When Brian Flores announced he was suing the NFL and three teams for racial discrimination, he made public what a lot of minority coaches, scouts and other general manager hopefuls have long vented about in private.
People of color don’t have a fair shake when it comes to getting head coach and front office jobs, no matter how qualified they are. And when they do get these jobs, there is little patience for them to win. Former Panthers defensive coordinator Steve Wilks was fired after one year in Arizona.
The Carolina Panthers are no exception with their lack of diversity.
Just hours before Flores announced the lawsuit, Panthers owner David Tepper said that he was making changes to his executive leadership team at Tepper Sports & Entertainment.
Former Panthers team president Tom Glick unexpectedly stepped down to pursue other opportunities, and Tepper gave four employees promotions as part of a reorganization.
Two of those promotions went to women — Tepper’s wife, Nicole Tepper, and Kristi Coleman, the Panthers’ former CFO who was promoted to team president.
None went to people of color.
The Panthers must do better.
In September 2020, Tepper told media members that he had spoken to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell about increasing the representation of women and people of color on the business side of team and league operations.
“I think every NFL team has to look at their team,” Tepper said then about the Panthers’ workplace diversity. “And on the business side, and you guys always concentrate on the football side, but the business is big. Football is a small microcosm. And I think we got to lead a business in this regard.
“I think this is one thing we really should be leading as owners and the NFL.”
His words were welcoming. Increasing representation of women and people of color in spaces not traditionally held by them has long been overdue.
Seven of the 15 hires or promotions Tepper has made to his senior leadership team have gone to women or people of color. But five of those promotions were given to the same two people.
He has made six external hires. Four hires were White men, one was a Black woman and one was a White woman.
While Tepper hired the first woman team president in Panthers history, and last year elevated Steven Drummond to senior advisor to the chairman, one of the highest rankings for a Black man in an NFL front office, not enough is being done, especially with people of color.
Of the 19 employees listed on the team’s staff page under business operations, only the vice president of human resources, Kisha Smith, is a person of color.
Of the 19 employees listed on the team’s staff page under football operations, five are people of color (three Black).
Of its nine senior staff members, two are Black.
Tepper and the Panthers, who declined to comment for this story, aren’t alone in this. The NFL has a diversity problem across its executive and head coaching positions, as do other leagues.
The NFL implemented the Rooney Rule in 2003, which requires that the NFL interview ethnic-minority candidates for head coaching and senior football operations jobs.
At the time, there were only two Black head coaches in the league — Tony Dungy and Dennis Green — and it wanted to increase the diversity of leadership in a league made up of roughly 70 percent Black players.
The NFL had been better because of it.
But 19 years later, Pittsburgh’s Mike Tomlin and Houston’s Lovie Smith, hired Monday, are the league’s only Black head coaches (new Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel identifies as multi-racial), and it’s easy to wonder whether NFL owners are serious about increasing diversity.
The Panthers could be a leader in this. Tepper can make due on his promise and continue to promote and hire people of color and more women, because it’s needed.
It’s been done before.
On the other side of Uptown Charlotte at Spectrum Center, the Charlotte Hornets have perhaps one of the most diverse staffs in American professional sports. Of its senior staff members listed in the NBA’s media guide, 40 percent are people of color. That aligns closer to Charlotte’s demographics, where 48 percent of the population is white, 35 percent is Black and 6.5 percent is Asian.
Jobs, employers, and in this case, NFL teams are better when their workforce and those making the decisions are diverse. They allow for a different range of perspectives.
Former longtime Cincinnati Bengals coach Marvin Lewis said in an interview with ESPN’s First Take last week that he was given “a sham interview” for the head coaching job in Carolina in 2002 — a job that eventually went to John Fox.
“I remember sitting at home on Monday and, I think it was Chris Mortensen or someone else — they reported that (John Fox) would be named the head coach of the Panthers on Friday,” Lewis said. “And when I went to work Tuesday, Brian (Billick) came in, said I just got off the phone with Ozzie (Newsome) and the Panthers want you to come down and interview for the job.
“I said, coach, I just heard last night on TV that they’re gonna name Foxy the coach on Friday. So he goes back, he talks to Ozzie, he talks to their people, and I end up going down to Charlotte and meeting with the Richardson family and they said that wasn’t true and so forth. And they named John the head coach on Friday.”
Former Panthers owner Jerry Richardson declined to comment on Lewis’ comments through a spokesman.
Multiple media reports indicate the Panthers offered Dungy the job a few days before deciding between Fox and Lewis. Dungy declined and accepted an offer with the Indianapolis Colts, where he won a Super Bowl.
Dungy was the Panthers’ second offer after Steve Spurrier, who also declined.
Ron Rivera became the first head coach of color hired by the Panthers in 2011 and he spent nine seasons with Carolina, a third of the team’s existence.
What Flores did in sounding the alarm is commendable. He put his future job prospects with NFL teams at risk, knowing he could be blackballed similar to what former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick experienced. He said he’s doing this so other Black coaches who get their opportunities next won’t have to experience it.
But it shouldn’t be on Flores to make things better.
The responsibility rests with the NFL and its owners to lead.
Tepper must do better.
