Rev. (Jesse) Jackson Wants NFL to Heavily Penalize Lions

AOl/Sportsticker ^ | 2-6-2003

[Guillermo]

Rev. Jackson Wants NFL to Heavily Penalize Lions

Upset No Minorities Interviewed for Job

SportsTicker

CHICAGO (Feb. 6) -- Rev. Jesse Jackson has demanded that the NFL investigate the hiring of Steve Mariucci, saying the Detroit Lions violated the league's policy requiring teams to consider at least one minority for coaching positions.

The Lions targeted Mariucci as their coach after he was fired by the San Francisco 49ers on Jan. 15 and did not conduct any other in-person interviews.

"Steve Mariucci may be a fine coach, and may have emerged as the selection anyway," Jackson said. "However the selection process is flawed if no minority candidates were given serious consideration as the NFL's policy dictates."

Under criticism by civil rights attorneys Johnnie Cochran and Cyrus Mehri for their practice of hiring minorities, the NFL implemented a comprehensive program to promote diversity in their coaching and front office ranks based upon recommendations of the NFL Committee on Workplace Diversity.

Appointed by commissioner Paul Tagliabue on Oct. 31, the committee is headed by Pittsburgh Steelers owner Dan Rooney. Under recommendations of the committee, NFL team owners strongly agreed on the principle that any club seeking to hire a head coach will interview one or more minority applicants for the position.

Rooney indicted the Lions on Tuesday, saying their search "fell short of what the committee recommends for all clubs as agreed."

Jackson believes Rooney's comment on Detroit's selection process "in itself, is the smoking gun."

Jackson urged for Detroit to be heavily penalized, including fines and disqualification from the upcoming college draft, or else "other teams will violate the hiring process."

There are only three black head coaches in the league with the recent hire of Marvin Lewis by the Cincinnati Bengals.

The Lions fired Marty Mornhinweg on Dec. 27 with the intention of hiring Mariucci, who was born and raised in Iron City, Mich.

Meanwhile, the 49ers have gone through a lengthy interview process, interviewing numerous black candidates and two are among the finalists for the job -- defensive coordinators Ted Cottrell of the New York Jets and Greg Blache of the Chicago Bears.

"There were several black coaches available between the end of the season and when Mariucci was fired," Jackson said. "If Detroit was earnest, why were they not given an opportunity to interview for the job? Mariucci was the only coach to have an in-person interview. (Lions) general manager Matt Millen never named any other candidate for the job."

Knowing that Mariucci was the likely coach, several black coaches refused to interview with Millen for the job, but Jackson believes that is irrelevant.

"Would you interview for a job you already know is going to someone else?" Jackson said. "Would you allow yourself to be used by the Lions so they could get around the NFL policy? These men are not fools and shouldn't be treated that way."

02-06-03 18:34 ET

[TommyDale]

Jackson should stick to his normal extortion, and leave the football decisions to intelligent people.

[Guillermo]

This came from AOL Sports, so I don't have a URL, sorry.

[blam]

"These men are not fools and shouldn't be treated that way."

If these men were the best, the GM's would be beating a path to their door. This JJ stuff is nonsense.

[rickmichaels]

"Steve Mariucci may be a fine coach, and may have emerged as the selection anyway," Jackson said.

In other words, Jacka$$ would have been perfectly happy if the Lions had interviewed a black guy but ultimately gave the job to a white guy anyway. Right. Sure. No problem.

[Guillermo]

Just an opportunity to get his sorry self on the news wires.

Wackjobs like this thrive on publicity, and he has to keep up with the Sharpton's.

[ClearCase_guy]

My brother, who is very Left, tells me that big league sports are very racist. Look at Football, Basketball, Baseball -- you almost never see Black people earn big bucks!! Oh, wait ... You almost never see the credit for the win going to the Black guys!! Oh, wait ... You almost never see Black head coaches!! Yeah, that's it! Racist to the core, man!

Those sports teams don't care about hiring the top people! They don't bother to do what it takes to win! They're not struggling to generate huge profits, no matter what it takes! Professional sports is all about keeping the Black Man in his place!

[Numbers Guy]

Speaking as a Lions fan, just how is Jesse going to "punish" the Lions?

Limit them to 1 playoff victory in 45 seasons?

Keep the Lions out of the Super Bowl for, say, XXXVII years?

Force the Lions to have incompetent ownership and an idiot GM?

And, speaking as an Italian-American, I think Jesse should be giving the Lions some credit for hiring a minority coach like Steve Mariucci.

[Dr. Zoo]

They hired him from the Niners, which is a California team.

Merry Ouchie is white I believe, which makes him a minority in California.

So, "Rev" don't you think they should have interviewed a non-minority too?

[Dr. Zoo]

Grate minds love cheeze...

[Rocky]

Knowing that Mariucci was the likely coach, several black coaches refused to interview with Millen for the job, but Jackson believes that is irrelevant.

"Would you interview for a job you already know is going to someone else?" Jackson said. "Would you allow yourself to be used by the Lions so they could get around the NFL policy? These men are not fools and shouldn't be treated that way."

The only way to tell whether someone is seriously interested in interviewing you is to ask Jesse. No other test will do.

[Numbers Guy]

Grate minds love cheeze...

The Pack did pretty well with their last Italian coach . . .

[Guillermo]

Sports teams care about two things, which go hand in hand: profits and winning.

If hiring this or that coach would guarantee a Super Bowl win, you bet your life each of the 32 NFL teams would pay huge money to land him, no matter what his race, religion, etc. is.

[bigj00]

Jackson wants there to be more black coaches in the NFL and to have the league reflect the ratio in society. O.K., that would be 4 black coaches (13%) in the league and that would be fair. Then lets have the same ratio for black players in the league.
White people aren't fairly represented, most of the players are black.

[Tamzee]

Wait a minute. Jackson is ticked because no black candidates were interviewed for the position...

but the team TRIED to get several black coaches to come in for interviews...

those coaches REFUSED to be interviewed knowing they weren't as qualified as someone else available... said No Thanks...

but Jackson is still insisting that the team discriminated by not interviewing black coaches...


I really, really, really don't get it.

[Guillermo]

That's an excellent point.

In essense, Jesse is demanding that one or two blacks knowingly play the role of a token.

What an ass! The more press this jerk gets, the better for us.

[groanup]

NFL teams would hire Martians if they could produce results.

[Numbers Guy]

NFL teams would hire Martians if they could produce results.

What's Otis "University of Mars" Sistrunk up to these days?

[freedumb2003]

>>Speaking as a Lions fan, just how is Jesse going to "punish" the Lions? <<

Make them have an all-punter/kicker team.

Actually, a team like that would probably have a better record than last year's Lions!

[oyez]

Will some one please tell JJ that he is obsolete and necessary? Let the adults solve this on on their own.