Silva: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for NFC teams.
SportsTalk: Albert Pujols signs with the Angels and Prince Fielder joins the Tigers. Which team is better now?
Ryan Callahan scored for the fifth time in four days and defenseman Ryan McDonagh snapped a second-period tie to lift the New York Rangers to a 3-2 victory over the Washington Capitals on Sunday.
Kobe Bryant hit a baseline jump shot with 4.2 seconds left and the Los Angeles Lakers wrapped up a six-game road trip by holding on to beat the Raptors 94-92 on Sunday, their eighth victory in nine meetings with Toronto
Arc's five up, five down: After No. 11 Michigan State's 58-48 upset of No. 3 Ohio State, you'd be a fool to discount the Spartans' national title chances now.
Miami coach Al Golden says the worst is behind him, but his headaches figure to continue now that former booster Nevin Shapiro, now in jail, says his involvement with the Hurricanes program will result in stiff penalties.
Golf's dream pairing - Woods and Mickelson - is on the course in the final round at Pebble Beach. Jason Sobel has hole-by-hole reports.
The United States completed a 5-0 rout of Switzerland in the Davis Cup on Sunday, with 19-year-old Ryan Harrison and John Isner winning closing singles matches.
Euro Roundup: First-place Manchester City won 1-0 at Aston Villa on Sunday on Joleon Lescott's goal in the 63rd minute, maintaining its two-point lead over Manchester United in the Premier League.
Tessa Worley of France fought off gusting winds to win a second consecutive World Cup giant slalom Sunday in the Andorran Pyrenees. Overall leader Lindsey Vonn was more than a second behind and finished eighth.
Robins: It’s the Year of the Dragon on the Lunar calendar, and this Chinese influence could extend to it also being the year of the Pekingese on the green carpet at the 136th Westminster Dog Show on Tuesday.
AP
ORLANDO, Fla. - The NFL’s rule that at least one minority candidate be interviewed for each head coaching vacancy is the reason there are a record seven black head coaches, six more than 16 years ago, the author of several sports diversity studies said Thursday.
The University of Central Florida’s Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport credited the league’s “Rooney Rule,” adopted in late 2002, for the improvement.
“It’s been really fast-tracked in a big-time way,” study author Richard Lapchick said. “I’ve always felt the commissioner (Paul Tagliabue) had high on his priority list to improve the record for diversity, but until then he just didn’t have the leverage.”
The number of black general managers also increased from two in 2003 to a record five at the beginning of this season after the Houston Texans hired Rick Smith. Others at the position, not always called general manager but with equivalent duties, are the Baltimore Ravens’ Ozzie Newsome, Arizona Cardinals vice president Rod Graves, Martin Mayhew with the Detroit Lions and James Harris, vice president of player personnel with the Jacksonville Jaguars.
There were never more than four minority head coaches throughout the 1990s.
Current black head coaches are: Romeo Crennel at Cleveland, Lovie Smith at Chicago, Marvin Lewis at Cincinnati, Herman Edwards at Kansas City, Tony Dungy at Indianapolis, Dennis Green at Arizona and Art Shell, recently rehired by the Oakland Raiders.
Those changes helped the NFL earn an overall B+ from a B last year in Lapchick’s report card on race.
“Having talented people from diverse backgrounds has been and will continue to be a priority for our league,” NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said.
However, the report noted that the NFL — and other pro men’s sports, with the exception of basketball — continued to lag in hiring women. The report card did not specifically issue a grade for gender because researchers were missing information from the NFL head office, Lapchick said, but it likely wouldn’t have improved much over last year’s D+.
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The NFL did not immediately comment on the report.
Lapchick reports on diversity in all the major professional sports and the NCAA.
Silva: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for NFC teams.
Wesseling: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for AFC teams.
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Wesseling: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for AFC teams.
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Silva: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for NFC teams.
