Tony Dungy should stick to coaching and stop the social commentary
Posted by qc at 12/10/2009 8:57 PM 
Categories: College Football 2009
Tags: Blacks in college football Indianapolis Colts minorities in college football Tony Dungy
Categories: College Football 2009
Tags: Blacks in college football Indianapolis Colts minorities in college football Tony Dungy
From the scout.com Cavalcade of Whimsy. Love me some Pete Fiutak in a manly, "good writing dude" kind of way.
Tony Dungy, your bull$hit implications are a great example of the problems with this country. I used to respect you as a coach and I mourned for your family's loss, but I now I'm sad for all of us. You are using ethnicity to be relevant. You should be ashamed. If not, I'm ashamed for you and your family. What ethnicity was Ron Prince? "Hi. I'm earth. Have we met?"
As my Mrs FBJ says, why would someone want to go to Kansas State anyway?
http://cfn.scout.com/2/927600.html
Dungy’s fatal-flaw as a commentator is that he’s trying to have it both ways. He tries to have opinions, which is what he’s being paid by NBC to do, but he always stops short of true criticism because, like all coaches who go to the booth with a plan to someday get back on the sidelines, he doesn’t want to burn any bridges. That’s fine when it comes to the nuts-and-bolts of analyzing football, even though it makes him a bad studio presence, but it’s unfair and incredibly irresponsible to do that when it comes to a topic as hot-button and inflammatory as racism.
I have no problem if Dungy, Charles Barkley, or anyone wants to out a college or university that they believe made a decision on a college football head coach based on skin color, but only if they go the extra step and say, “(insert school here and school president here) are racist.”
Tony, if you believe a certain school that didn’t interview Mike Tomlin did so only because Tomlin is an African-American, then call … it … out. Name names. Solve the problem. Have a solution. Don’t just float the concept that college football is “institutionalized racism” when it comes to hiring practices, and then go to a commercial and move on to a piece about Brett Favre. And worse, don’t imply that schools that employ a white head coach are inherently racist because they didn’t hire an African-American.
To channel my inner Keith Olbermann, NBC, how dare you. How dare you have Bob Costas, who has never uttered a word he wasn’t smugly proud of, do some voiced-over montage and show Danny Hope, Dabo Swinney, and Bill Snyder to suggest that Purdue, Clemson, and Kansas State, respectively, were to blame for the lack of minorities in head coaching jobs. Again, if you really believe that those schools were racist in their hiring practices, then prove it, say it, and don’t suggest it. And Dungy, how dare you not apologize to Kansas State. Now.
Kansas State was the only school that Dungy mentioned by name as he told an anecdote about former defensive coordinator, Raheem Morris, the current Tampa Bay head coach, leaving for the pros because he didn’t think he could get a head coaching job in college. First of all, what?! Second, report the whole story. Dungy failed to point out that Kansas State sued Morris for leaving early to take an assistant coaching job at Tampa Bay; Kansas State wanted Morris to stay. And third, KANSAS STATE HIRED RON PRINCE. Was Prince fired because he’s an African-American? No, he was fired because he was bad at coaching football, but in the world of this NBC piece, Kansas State is now part of the problem because Bill Snyder, only a legend at the school and the architect of one of the greatest turnarounds in college football history, wanted to come back to try to revive the program. Now, the average NFL fan who watched this piece, and has no idea who Prince is, has no choice to put a mental checkmark next to Kansas State football.
Of course the lack of minority head coaches in college football is a disastrous embarrassment. No one is denying that and everyone with a brain would like this to be different. So what, besides a tougher form of the Rooney Rule, which is already in place, do you want to do about it? I’m not going to pretend to have an answer, but if a major pregame show is going to do a piece like this and if it's going to let Dungy do a half-assed commentary complete with potshots (along with a criticism of the “Pac 12”), then it had better have a stronger idea of how to fix the problem and who’s to blame. Otherwise, what Dungy did made it sound like colleges should hire coaches based on the color of their skin.
What’s most interesting about this is the timing, considering there wasn’t one minority being rumored for the Notre Dame job. Did you see one shot of Irish football in the montage of white head coaches? Of course not, and take a wild guess why. It’s not like there isn’t a controversy around the program considering Charlie Weis was given another year that Ty Willingham wasn’t. This was a bad enough piece to begin with, and if Dungy wanted to do this now as a shot against the Irish, and wasn’t man enough to mention the words Notre and Dame because of the NBC deal, then
Tony Dungy, your bull$hit implications are a great example of the problems with this country. I used to respect you as a coach and I mourned for your family's loss, but I now I'm sad for all of us. You are using ethnicity to be relevant. You should be ashamed. If not, I'm ashamed for you and your family. What ethnicity was Ron Prince? "Hi. I'm earth. Have we met?"
As my Mrs FBJ says, why would someone want to go to Kansas State anyway?
http://cfn.scout.com/2/927600.html
Dungy’s fatal-flaw as a commentator is that he’s trying to have it both ways. He tries to have opinions, which is what he’s being paid by NBC to do, but he always stops short of true criticism because, like all coaches who go to the booth with a plan to someday get back on the sidelines, he doesn’t want to burn any bridges. That’s fine when it comes to the nuts-and-bolts of analyzing football, even though it makes him a bad studio presence, but it’s unfair and incredibly irresponsible to do that when it comes to a topic as hot-button and inflammatory as racism.
I have no problem if Dungy, Charles Barkley, or anyone wants to out a college or university that they believe made a decision on a college football head coach based on skin color, but only if they go the extra step and say, “(insert school here and school president here) are racist.”
Tony, if you believe a certain school that didn’t interview Mike Tomlin did so only because Tomlin is an African-American, then call … it … out. Name names. Solve the problem. Have a solution. Don’t just float the concept that college football is “institutionalized racism” when it comes to hiring practices, and then go to a commercial and move on to a piece about Brett Favre. And worse, don’t imply that schools that employ a white head coach are inherently racist because they didn’t hire an African-American.
To channel my inner Keith Olbermann, NBC, how dare you. How dare you have Bob Costas, who has never uttered a word he wasn’t smugly proud of, do some voiced-over montage and show Danny Hope, Dabo Swinney, and Bill Snyder to suggest that Purdue, Clemson, and Kansas State, respectively, were to blame for the lack of minorities in head coaching jobs. Again, if you really believe that those schools were racist in their hiring practices, then prove it, say it, and don’t suggest it. And Dungy, how dare you not apologize to Kansas State. Now.
Kansas State was the only school that Dungy mentioned by name as he told an anecdote about former defensive coordinator, Raheem Morris, the current Tampa Bay head coach, leaving for the pros because he didn’t think he could get a head coaching job in college. First of all, what?! Second, report the whole story. Dungy failed to point out that Kansas State sued Morris for leaving early to take an assistant coaching job at Tampa Bay; Kansas State wanted Morris to stay. And third, KANSAS STATE HIRED RON PRINCE. Was Prince fired because he’s an African-American? No, he was fired because he was bad at coaching football, but in the world of this NBC piece, Kansas State is now part of the problem because Bill Snyder, only a legend at the school and the architect of one of the greatest turnarounds in college football history, wanted to come back to try to revive the program. Now, the average NFL fan who watched this piece, and has no idea who Prince is, has no choice to put a mental checkmark next to Kansas State football.
Of course the lack of minority head coaches in college football is a disastrous embarrassment. No one is denying that and everyone with a brain would like this to be different. So what, besides a tougher form of the Rooney Rule, which is already in place, do you want to do about it? I’m not going to pretend to have an answer, but if a major pregame show is going to do a piece like this and if it's going to let Dungy do a half-assed commentary complete with potshots (along with a criticism of the “Pac 12”), then it had better have a stronger idea of how to fix the problem and who’s to blame. Otherwise, what Dungy did made it sound like colleges should hire coaches based on the color of their skin.
What’s most interesting about this is the timing, considering there wasn’t one minority being rumored for the Notre Dame job. Did you see one shot of Irish football in the montage of white head coaches? Of course not, and take a wild guess why. It’s not like there isn’t a controversy around the program considering Charlie Weis was given another year that Ty Willingham wasn’t. This was a bad enough piece to begin with, and if Dungy wanted to do this now as a shot against the Irish, and wasn’t man enough to mention the words Notre and Dame because of the NBC deal, then
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