attention. Quincy Carter isn't hyped even though he's a Cowboy. McNabb gets the most attention of the black QBs, and he was picked #2 overall (which by definition means a bad, bad team) and made the playoffs in two years. Kurt Warner and Tommy Maddox are seriously overrated too--and they aren't black. Eli Manning will join that group next year.
Charlie Batch was waaaay over-hyped when he first came off the bench for the Detroit Lions. He has now been relegated to flash-in-the-pan status, just as I knew he would be. I think Limbaugh was correct in some of what he said. The mainstream media is pulling really hard for black quarterbacks and black head coaches to succeed in college and in the NFL, more coaches, because I think quarterback success has already been proven. I do think he was wrong to snipe at McNabb. Knock McNabb's stats and style all you want, all he does is win. Two NFC title appearances in two years. If I'm a coach, he can play on my team. But, the drumbeat about too few black coaches in Division 1-A college football is really getting old. With all the good black assistants out there and with the success Ty Willingham had at Notre Dame last year (but not this year, unfortunately), this will be a non-issue in five or ten years. It's really a non-issue now. It's not like colleges are going out of there way to NOT HIRE black coaches, Doug Williams' idiotic comments notwithstanding. And most national sports writers went on record saying that Bobby Williams deserved to be fired at Michigan State after running that program into the ground. Also, if Frank Solich can't return Nebraska to top form, I wouldn't be surprised if New Mexico St. head coach and former Nebraska assistant (and black man, not that it's relevant) Tony Samuel might be the next Cornhusker head coach. Would that be a satisfactory offering to the diversity gods?
I look at it this way, if a team passes over a qualified and superior black coach, its the team that loses. If the man is a good coach, he will be hired somewhere. I think that in the NFL if an owner does not want to hire a black coach no matter what, being forced to interview at least one is not going to change his mind.
I thought you liberals considered drug addiction to be a disease and not as a criminal offense. Whether a drug addict goes to prison or not depends not so much upon whether he is black or white but upon how much money he has. A poor white dope fiend has as good a chance at ending up behind bars as a poor black dope fiend and a rich black druggie is no more likely to go to prison than a rich white druggie.
It doesn't even matter whether the teams owner has already decided who he wants to hire. He still has to go through the charade of interviewing minority candidates. Now I don't know one way or the other whether Jerry Jones or the owner of the Detroit Lions is predjudiced against ever hiring a black head coach or not. When Steve Mariuchi became available thats who the Lions wanted to hire. Mariuchi is a good coach even though he never got the 49ers to the Superbowl. The only black coaches who had credentials equal to Mariuchis were already employed as head coaches, Tony Dungy and Herman Edwards. I think Dennis Green is probably about as good a coach as Mariuchi even though he never got the Vikings as far into the playoffs as Mariuchi got the 49ers. So the NFL fines the Lions for not interviewing minority candidates even though they already knew who they were going to hire. As for the Cowboys, there was no available man, black or white who was more qualified to rebuild the Cowboys than Bill Parcells. Still the Cowboys were forced to go through the charade of interviewing black candidates just to avoid being fined by the NFL. To me, that is demeaning and insulting to the black coach who is brought into an interview for a job he knows he is not going to get. There are quite a few highly qualified black coordinators in the NFL and some of them will eventually get head coaching jobs, but no team who wants to hire a proven winner like Parcells who has a shot at hiring him is going to give any consideration to a qualified assistant coach whether he is black or white. Cincinatti hired Marvin Lewis, the recognized brains behind the Baltimore Ravens Superbowl winning defense but if somebody like Parcells, Mariuchi, or for that matter Dennis Green or Tony Dungy had been interested in becoming a part of the inept Bungles organization Lewis would have never gotten the job and neither would any equally qualified white coordinator.
I agree with Bengal B. The sad part about the Lions situation was they offered interviews to black candidates and still got fined. And what did they do wrong? They were honest with the black candidates and said Mooch was their first choice, so everyone else turned down the interview.
John Blake, Ron Dickerson, Ron Cooper, Bobby Williams Oklahoma, Wake Forest, Louisville and Michigan State, they all made the leap of faith. And were sunk. Curiously John L. Smith had to correct two of the bad hirings at L'ville and MSU. You are going to see more black head football coaches in time, but those that have gone ahead of them haven't exactly been trailblazers, more like burdens. The sports media wants the next black coach to be at a major conference school, I think that's a mistake. Where the opportunity lies and where you can prove you can be a head coach is at the lower conference level like the MAC, Sun Belt, etc. and that goes for white and black and Inuit coaches. If I was a negro advocate, I'd worry more about an opening at Toledo or UAB rather than Oklahoma or Missisippi State. But, really we should keep social and political issues out of sports. Haven't we learned anything from Rush Limbo and ESPN?
