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Arians believes female coaches could be hired in NFL
Posted by Mike Florio on April 12, 2015
The recent hiring of Sarah Thomas to serve as the first full-time NFL game official has caused Josh Weinfuss of ESPN.com to dust off a quote from last month made by Cardinals coach Bruce Arians regarding the possibility of a female NFL coach.
“Someone asked me yesterday, ‘When are we going to have female coaches?’” Arians said. “The minute they can prove they can make a player better, they’ll be hired.”
More accurately, the minute that a female candidate proves she can make players better than the best male candidate for a coaching position, she should be hired. More realistically, that won’t happen, at least not right away.
Look at the extended amount of time it took for a group consisting of middle-aged to elderly white men to embrace the hiring of African-American coaches. Only after Cyrus Mehri and the late Johnnie Cochran threatened the league with litigation did a procedure emerge that forces NFL owners to consider minority candidates already in the pipeline of assistant-coaching and college coaching positions for head-coaching positions.
Before there could ever be a female head coach, plenty of female assistant coaches would have to be in the pipeline, too, serving as position coaches and coordinators. Which means that they’d have to be in the pipeline for those jobs as well, serving as assistant coaches and head coaches in the college ranks.
That’s what makes the elevation of Sarah Thomas even more impressive. She has made it to the top of the sport despite being one of very few females in the officiating pipeline. Absent a flood of female coaches wanting to break into coaching and then successfully climbing the ladder of the coaching ranks, it won’t be easy for a female coach to get to the NFL, in any capacity.
Even then, no female coach will get to the highest rung until an owner is willing to entrust the franchise to her. The late Al Davis would have been willing to do it, if he believed she gave his team the best chance of winning, in relation to other candidates.
Would any of the current owners do it? That question won’t matter until one or more female coaching candidates begin to rise through the ranks. Which hasn’t happened yet, and may not happen for a long time.
It starts with female candidates having the same “maybe I can do it, too” attitude that propelled Sarah Thomas into officiating. And it’s entirely possible that Thomas will inspire plenty of women to realize that, whether it’s coaching football or any other traditionally male profession, there’s only one way to find out.
Arians believes female coaches could be hired in NFL
Posted by Mike Florio on April 12, 2015
The recent hiring of Sarah Thomas to serve as the first full-time NFL game official has caused Josh Weinfuss of ESPN.com to dust off a quote from last month made by Cardinals coach Bruce Arians regarding the possibility of a female NFL coach.
“Someone asked me yesterday, ‘When are we going to have female coaches?’” Arians said. “The minute they can prove they can make a player better, they’ll be hired.”
More accurately, the minute that a female candidate proves she can make players better than the best male candidate for a coaching position, she should be hired. More realistically, that won’t happen, at least not right away.
Look at the extended amount of time it took for a group consisting of middle-aged to elderly white men to embrace the hiring of African-American coaches. Only after Cyrus Mehri and the late Johnnie Cochran threatened the league with litigation did a procedure emerge that forces NFL owners to consider minority candidates already in the pipeline of assistant-coaching and college coaching positions for head-coaching positions.
Before there could ever be a female head coach, plenty of female assistant coaches would have to be in the pipeline, too, serving as position coaches and coordinators. Which means that they’d have to be in the pipeline for those jobs as well, serving as assistant coaches and head coaches in the college ranks.
That’s what makes the elevation of Sarah Thomas even more impressive. She has made it to the top of the sport despite being one of very few females in the officiating pipeline. Absent a flood of female coaches wanting to break into coaching and then successfully climbing the ladder of the coaching ranks, it won’t be easy for a female coach to get to the NFL, in any capacity.
Even then, no female coach will get to the highest rung until an owner is willing to entrust the franchise to her. The late Al Davis would have been willing to do it, if he believed she gave his team the best chance of winning, in relation to other candidates.
Would any of the current owners do it? That question won’t matter until one or more female coaching candidates begin to rise through the ranks. Which hasn’t happened yet, and may not happen for a long time.
It starts with female candidates having the same “maybe I can do it, too” attitude that propelled Sarah Thomas into officiating. And it’s entirely possible that Thomas will inspire plenty of women to realize that, whether it’s coaching football or any other traditionally male profession, there’s only one way to find out.
