Black Coaches Reach Benchmark in NFL

Another barrier for African American coaches went down Jan 21, 2007 with two prominent coaches going to the Super Bowl and by chance both are black. This should break the steriotype that a black man can't take a team to the big one. Regardless of who wins Feb. 4 an African American will be holding the Vince Lomardi trophy over his head triumphantly. For all of those naysayers who said it couldn't be done, it has been done with two franchises that haven't seen victory in over twenty years, all of those years being coached by caucasian counterparts I might add. Not to sound racially motivated, but as a black man and a Bears fan, this was a long time coming. The Bears haven't seen victory since '85 and have been a laughing stock in recent memory while Smith came in and had an instantanious impact in only two years I might add. Tony Dungy has taken a franchise that hasn't seen a Super Bowl victory since the seventies and haven't done much since they left Baltimore. He took an over-mediated quarterback and made him into the real deal. This also is his second team that he has built to play at that caliber with the first being the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Sad thing is he left before the hardware was handed out not to take anything away from John Gruden who has really struggled after his ring was given to him. So this black history month will see a nice turning point for pro-coaches. I think Martin and Malcolm and Huey (P. Newton for those of you who don't know) alike would be proud.