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A Historical First: Two African American Coaches in the Super Bowl by Matthew Lynch

In the 86-year history of the NFL, there has never been an African American head coach to lead his team to the Super Bowl, well until now. Ironically, we will not only see a black coach in the Super Bowl, we will see two. Lovie Smith of the NFC Champion Bears and Tony Dungy of the AFC Champion Indianapolis Colts.

Growing up, I can remember the NFL coaches club being lily white. It was not until 1989 when the NFL got its first African American Coach. I was proud and shocked to see Art Shell on the sidelines leading The LA Raiders to victory, proudly sporting a silver and white jacket. By the same token, it was 1988 before we saw a black quarterback start in and win a Super Bowl. Doug Williams, a former Grambling State University standout, led the Washington Redskins to victory in the 1987 Super Bowl. I was beguiled by his awe inspiring athletic skill and the fact that he played with incomparable equanimity. He was like poetry in motion and watching him enabled me to envision a day when deeper-seated stereotypes about the intelligence of African Americans would be refuted. To me it seemed as though African American football players were relegated to playing positions that required brute strength or speed/agility, and only a few were given the chance to play quarterback. In my mind, all this only perpetuated the notion of white intellectual superiority.

Fast forward to 2007, and you will see that barriers are made to be demolished. This nation is moving closer to the blessed community that Martin Luther King envisioned in his “I Have a Dream Speech.” Both coaches are accomplished managers of the game of football and have labored arduously to attain their current level of success. They have been discriminated against, criticized, and tarred and feathered by the media; Dungy for not winning the big game and Smith for not yanking quarterback Rex Grossman when he was performing atrociously during the second half of the season.

On December 22, 2005, Tony Dungy's 18-year-old son, James, was found dead in his Florida apartment, by his girlfriend. An autopsy revealed that his son had committed suicide. Dungy’s religiosity is what ultimately helped him through that ordeal and reinforced the notion that anything that doesn’t kill you can only make you stronger. He bounced back from the this devestating event only to lead his team to this year’s Super Bowl. God is good!

Lovie Smith has been under appreciated and down right disrespected by the Bears organization, even after he lead his team to a 11-5 record during the 2005 season and a 13-3 record during the 2006 regular season. At the beginning of this season when he lobbied for a new contract, the Bears response was show us that you can consistently lead this team to the playoffs and then we will renegotiate. The Bear’s front office has even went as far as saying that they did not know if Smith’s coaching style is a good fit with their organization. Currently, Smith is the lowest paid coach in the NFL; I think that will change since he has led his faithful myrmidon to the Super Bowl. If he did leave Chicago, he would literally have his choice of the NFL’s current coaching vacancies.

Bottom Line: Barriers are made to be demolished and as luck would have it, one longstanding one will come tumbling down on February 4, 2007. Tony and Lovie will battle to see who has the best-coached team in the NFL, but no matter what happens on the field, one thing is for sure; for the first time in its existence, the NFL will see a black coach lead a team to victory in a Super Bowl.

Matthew Lynch is an Exceptional Education Teacher at Sykes Elementary School, CEO of Lynch Consulting Group, LLC, and a Doctoral Candidate at Jackson State Mississippi. He is also the author of Closing the Racial Academic Achievement Gap, and an upcoming children?s book, entitled Matthew and the Money Tree. Mr. Lynch is a contributing columnist for The Black Suburban Journal, Blagazine, and Emerging Minds. Born and raised in Mississippi, he currently resides in Jackson, Mississippi. >

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