What’s the deal?
Why all the discussion about the racial diversity on new Browns head coach Hue Jackson’s staff?
Why all the focus on the fact that Jackson, defensive assistant head coach/offense Pep Hamilton and defensive coordinator Ray Horton are all African Americans?
And anyway, what difference does it make?
Should we also mention that senior offensive assistant Al Saunders and special teams coordinator Chris Tabor are both white? Or that former Browns head coach Mike Pettine and most of his assistants were white?
Come on, this is 2016, isn’t it?
Remember, too, that this is Cleveland, where we outlined for you at length on this site on Martin Luther King Jr. Day a week and a half ago how the Browns and Cleveland have led the way racially going all the way back to 1946 when Bill Willis and Marion Motley suited up for head coach Paul Brown’s first Browns team.
Jackson has earned the right to be where he’s at. So has Horton and Hamilton. Their expertise and resumes make their hiring to be a no-brainer.
In fact, why Horton hasn’t been given a shot as a head coach somewhere in the NFL is baffling. You mean he couldn’t have done better than Pettine and former Browns head coaches Pat Shurmur, Rob Chudzinski and the incomparable Eric Mangini?
Please.
In covering the opposing locker room at Browns games for several years, I can tell you that the most impressive head coaches I ran across were the Cincinnati Bengals’ Marvin Lewis, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Mike Tomlin, the Baltimore Ravens’ John Harbaugh, the Seattle Seahawks’ Pete Carroll and Herman Edwards, formerly of the Kansas City Chiefs. They all know the game inside and out and are great leaders. Three of the five are African American, a fact that never played a role in my evaluation of them.
And that is just as it should be.
The sooner we quit discussing race inside and out to the nth degree ay every turn in the road, the sooner we can put the issues with race behind us. Be like Paul Like and look at the man, not the color of his skin.
Jackson did just that with his hires. He’s not going to bring in unqualified people who will sink his ship and get everybody fired. That’s ludicrous.
But with everything else being equal, if Jackson hires someone like Horton and Hamilton and moves them a step closer to being considered for head-coaching positions, can you blame him? The NFL needs more African American head coaches, not necessarily because of their race but because of their ability. Using the old-boy network to find coaching candidates is stupid and, at the same time, sickening.
I’m rooting to Hue Jackson, Pep Hamilton and Ray Horton. I’m rooting for them because of their race, but more than that, I’m rooting for them because they coach the Cleveland Browns.
Nothing more needs to be said.
