Flores’ discrimination claims similar to these infamous comments
There are two remarkable moments from decades ago that show while we’ve made so much progress in race relations in sports, some things have changed disturbingly slow. In fact, some things haven’t changed at all, and some of them relate to Brian Flores, the former Miami Dolphins coach who has alleged racial discrimination by NFL teams in hiring practices.
In 1987, as the anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s major league debut approached, Al Campanis, the general manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, gave an interview to “Nightline,” and that moment is still relevant all these decades later.
“I truly believe that they may not have some of the necessities to be, let’s say, a field manager, or, perhaps, a general manager,” Campanis said, speaking of Black people.
Later in the interview with Ted Koppel, he asked: “Why are Black men or Black people not good swimmers? Because they don’t have the buoyancy.”
(I float pretty well, thank you very much.)
Campanis’ overall point was that Blacks didn’t have the cognitive abilities to be in management.
And remember: Campanis was a general manager. He was the one doing the hiring and firing.
Campanis wasn’t the only high-profile figure dipping his toe into race and genetics. In 1988, a popular gambling analyst, Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder, said Black people were bred to be better athletes.
“The black is a better athlete to begin with, because he’s been bred to be that way. Because of his high thighs and big thighs that goes up into his back. And they can jump higher and run faster because of their bigger thighs. And he’s bred to be the better athlete because this goes back all the way to the Civil War, when, during the slave trading, the big, the owner, the slave owner would breed his big black to his big woman so that he
could have uh big black kid, see. That’s where it all started!”
(Where does buoyancy fit into all of that?)
It may seem strange to pair two instances of decades-old bigotry with the fact there are so few Black coaches in the NFL now, but there’s a pertinent through line.
The main thing Campanis and Snyder were saying was that Black people are too stupid to lead teams. Not to mention we’re also apparently buoyancy deficient.
Campanis and Snyder’s beliefs are still held by people in key hiring positions in the NFL, namely, some NFL owners and front office executives.
They don’t want to entrust the coaching position, maybe the most important in football, to people they think are inferior. Why do I believe this? The numbers say it all. The only logical reason for the lack of Black head coaches is discrimination.
In 1989, not long after the Snyder and Campanis remarks, the Raiders made Art Shell the first Black head coach in the modern era.
Three decades later there’s now just three.