Marvinb6

During the "parting shots" on Sunday's Sports Reporters show , John Saunders basically told future monority free agent football players to protest the head coach hiring poilicies of NFL teams by refusing to sign with teams who the players think aren't interviewing enough minority coaching candidates.This after a 10 minute discussion on the hiring practices in the NFL. What ever happened to hiring or drafting the "most qualified" person? An NFL franchise should be treated the same as any other business, the owner should be allowed to hire anyone he wants, it is after all HIS business and HIS money.Now we will have players blackmailing NFL teams into conforming to their idea of what's right? Where does it end?

nocloning

That\'s an okay solution for me. It\'s like having Texan businesses reduce waste emissions on goodwill. Like that\'s gonna happen. No wonder Houston & Co. have the worst air in the country.
Having a system that calls for players to base their choice of clubs on this one issue (with no other league interference) would work great because the players couldn\'t care less (at least 99,9 % of them). Like Michael Irvin said (paraphrasing here): \"The man that\'s decides it is Franklin. You know him. He\'s the dude on the 100-dollar-bill.\" That and maybe competitiveness.
Ask a black player if he would rather play for Gruden or Dennis Green at Detroit (theoretically) if they get the same money at both clubs. OK?
I also don\'t think anybody likes to be utilized for a cause. Organizing your own group or joining a union, alright, but being told what to do? Nah.

\"What is Wal-Mart? Is it like they sell wall stuff?\"

WhoDat

You know, this issue is not something well suited to be discussed on this board. I brought up the hiring issue a while ago and found out that I was the only person who even acknowledged that there is a problem.

My guess is that just about every person on this board is a white middle-class male. Southern male at that. There\'s no use talking about fair hiring practices in here b/c my guess is that every person feels that \"it\'s my business so I should get to do whatever I want.\"

Let me tell you all something - that\'s wrong. This country is founded on two ideas, freedom and equality. True, you are free to do whatever you want in this country as long as it doesn\'t inhibit a person\'s right to do the same. That used to mean that as long as you don\'t commit a crime against another person you\'re free to do what you want.

In this day and age you can\'t use those same definitiions. Equality should not only apply to a person\'s rights under law, but to the equality of opportunity. If white people truly have the right to hire only white people, then you have an inherent inequality.

Until race is truly a non-issue, these types of policies should exist. I was against this policy when it came out. I hate men like Jessie Jackson and Johnny Cochoran, but they serve a purpose. Without them, there would be no other extreme and things wouldn\'t change. They serve to move the moderates truly into the middle.

This policy doesn\'t require teams to hire minorities. It simply forces them to interview one of them. Is that really that hard. 70% of the players in the league are black. You\'re telling me you can\'t go find a retired player and interview him? You can\'t find a linebackers coach or something? That\'s ridiculous, and so is the outcry about this policy.

\"Excuses, excuses, excuses. That’s all anyone ever makes for the New Orleans Saints’ organization.\" - Eric Narcisse


\"Being a Saints fan is almost like being addicted to crack,\" he said.[i]\"You know you should stop, but you just can\'t.\"

progress

We are talking about a multi-billion dollar industry here. Bill Walsh didn\'t hire Dennis Erickson because he\'s white, he hired him because Dennis won\'t disagree with the all mighty Bill Walsh. And Jerry Jones hired Bill Parcells because he has proven time and time again that he can put together a winner. It is obsurd for a team to be forced to interview someone they have no intention of hiring. Especially now that every time a minority canidate is interviewed and not hired, it will be looked on as though the team interviewing him was just going through the motions. If the NFL continues to enforce this policy then why stop with the hiring of coaches. I propose that all NFL teams be required to have equal representation of all races on their initial roster. Sure they can cut them before the season, but each team should at least start with an equal number of players of each race at each position. Yeah, thats right i\'m even talking about the Japanese.

[Edited on 19/2/2003 by progress]