Just How Big A Problem Is Nepotism In NFL Coaching?

[tishaLA]

... After looking through every team’s coaching staff as of March 2021, I found that Adam and Mike and Nate and Pete are among 111 NFL coaches who are related biologically or through marriage to current or former NFL coaches, out of a total of 792 coaches employed by NFL teams. That’s 14 percent of all coaches. (I hand-counted this total based on my own research parameters: coaches listed on team website and anyone with the coaching assistant title. The NFL’s official coach count is 822: They count all coaching contracts submitted to the league office, which includes all interns who may not be listed on a staff website.) Mike Zimmer and Pete Carroll are two of five head coaches entering this season who oversaw a relative they hired onto their staff. Belichick has sons Steve and Brian as his outside linebackers and safeties coach; Jon Gruden had his son Deuce, whose first NFL job was on uncle Jay Gruden’s Washington staff, as his assistant strength coach in Las Vegas; and Ron Rivera has his nephew Vincent on staff as a defensive quality control coach.

All 111 NFL coaches who are related to a current or former NFL coach.
Vegas led the league in father-son combos on the same staff this season, with four: the Grudens, the Cables, the Smiths, and the Miluses. Las Vegas also leads the league with nine coaches related to a current or former coach on staff, followed by Denver and New England with eight, and the Washington Football Team, whose head coach, offensive coordinator and defensive coordinator are related to a current or former NFL coach. The Steelers are the only NFL team without a single coach listed who is related to a current or former NFL coach, though general manager Kevin Colbert has his son on staff, and Dan Rooney Jr. is the team’s player personnel coordinator.

Overall, the league averages 3.4 coaches per team who are related to a current or former NFL coach, and the percentage of coaches at the supervisory levels—the ones with hiring power—is even higher. Eleven of 32 head coaches are related to a current or former NFL coach. There are 24 coordinators who are related to current or former coaches, almost a full quarter of them. ...

https://defector.com/just-how-big-a-problem-is-nepotism-in-nfl-coaching/

Most people in the league acknowledge that the lack of nonwhite coaches at all levels is an issue (and we've already lost one overachieving black HC today with the firing of Brian Flores), and the NFL can put all kinds of Rooney Rules in place to give the appearance of ameliorating the problem, but until the league also looks at nepotism and puts rules in place to limit it, an overwhelmingly nonwhite league is still going to have overwhelmingly white coaches leading it.

[YP_Yooper]

1. Need to start somewhere, and I'm proud the Steelers led the way locally even back to 1933

Apologies for the length

https://steelerswire.usatoday.com/2020/06/19/pittsburgh-steelers-standard-diversity-nfl/

Rooney also brought in Duquesne tackle Ray Kemp, who was an original member of the Pirates when they entered the NFL in 1933. He was the sole Black player on the team and one of only two Black players in the league.

No other African American would play in the league again until 1946. In January 1952, fullback Jack Spinks (11th round) and halfback Bill Robinson (25th round) became the first Black players to be drafted by the Steelers.

In 1957, Perry, a wide receiver, was hired and became the first Black coach in modern NFL history.

Recognizing the importance of integrating Black players on his team, Rooney hired Bill Nunn, the NFL’s second Black scout.

Nunn, a sports editor at The Pittsburgh Courier, an African-American newspaper, had his finger on the pulse of football programs at historically Black colleges. Rooney found exceptional value in the knowledge Nunn could bring to the Steelers and hired him as a part-time scout in 1967. He became a full-time employee in 1969. By 1970, he was promoted to assistant director of player personnel.

Over the next decade, Nunn discovered a bevy of players from Black colleges and universities who went on to help the Steelers win four Super Bowls. Among them were cornerback Mel Blount (Southern), defensive end L.C. Greenwood (Arkansas-Pine Bluff), defensive tackle Ernie Holmes (Texas Southern), defensive back Donnie Shell (South Carolina State), wide receiver John Stallworth (Alabama A&M), and defensive end Dwight White (East Texas State).

Nunn also was responsible for the Steelers drafting their first Black quarterback. Joe Gilliam was drafted in the 11th round of the 1972 draft.

...and Nunn proudly stands in the Hall of Fame with 6 Super Bowl rings:

https://www.profootballhof.com/players/bill-nunn/

The Steelers’ fortunes would change dramatically in the 1970s, and a key figure in the transformation from perennial losers to four-time Super Bowl champions in a six-season span was Bill Nunn, a scout and later the assistant director of player personnel for the team from 1968 to 2013.

A look at the team photo of the 1974 Steelers, winners of Super Bowl IX, illustrates Nunn’s influence. In the picture are 11 players from Historically Black Colleges and Universities, including three future members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame: Mel Blount, Donnie Shell and John Stallworth. Nunn was integral in the Steelers finding talented players from HBCUs, giving the team an advantage over others in the NFL at that time.

Rooney Rule
Dan Rooney, the son of Art, was often by the family patriarch’s side in team operations throughout the years. His first role with the team was director of personnel. Though Art remained the face of the franchise until he died in 1988, Rooney was given full operational control in 1975.

Rooney shared his father’s progressive nature. He served as chairman of the NFL’s diversity committee and authored the Rooney Rule.

First adopted in 2003, the Rooney Rule was created to help ensure that minority candidates would receive equal opportunities when applying for head coach vacancies and various senior football positions. The rule requires teams to interview at least one minority candidate. It was conceived as a way to hire more minority coaches in a profession where almost 70% of players are black, but just 6% were minority head coaches at the time.

Even with the Rooney Rule, you still face the ownership of the NFL :/

[tishaLA]

2. The spirit of the Rooney rule is right; the practice is not

it's pretty much an open secret--hell, it's not even a secret anymore, is it?--that teams bring in nonwhite candidates merely to fulfill the requirements of the Rooney rule despite the fact that they've already settled on a white candidate or narrowed it down to one of several white candidates, often white candidates who've already had dismal or mediocre careers as HC already (although we're getting fewer retreads recently as teams move toward hiring younger HCs).

At any rate, none of this has anything to do with the nepotism problem in the NFL and the ways it harms diversification of coaches.

[YP_Yooper]

3. Agreed all around

and thank you for the post. I loved the read, and it brings such an important issue to confront. When the owners go outside the "family" only as a vain check mark to avoid criticism, it insults what needs to be done :/

[BlueTsunami2018]

4. Professional sports are the family business for a lot of people.

In every sport I’m watching the kids and grandkids of people I watched play and coach forty years ago. Especially in the NHL. These NFL guys are trained for these positions since they’re single digit children, working their way up from ball boy, to intern, to position coach and eventually to coordinator and head coach. And that’s if they’re not good enough to play pro themselves, which many of them do.

It’s not like they’re just sticking these guys in there purely because they’re related, they’ve had decades long apprenticeships in many cases. I don’t see any reason not to get your kids or nephews or whatever in there and I really have no problem with it. It’s not any different than any other family business. I have tons of guys in my union who are third and fourth generation. There’s just more of a spotlight on jobs in pro sports.

[tishaLA]

5. Yeah and one of the reasons some unions stayed so white

like police and firefighter unions, is that nepotism played a big role and it's something nonwhite people have discussed and tried to highlight for decades because it ended up stymying the growth of, for example, the black middle class and it frankly surprises me that someone wouldn't know that entrenched whiteness has been a frequent critique. It's the blue collar version of "legacy admissions" in colleges.

[BlueTsunami2018]

6. Fortunately, my local is committed to diversity.

We have more people of color and women in the field than ever before. In fact, you’re almost guaranteed to be accepted into the program if you apply as such. We’re very conscious of the shortcomings of the past and have been taking action toward rectifying those things for quite some time. Things are getting better.