Every morning, immediately after I have my breakfast, I head to a small, quiet room (with tile floors, a sink, a shower, etc.) with my 9300 Communicator to read the latest news stories on ESPN. Most mornings, I scroll through the articles without much reaction. Football’s football, and my predictions and perspectives almost always vary from the next guy’s. But today, Michael Smith (of ESPN) actually got me riled up; and being riled up on the john is not only unpleasant, but potentially unsafe.

So, Michael Smith, you’re the target of my first “rant” in an awfully long while.

Since I read your article on the race of coaches in the NFL on my 9300, and I don’t have pictures enabled by default, I didn’t have any idea what you look like. In fact, it wasn’t until I dashed to my desktop to begin writing THIS, that I saw your picture, and realized that you’re African American. Immediately, I began to wonder if you didn’t secretly bid for a coaching position with one of these teams, and your rejection was the underlying motivation for the article…I was hoping that was the case, anyway.

When are you people (disclaimer: “you people” refers to you people in the media, not you African Americans) going to stop using the race card as leverage for the front page? The NFL’s policy on minority coaches is fine; I don’t have a problem requiring teams to interview minorities before making decisions. Sure, I think it could be a little more sweeping to be fair to guys like…I dunno…me. Why don’t I get a shot at interviewing with each team? Nevermind, this is going off-topic.

I understand the league’s requirements for interviews, and while I’d find it extremely insulting if I were an African American coach, I’m not. It’s fine. What’s not fine is that you’ve decided to keep score of the number of minority coaches being hired, and evaluating the league’s “performance” from that metric. Here’s my favorite quote from your article:

Minority coaches haven’t gone oh-for-eight on the open job market but rather oh-for-one eight times. The NFL’s not adding to its embarrassingly small roster of minority head coaches was not so much one company hiring eight white men for the same level job. It was more like eight individual corporations each selecting one white man over several worthy candidates, both white and black, for one position.

Michael, I’m confused. Your articles aren’t riddled with grammatical mistakes, you work as a writer for ESPN…aren’t we to assume some semblance of intelligent thought goes into your articles? I recognize that my sarcasm doesn’t do much to prove my point, so here’s a question whose answer will prove my point.

How many white runningbacks are there in the NFL?

Quick, now. You’re about to say Mike Alstott…but he doesn’t do all that much running. I’m waiting. Okay, how about this one instead then…

How many white wide receivers are there in the NFL? You’ll be able to come up with a few more this time, no doubt. But I’ll bet the percentage is lower than that of African American coaches to white coaches. Reason? MERIT. MERIT. MERIT. And yet, I haven’t run across an article from Pasquarelli, complaining that too few white athletes have been given a chance. Well, that being said, why would he? The NFL doesn’t have a policy for THAT.

Here’s another gem from your article:

Look, if you dropped the names of the 10 most qualified assistant coaches in a hat and each team drew, at the very least a few of them would come up with a minority. But it isn’t that simple. We don’t live in a meritocracy. There’s a network in place that, unfortunately, most minorities aren’t plugged into.

Okay, you work for ESPN. You’ve got every sports stat from the beginning of time at your very finger tips, so I’m going to put this burden back on you. Compile a list of statistics to justify your “most qualified assistant coaches,” compare them to similar statistics for coaches who were hired instead, and back up your argument with some fact. Unfortunately, in today’s day and age, I’m about as quick to cite racial discrimination as causation for someone’s unemployment as I am to apply for a head coaching job in the NFL (I’m not planning on applying for a head coaching job).

So now the underlying problem here. By writing the article that you did, you effectively precluded any responsible discussion on the topic; no white guy wants to argue – especially with a black man – about racial discrimination, lest they be labeled a racist. I don’t have a racist bone in my body. Not one. But I like to think that the majority of my bones try to act in a logical way, so I’ll take the criticism.

I want the best coach running my Chargers. If it turns out that that coach is African American, Mexican, or Asian…awesome. I couldn’t care less. I just want to win.

Oh, and in closing: if I were Asian or Mexican, I’d be super pissed. Not only do I not have adequate representation in NFL coaching positions, but I don’t even have a writer representing my personal interests on ESPN.