But Should It Be A Holiday?
Ahhhh, football season is here. Time for watching really large men run around and smash into each other, eating in front of the TV without worry of dropping or spilling, yelling inside with our outside voices, joining various games of chance, rushing home from church on Sunday to get your "game face" on, and being planted in front of a TV for 9 hours.
I was watching the NFL debut last night when just before half-time the sideline reporter made a comment about the significance of Tony Dungy being the first black coach to win the Super Bowl.
"Tony Dungy understands that his winning the Super Bowl transcends sports. But he told me that the seminal moment when he realized that was when his daughter Tiara, who just graduated Spelman College told him that her professors at school said that they had witnessed many historical events: Martin Luther King being put in jail, African Americans gaining voting rights; and they have equated Tony Dungy winning the Super Bowl with those monumental events.”
Um, What?!
I will agree that Tony Dungy winning the Super Bowl was a great event in black history, but I really don't see it opening any doors for other blacks. Being the first black coach to win the Super Bowl really only benefits Dungy and his family. As is evident by his New York Times best selling book, Quiet Strength. Before the Super Bowl Dungy has no books listing him as the author.
Don't forget, Lovie Smith, a black man, was the losing coach in that same Super Bowl. Did he close the door that Dungy open? I don't know.
Jackie Robinson opened doors, Martin Luther King opened doors, Rosa Parks opened doors, countless others died trying to open doors for the black community. Tony Dungy won a football game.
3 comments:
As white people we take too much for granted.
You must remember that becoming a head coach in any pro sport is difficult, and achieving this as a black is 10 times harder. Both men were the first blacks ever to do this.
Is this equal to the acts of Martin Luther King? Not really but it does open doors to upcoming black coaches and proves to the "white" owners that they are more than capable of getting the job done.
I think the thing that makes it less impressive was that, no matter which team won, a black coach accomplished it. If one coach had been white, and the black guy won, then it might have seemed more important. But in this case, no matter what, a black coach did it. And they weren't the first black coaches to MAKE it that far, right?
Ah well. You know I don't follow the volleyball....
They were the first black head coaches to make the Super Bowl
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