Jimmy Raye laments ‘systemic racism’ in NFL
In February for Black History Month, USA TODAY Sports is publishing the series “28 Black Stories in 28 Days.” We examine the issues, challenges and opportunities Black athletes and sports officials continue to face after the nation’s reckoning on race following the murder of George Floyd in 2020. This is the third annual installment of the series.
Let Jimmy Raye weigh in on the state of Black coaches in the NFL, with, sadly, more of the same ol’ dialogue about scant opportunities.
“It’s very disappointing and it reeks of systemic racism,” Raye, retired after a long career in the NFL as a position coach and offensive coordinator, told USA TODAY Sports.
The NFL’s recently completed head coach hiring cycle resulted in one Black candidate getting a job, DeMeco Ryans with the Houston Texans, among the five openings. Over the past five cycles, Black coaches were hired for five of 33 openings.
Raye can relate to the widespread frustration. A generation ago, he was the Black assistant coach often mentioned – and occasionally interviewed – as a potential head coach.
“When I was coming along, the knock was, ‘Well, he doesn’t have head coaching experience,’ ” said Raye, 76, who last coached in the NFL in 2013.
That’s hardly a prerequisite these days. The offensive and defensive coordinators from the Philadelphia Eagles, Shane Steichen and Jonathan Gannon, were picked by the Indianapolis Colts and Arizona Cardinals, respectively, after losing in Super Bowl 57 against the Kansas Chiefs – whose offensive coordinator, Eric Bieniemy, was passed over again.
And Steichen follows Jeff Saturday, whom Colts owner Jim Irsay hired as interim coach last season despite the former center possessing zero NFL coaching experience.
“The goal posts keep moving,” Raye said. “At one time, they wanted ‘decision-making’ (assistant) coaches. Then it was coordinators. Irsay showed that you don’t need experience. It’s just who they like. It doesn’t have anything to do with your credentials or accomplishments, or your resume, or your ability to do the job.
“It’s disappointing to see that in 2023, there are only four Black head coaches in the NFL,” added Raye, mindful that one of the coaches, Miami’s Mike McDaniel, identifies as biracial, and that there are two other minority coaches in Robert Saleh with the Jets
and Washington’s Ron Rivera. “I think it’s going to shift. I hope I’m around to see the shift.”
Raye is celebrated as a pivotal figure in the history of the NFL and college football, as showcased with a stirring documentary, “The Indelible Legacy of Jimmy Raye,” that debuted with a screening during Super Bowl week and has aired on the NFL Network this month.
Before his NFL career, Raye coached at his alma mater, Michigan State, where in the 1960s he became the first Black quarterback from the South to lead a school to a share of the national championship. He was one of several prominent players, including “Bubba” Smith, George Webster and Sherm Lewis, who left the Jim Crow South to play at Michigan State under coach Duffy Daugherty, the movement dubbed as a college football version of the “Underground Railroad.”
While Raye, who hailed from Fayetteville, North Carolina, represented progress in making a mark as a major college quarterback (the ’66 team he led finished 9-0-1), there was a distinct glass ceiling for him and other passers who looked like him.
“Being a Black quarterback in the NFL wasn’t even an option when I went to college,” Raye said. “I didn’t have anybody to aspire to that had played in the NFL, so there wasn’t any reason to think that was a possibility. As time went on, the fact that I did start at a Division 1 school when there were no other Blacks doing it, it gave hope to kids all over the country, and particularly down South in the segregated areas of Jim Crow, that it was a possibility.”
Raye has heard the well-intentioned suggestion that he was “born too soon”
on the timeline that ultimately resulted in NFL opportunities for Black quarterbacks. Born in the mid-1940s, he came of age during the Civil Rights era.
“I was born at the right time for what I think my destiny was,” he said. “Because I played on a totally integrated team at Michigan State, I think it forced the ACC and SEC to take a harder look at letting the good athletes get out of the state to play elsewhere. Being a part of that, I don’t think it was too soon. I think it was right on time, that that broke down some walls of discrimination and segregation and Jim Crow laws. I’m proud to be a part of that. The impetus of that created what we see now, a lot of Black quarterbacks playing in the NFL and two Black quarterbacks starting in the Super Bowl.”
Still, the long overdue landscape change for Black quarterbacks in the NFL has hardly manifested a level playing field for Black coaches. Sure, there have been some markers of progress since the 1980s, when Raye was one of just a handful of Black assistant coaches in the NFL.
Art Shell was hired in 1989 as the first modern-day Black head coach in NFL history, followed by Dennis Green and others. Tony Dungy – who grew up aspiring to become a quarterback like Raye – became the first Black head coach to win a Super Bowl to cap the 2006 season, when a record seven Black coaches led NFL teams (matched in 2017) that included Super Bowl runnerup Lovie Smith.
Such milestones, though, have been overshadowed by the frustrations in recent years that are marked by Brian Flores’ pending discrimination lawsuit against the NFL and several teams, which included co-plaintiffs Steve
Wilks and Ray Horton. And there are way too many examples of Black coaches with strong credentials – including Wilks, Leslie Frazier, Jim Caldwell and Bieniemy – passed over for white candidates with lighter resumes.
The Broncos had the opening this year that was filled with the hiring of Sean Payton after last year’s appointment of first-time coach Nathaniel Hackett turned out to be a disaster.
“It tells you the process is flawed,” said Raye.
The same could apply to the Lions, who fired Caldwell (two playoff berths in four seasons, a .563 winning percentage that was best by a Detroit coach since Buddy Parker in the 1950s) and replaced him with since-fired Matt Patricia.
Meanwhile, Bieniemy, who won two Super Bowl rings as the Chiefs offensive coordinator and left last week to join Washington in a similar role that includes play-calling duties, has become the poster image of opportunities denied. Bieniemy has interviewed 17 times for head coaching jobs.
A key knock on Bieniemy was that he didn’t call plays under Andy Reid. Of course, that didn’t prevent Matt Nagy and Doug Pederson from graduating to become head coaches.
“It’s a shame that he felt like he had to leave a Super Bowl championship team to go prove that he’s a good coach,” Raye said. “He left a team where he still would have been in the thick of it every year with a quarterback and an organization that’s dynamic, and he’s going to a team that’s going to be sold, doesn’t have a quarterback and has some other issues.
“Those plays with Patrick Mahomes worked because you couldn’t make a bad call. He’s going to find out it’s not about the X’s and the O’s, it’s about the Jimmys and the Joes. I hope he pulls it off. He’s a good coach. Maybe Sam Howell or Carson Wentz will develop and they’ll have some success. I just think the odds are against him.”
Raye insists that he holds no bitterness for never getting an opportunity to become an NFL head coach. His son, Jimmy III, established a front office career in the NFL that has spanned more than two decades with several teams.
A senior executive with the Browns, Raye III has often been mentioned as a potential GM, but that hasn’t happened yet – which his father can relate to.
“It kind of mirrors my stay in the NFL, because he hasn’t reached the mountaintop and is duly deserving,” Raye said. “He’s had a great amount of success in personnel and in the jobs that used to lead to becoming a general manager. There’s really no criteria now to become a head coach or general manager. It’s who they decide to pick. It’s changed a bit.”
Then again, in some ways the more things change the more they stay the same.