Research Catalog
Advancing the ball : race, reformation, and the quest for equal coaching opportunity in the NFL
- Title
- Advancing the ball : race, reformation, and the quest for equal coaching opportunity in the NFL / N. Jeremi Duru.
- Author
- Duru, N. Jeremi.
- Publication
- Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2011.
- Supplementary Content
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Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schomburg Center to submit a request in person. | Text | Use in library | Sc E 18-465 | Schomburg Center - Research & Reference |
Details
- Description
- xv, 204 pages; 25 cm.
- Summary
- "Professional football is, without question, the most popular sport in America, and by a substantial margin. Yet few scholars who look at the role of race and sports in America focus on the NFL. Historically, racial relations in other sports--particularly baseball, boxing, and basketball--have attracted more attention from writers and scholars, who have tended to regard football as déclassé. Ironically, however, professional football has been a trendsetter in racial relations despite its brutalism and its associations with political conservatism and militarism. The first African Americans to play in the NFL joined the league in 1946, one year before Jackie Robinson joined the Dodgers. It had the first black union president (Gene Upshaw). And as Jeremi Duru argues in Advancing the Ball, it was the first league to systematically challenge America's most durable racial prejudice - the notion that African Americans are intellectually inferior to whites. By the mid-1990s, there had been only a couple of black coaches in the NFL, despite the fact that two thirds of the league's players were black. Taking on a hidebound and conservative group of owners, a network of aspiring black coaches eventually joined forces with the Steelers' owner, Dan Rooney, and their efforts produced 'the Rooney Rule.' The rule required every team to interview at least one black candidate when hiring a new head coach. Technically, football is the most complicated of all sports, and prejudice regarding aptitude did not wash away immediately. Indeed, many of the septuagenarian plutocrats who owned teams resisted the rule. A sea change did eventually occur, though, and the last few years have seen an influx of black coaches. The fact that two of the last Super Bowl-winning coaches (and three of the last six Super Bowl participants) have been African-American has proven the correctness of the rule"--Provided by publisher.
- Series Statement
- Law and current events masters
- Uniform Title
- Law and current events masters.
- Subjects
- Discrimination in employment
- United States
- Discrimination in sports
- African American football coaches
- African American football coaches > History > 20th century
- National Football League
- Black author
- Race relations
- History
- Discrimination in employment > United States > History > 20th century
- United States > Race relations > History > 20th century
- Discrimination in sports > United States > History > 20th century
- 1900-1999
- Genre/Form
- History.
- Note
- With a foreward by Tony Dungy.
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 175-193) and index.
- Contents
- Baltimore love -- An idea's origin -- Superior performance, inferior opportunities -- Enter the godfather -- The Rooney Rule -- The coaching carousel -- Millen, Mooch, and the great Detroit hiring debate -- Birth of an alliance -- A season of dreams -- Digging new wells -- Road to Super Bowl XLI.
- Call Number
- Sc E 18-465
- ISBN
- 9780199736003
- 0199736006
- 9780199792269 (canceled/invalid)
- 0199792267 (canceled/invalid)
- LCCN
- 2010017903
- OCLC
- 611038511
- Author
- Duru, N. Jeremi.
- Title
- Advancing the ball : race, reformation, and the quest for equal coaching opportunity in the NFL / N. Jeremi Duru.
- Imprint
- Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2011.
- Type of Content
- text
- Type of Medium
- unmediated
- Type of Carrier
- volume
- Series
- Law and current events mastersLaw and current events masters.
- Bibliography
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 175-193) and index.
- Connect to:
- Chronological Term
- 1900-1999
- Local Subject
- Black author.
- Research Call Number
- Sc E 18-465