“Sorry—I f---ed this up. I double checked and misread the text. I think they are naming Brian Daboll. I’m sorry about that. BB.”
That text from Bill Belichick to Brian Flores, former head coach of the Miami Dolphins, opens the lawsuit Flores filed at the beginning of this month against the National Football League (NFL), the New York Football Giants, the Miami Dolphins, the Denver Broncos, and 20 other NFL teams alleging racial discrimination in the hiring of head coaches.
Belichick had texted Flores three days before he was to interview for the open head coach position with the New York Giants, mistakenly congratulating him on his success. For Flores, it meant that his upcoming interview with the Giants would be entirely performative.
Dr. Richard Lapchick, founder and director of The Institute for Diversity and Equity in Sports (TIDES).
Lapchick was one of those who advocated for the rule’s creation, in an effort to change the NFL head coaching landscape that had, at that time, only three Black head coaches.
But twenty years later, there are even fewer Black coaches on the roster. This week, civil rights leaders including the Rev. Al Sharpton called for the rule to be replaced with specific recruiting and hiring practices to address the crisis.
Sports scholars like Lapchick recognize that what Flores has done in filing this suit has taken great courage, potentially putting his career in jeopardy. In 2016, 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick chose to take a knee during the national anthem to protest racial inequity and the mistreatment of Black and Brown individuals at the hands of police. Kaepernick was subsequently fired and has yet to play on any other NFL team.
