Dan Calabrese

Pete Carroll is the new head coach of the Seattle Seahawks. Leslie Frazier is not. This is just as well for Frazier, since he is experiencing a lot more winning these days as defensive coordinator of the Minnesota Vikings.

And his “interview” for the job was a complete sham, necessitated by the NFL’s well-intentioned but entirely ill-conceived Rooney Rule.

Sham.

Carroll, a very successful collegiate coach with USC, has not won much during his previous NFL head coaching stints with the Jets and Patriots, and isn’t likely to win much – for awhile anyway – in Seattle.

But regardless, Carroll was the guy the Seahawks wanted from the get-go. That happens sometimes when you have a position to fill. I’ve been there in my various business ventures. You know – you’re not always right, but you know – that one particular person is the only person you want. That’s your prerogative as an employer.

Or it is for most employers. The NFL, since the Rooney Rule took effect, requires every team with a head-coaching or top front-office vacancy to interview at least one minority candidate for the job. The theory was that well-qualified minorities were being passed over because, well, because teams either didn’t pay attention to their candidacies or, I guess, were too racist to bother with them.

It’s hard to stomach that last theory, given that the NFL vets its prospective owners with a fine-tooth comb. Remember, they wouldn’t let Rush Limbaugh be part of ownership group to buy the Rams because Al Freaking Sharpton had a problem with it. That’s not just bending over backwards. That’s yoga.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with interviewing a minority candidate for any  job, provided of course that you are actually seriously considering said minority candidate for the job. If you’re not, you’re wasting the time of the “candidate” as well as your own.

A few years ago, the Detroit Lions were reprimanded by the NFL for hiring Steve Mariucci without first interviewing a minority candidate. It was the perfect situation to demonstrate the folly of the Rooney Rule. Mariucci’s availability was the only reason the Lions made a coaching change in the first place.

They had already decided to give second-year head coach Marty Mornhinweg a third year, even though he hadn’t accomplished much in his first two, and were spending January in typical Lions fashion – watching the playoffs on TV. But when the San Francisco 49ers exited the playoffs early and unexpectedly fired Mariucci, the Lions saw a chance to upgrade and pounced.

What would have been the point of interviewing a minority candidate when they already knew who they wanted, and wouldn’t have fired Mornhinweg in the first place if their preferred candidate were not available?

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This has now spread to other sports. The Detroit Tigers did the same thing in 2005 after firing manager Alan Trammell. President and General Manager Dave Dombrowski already knew who he wanted to hire – former Pirates and Marlins manager Jim Leyland, who had the experience and the track record (not to mention past history with Dombrowski), that he felt the team needed at that point.

But before officially announcing that Leyland was hired, Dombrowski conducted sham interviews of Trammell coaching staff members Bruce Fields (who is black) and Juan Samuel (who is Latino). The hiring of Leyland, a foregone conclusion from the get-go, was announced the very next day.

This is idiotic. If someone is really a racist, you can’t make a rule that forces them to be open-minded. I seriously doubt that a single NFL owner is really a racist. But if one is, why would a black person want to work for him? It’s to his detriment that he passes up good talent based on something stupid like skin color.

Stupid ideas like the Rooney Rule come about as a result of public pressure by quota-mongering groups who scare high-profile institutions into throwing them bones. The NFL doesn’t need the likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton leading protests and boycotts against it, so if they have to insult individual minorities with sham interviews to please attention-mongering activists – to say they did something about racism – it’s the path of least resistance compared to really thinking the issue through logically.

Leslie Frazier is darn good defensive coordinator, and since the Vikings are my team, I’d just as soon see him stay where he is. But if he’s someone’s right choice for a head coaching job, he’ll get it. It’s an insult to him, and to all minorities, when he’s put through a pretend interview, solely because of the color of his skin.

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