Don Pierson

The night before the Colts beat the Chiefs in the AFC wild-card round, Bears coach Lovie Smith went to Indianapolis to have dinner with Colts coach Tony Dungy and Chiefs coach Herm Edwards.

Together they represented one-fourth of the 12-team playoff field. Since they all came from Dungy's first staff at Tampa Bay in 1996, they had special reason to celebrate. Two reasons. After the firings of Art Shell and Dennis Green, they represent three-fifths of the African-American coaches in the NFL. The other two are Cincinnati's Marvin Lewis and Cleveland's Romeo Crennel.

Now that both Smith and Dungy's teams won their conference titles, it marks the first time a black head coach has reached the Super Bowl and ensures that one will make history as the first to win it.

"It's been this way since Denny (Green) had that great year in Minnesota and Atlanta beat him," said John Wooten, chairman of the Fritz Pollard Alliance, the group that has pushed the NFL toward inclusive hiring practices.

Green's 1998 Vikings were 15-1 and set the NFL scoring record that still stands, yet lost to the Falcons in the NFC title game in Minnesota. Until this week, that game was the only time a team with a black coach was playing at home in a conference title game.

Wooten, former Cleveland Browns guard and long-time scout for the Dallas Cowboys, laments that such details of history must be recorded. Someday, the Fritz Pollard Alliance may no longer be necessary to recommend and help groom African-American candidates for coaching and NFL executive positions.

"As Lovie said in his press conference, that day isn't here yet," Wooten said.

But on Martin Luther King Day, Wooten said he was filled with wonder and gratitude when he called Smith and Dungy and then watched Jerry Reese named general manager of one of the league's flagship franchises, the New York Giants, following Baltimore's Ozzie Newsome, Houston's Rick Smith, and Arizona's Rod Graves as African-American general managers or directors of football operations.

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Later, Wooten watched 34-year-old Mike Tomlin get a second interview for coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers, where owner Dan Rooney has been so instrumental in pushing for minority hiring that the "Rooney Rule" demanding an inclusive interviewing process bears his name.

"To have all of this happen, you couldn't stop the tears," Wooten said. "Somewhere in the great beyond, Dr. King is smiling. Here's what he had long aspired to and believed. Work and try to be the very best, whether you're a street sweeper or garbage collector, whatever you're going to be, try to be the best."

Wooten praises Rooney, commissioner Roger Goodell, former commissioner Paul Tagliabue and others for aggressively advocating equal opportunity, but he also knows it took a pointed nudge from the late attorney Johnnie Cochran and others to turn good intentions into policy.

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