TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — A small group gathered for a closed-door meeting at NFL headquarters two years ago in December, as it had regularly since 2003. The topic: identifying minority candidates for coaching jobs.The session was led, as always, by Steelers owner Dan Rooney. The hottest name during the discussions — Mike Tomlin.Soon after, Tomlin was hired as Pittsburgh’s coach.It was a classic case of the “Rooney Rule” in action, even if it wasn’t intended that way.And on Sunday, Tomlin could deliver the ultimate reward to Rooney: A Super Bowl championship won by a black coach for a team owner whose very name has become synonymous with diversity hiring.The Rooney Rule requires any team with a head coaching vacancy to interview at least one minority candidate. Tomlin is one of 11 black coaches hired in the NFL since the rule has been in place, finally addressing an embarrassing lack of diversity in America’s most popular sports league. There were two in 2002.
Tomlin credits his hiring to the Rooney Rule.”I have no question it helped me get this job,” Tomlin said this week. “Anything that brings a group of people an opportunity is a policy worth having. But I also thought that eventually I’d get an opportunity, Rooney Rule or not.”The rule was born after two lawyers, Cyrus Mehri and the late Johnnie Cochran Jr., threatened to sue the NFL in October 2002 if it didn’t open up more opportunities for minorities. Then-commissioner Paul Tagliabue, who had been pushing minority hiring for the 13 years he had been in office, immediately appointed Rooney to head a committee on the subject.He was the perfect choice — a humble man who cares deeply about his team, the game and the people involved with it.Now 76, Rooney eats daily in the cafeteria at the Steelers’ facility with the rest of the team’s employees — from players to secretaries.Politically, he’s to the left of most of the NFL’s conservative owners. He endorsed Barack Obama during the Pennsylvania Democratic primary last April and campaigned for him and with him, notably in Steelers strongholds in western Pennsylvania and West Virginia.At the Super Bowl, he has kept a low profile, preferring to talk to Pittsburgh reporters and others he knows. On media day, he walked the field, slightly hunched, wearing a windbreaker and brown pants with suspenders, a phalanx of cameras trailing him.The son of the Steelers founder Art Rooney, he’s more comfortable working out of the public eye, as he did when Tagliabue put him on the diversity committee. Two months after his group got the assignment, they came up with the rule.”It wasn’t as easy to get done as some people now seem to think it was,” Rooney said. “A lot of people thought the league was meddling in team business. We got comments like, ‘Why should you be involved in telling us who to hire?'”But it has undeniably had an impact.During the second half of this season, after Mike Singletary got the San Francisco 49ers job, there were seven black coaches — an all-time high. There are six now, with vacancies in Kansas City and Oakland yet to be filled.—-Contact The Daily Reveille’s sports staff at [email protected]