Years from now, when today's teens gather 'round the really big screen to watch Super Bowl LX with their kids, they may talk about witnessing history during Super Bowl XLI, when Lovie Smith of the Bears and Tony Dungy of the Colts became the first black men to coach against each other on pro football's biggest stage.
Hopefully, their kids will find it strange that that was a big deal in 2007. Because if it's still a big deal in 2026, we as a society will have more problems than Lindsay Lohan.
I have confidence that a generation from now, qualified football coaches will not be disqualified from head coaching positions because of the color of their skin.
I say that despite having covered college football for the past 19 years.
It was 19 years ago that I witnessed history, when Wayne Nunnely led the UNLV Rebels onto the field to knock helmets against Cleve Bryant's Ohio University Bobcats.
It was the first time black coaches outside of the Historic Black College and University conferences had opposed each other in an NCAA Division I football game. The modern NFL didn't get its first black coach until the next season when Art Shell took over the Los Angeles Raiders. (Fritz Pollard coached Akron and Hammond in the '20s.)
"I think it was special for Cleve and myself, although at the time, we didn't realize we were the first ones, because nobody really made a big deal of it," said Nunnely, who recently concluded his 12th season as an NFL assistant, the last 10 as the San Diego Chargers' defensive line coach.
"Just the fact that I went across the field and found myself talking to another black (head) coach made it unique."
That it didn't happen until Sept. 24, 1988, shows that when it came to hiring minority head football coaches, the NCAA - or at least its membership - was more backward than Kris Kross' wardrobe.
Did I say "when it came" to hiring minority coaches? As in the past tense?
When Nunnely and Bryant shook hands they were two of just five black coaches at the Division I level. Today, following Randy Shannon's recent appointment at Miami, there are six.
How's that for progress?
Let me answer my own question. It's disgraceful.
"Evidently, there hasn't been much," Nunnely said. "It is what it is."
At least you can't blame UNLV for not doing its part. Nunnely thought UNLV was being progressive when it bumped him from interim head coach to the full-time position after Harvey Hyde was fired and the Rebels upset Wisconsin.
"I didn't even go through the interview process," he said upon being called to UNLV President Bob Maxson's office after the Wisconsin game and being offered the permanent job. "They took a chance on me and they didn't have to."
Nunnely was fired after four seasons during which he guided the Rebels to a 19-25 record. His winning percentage of .432, although mediocre, is still better than the four white guys who have succeeded him.
That said, UNLV received an A grade from the Black Coaches Association the last time the job was open, in 2004.
Mike Sanford, who is white, got the assignment. But UNLV received an A based on the following criteria: time it allotted for the selection process, diversity among the selection committee, establishing a diverse pool of candidates, using the resources provided by the BCA and/or the NCAA's Minority Opportunities and Interest Committee and adhering to its own affirmative action policies.
The year before, UNR received an F for the way it rehired Chris Ault.
Nunnely hopes Smith and Dungy's presence in Miami, combined with the fact there are seven black head coaches in the NFL, one more than in Division I despite the latter having nearly 100 more teams, might cast a spotlight on the NCAA membership's Cro-Magnon approach to hiring football coaches.
In an editorial on the Indianapolis Star's Web site, NCAA President Myles Brand said that while NCAA members have been progressive in basketball, where 80 of 326 Division I teams have black head coaches, football has been "embarrassingly slow" to follow.
Excluding the HBCU schools, there are 614 NCAA football-playing schools. Only 14 are coached by black men.
"This is simply inexcusable," Brand wrote.
The crux of his commentary was that while the NCAA urges hiring minority head football coaches, it can't force its members to do so. He questioned whether the NFL's Rooney Rule, which in 2002 mandated that clubs interview at least one minority candidate for a head coaching vacancy, would work in college.
But he said if schools would only apply their own diverse hiring policies to football, the situation would remedy itself.
"There is no question that the talent is there among African Americans for head coaching positions," Brand wrote.
Unfortunately, some 19 years after it first happened at Sam Boyd Stadium, there also is no good answer why more of them aren't shaking hands after the game.
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