Midday with Dan Rodricks 2-1-11 Hour 2

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midday110201hr2.mp3

With the Super Bowl approaching, Midday takes a look at the flow of African-Americans from the playing to the coaching ranks in the National Football League. Dan's guests: Milton Kent, WYPR Sports At Large commentator and AOL FanHouse writer, and Jeremi Duru, author of Advancing the Ball: Race, Reformation, and the Quest for Equal Coaching Opportunity in the NFL (Oxford). Duru tells the story of the campaign to enact the "Rooney Rule," which stipulates that every team must interview at least one minority candidate when searching for a new head coach. (The rule is named for Dan Rooney, owner of the Super Bowl-bound Pittsburgh Steelers and the chairman of the league's diversity committee, and indirectly the Rooney family, due to the Steelers' long history of giving African Americans opportunities to serve in senior leadership roles.) The rule spurred a movement that would substantially impact the NFL and, potentially, the nation. Duru’s book includes a foreword by Tony Dungy, the former head coach of the Indianapolis Colts. He became the first black American head coach to win the Super Bowl when his Colts defeated the Chicago Bears on February 4, 2007.  Jeremi Duru is associate professor of law at Temple University. He has worked directly with the network of African-American coaches in the NFL and brings an insider's perspective to the larger story about race and sports in our society.