The Rooney Rule doesn't require Leslie Frazier to interview with Seattle. If he "knew" what the situation was he wouldn't have had to go out and interview.
What's the downside to him interviewing with one of 32 people making decisions about head coaches. If he impresses Seattle's owner, perhaps it helps get jobs down the road. Marvin Lewis and Lovie Smith both interviewed multiple times before they were hired. My guess is the good interviews they had previous to being hired in their specific roles probably didn't hurt matters.
Not that I disagree with you - you actually make a good point - but what would happen to the Seahawks if someone like Frazier declined to be interviewed? Would they have to interview another minority candidate or by asking to interview a minority candidate, does that fulfill the requirement?
And take it one step further, what if every minority candidate refused to interview because they think it's a joke?
SI's Peter King reports that Jaguars coach Jack Del Rio is making calls to potential staff members in anticipation of leaving Jacksonville for USC.
“I don’t care,” Votto said of passing his friend and former teammate. “He’s in the past. Bye-bye, Jay.”
A similar situation happened in Detroit. In a situation like that, I think it would be in the best interest of the team to be up front with a candidate and say we're definately looking at hiring Carroll, but in the event that doesn't work out and in order to cover our end we'd like to fly you in for an interview. The worst thing to come out of it would be a free trip to seattle and a nice night in a 5 star hotel.
It only takes one...you could easily find a low-level assistant wanting to interview just to get his name out there. Come find me when a team throws up its hands (an extreme timetable deadline not withstanding) and says "sorry, but we can't find one minority who will interview".
From within the pro and college ranks, I would bet there are over 1000 minorities on coaching staffs. If each and everyone of them declined...I figure the NFL might let it slide.
You gotta admit...thinking that not one minority would be willing to be flown in for an interview is a huge,huge,hypothetical.
I repeat it just takes one. You'd think in a worst case scenario one of the higher-ups in the Seahawks organization could simply call in a favor and have someone show up.
I don't really like the Rooney rule. I think it serves a purpose, but its implementation is off. Seattle wants to hire Carroll. They are not hiring Carroll because he is white, they are hiring Carroll because of his success at USC. Its the same thing with Washington hiring Shanahan, and any team that hires Cowher is going to hire Cowher because of his pedigree and whether or not Cowher wants to coach for a given team.
I have another question about the Rooney rule. Lets assume that Tony Dungey makes it known that he wants to come back and coach. St. Louis works out a deal with Dungey without interviewing anyone else. Should they have to hire a white coach?
Leslie Frazier will get a coaching job at some point. I wonder how many coordinators got a job on their first or even second interview, Al Davis doesn't count. I think that at some point the Rooney Rule served a purpose to get black coaches into the forefront, but I think it has become more of a hindrance anymore.
You're dealing in the hypothetical. I deal in the real world (where possible) and your scenario is not what happened with Frazier. This is what really happened according to ESPN reports:
Frazier made it clear that he was not interested in a token interview. He only wanted to interview if he had a realistic shot at the job. Upon hearing that and knowing that they needed an interview with a person of color, the Seahawks lied to him and said they had not decided on Carroll as their next head coach. Under those conditions, Frazier agrees to the interview.
So to recap, it's the deceit here that the Rooney Rule fostered that I have a problem with. If Frazier had been told the truth and still agreed to the interview for the reasons you mentioned above, fine. But that's not what happened. He was used and that's not right.
Yes the Seahawks would face penalties if they didn't interview a minority candidate.
The Redskins also made a mockery of the whole process. John Feinstein equates believing the Redskins hadn't already decided on Shanahan to believing in Santa Claus:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...123001213.html
And Tony Dungy also doesn't like how the Seahawks handled it although he does acknowledge the value of a pointless interview nevertheless:
http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/t...ey-rule-011010
Jerry Gray is the token minority candidate interviewed by the Redskins."That is not what the Rooney Rule is supposed to be, (that) you make up your mind and then interview a candidate for it anyway just to satisfy the rule," said Dungy, who retired from coaching last year and now is an analyst on NBC's "Football Night in America" show.
"If the Jerry Gray situation is the way it has been described as happening, I don't think it was fair. I don't think I would ever interview for a job if my boss was not out of the job. I don't blame Jerry; it's the position he was put in, if it happened that way."
Dungy notes that the rule "isn't fair" and I agree with him. Do any of you disagree with Dungy and me?
How many people believe the bolded part?Carroll insisted his decision had nothing to do with the NCAA's lengthy look into his program, denouncing rumors of a rift between him and athletic director Mike Garrett. Carroll said he thought he would be at USC "forever."
I don't but time will tell the story here. If things get ugly at USC Carroll won't be able to escape it. It's not like he's going into the witness protection program. We all know where to find him.
Bottomline is this, if USC is shown to have significant issues in its recruiting of athletes then it'll take a toll on Carroll's image as a successful college coach and that's the only success he's really got at this point. If he's not winning in Seattle by then, it all could unravel on him.
Sure he'll have money but ego and prestige is what really matters to this guy.
Yes I disagree with you and Tony Dungy. Dungy more than anyone should understand how helpful those interviews can be as he went on about 5 of them before finally being offered the job.
Did it harm Jerry Gray in any way to be the "token" interview?
You're assuming the Redskins and/or Seahawks have to lie to people which is incorrect. The Seahawks chose to lie to Frazier because they didn't want to go beyond him as far as candidates.
Again the Rooney rule doesn't require the Seahawks to interview Leslie Frazier. If he decides he doesn't want to interview, they can move on to someone else. I'm pretty sure Frazier's gone through the token interview and didn't want to do it again which is fair, that's his choice.
If a team wanted to circumvent the rule, I'd just interview a minority coach from the current staff. The person would have the motivation to impress the big cheese so maybe there's something on the new coaches staff.
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