On September 30, 2002, two civil rights lawyers, Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr. and Cyrus Mehri, released a report called “Black Coaches in the National Football League: Superior Performance, Inferior Opportunities.” By then, the problem of diversity in the sport had already been widely acknowledged. “A panel of ESPN experts were asked their opinion on the most important issue facing the NFL today. The most frequent response was poor minority hiring in the head coaching ranks,” they wrote. Yet casual efforts to improve the situation hadn’t helped. “Commissioner Paul Tagliabue has responded to this situation with informal efforts to cajole team owners, but his efforts are far from adequate.” Cochran and Mehri proposed “carrot and stick” rules involving draft picks to encourage teams to diversify their front offices and at least interview minority candidates for head coaching positions.
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