We're five days removed from Super Bowl XLI in Miami, but one score is already in: Black NFL coaches 1; Ward Connerly 0.

OK. Perhaps it's a bit unfair to throw Connerly under this particular bus. But then again, Connerly has enthusiastically positioned himself as one of the leading opponents of affirmative action. He's been largely responsible for measures that have effectively ended affirmative action in California, Texas, Washington state and Michigan. And affirmative action is exactly why Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith will be facing each other on their sport's biggest stage Sunday. So perhaps it's not that unfair after all.

While it may be easy for some to dismiss now--given the recent success of Dungy and Smith--just a few years ago there was such a dearth of black coaches in the NFL that a group led by the late Johnnie Cochran and attorney Cyrus Mehri released a report scrutinizing the NFL's hiring practice of black head coaches and admonished them to change.  

"The solution was to use a diverse candidate slate," Mehri writes in an upcoming column in the April issue of DiversityInc magazine. "After an in-depth study and review, they adopted the Rooney Rule that requires that they now interview at least one minority for each head-coach position. In a matter of a couple of years, we went from two black head coaches to seven head coaches in 2006. It truly changed the mindset and the culture of the NFL. Now they use a diverse-candidate-slate concept for every position, including the commissioner and the 32 clubs." For more of Mehri's comments, subscribe to the magazine.

The connection hasn't been lost on some. Harrison Chastang muses in an op-ed piece on Beyond Chron that it's a good thing Connerly has nothing to do with running the NFL.

"With Ward Connerly talking about expanding his anti-Affirmative Action crusade to up to 10 more states, the success of Dungy, Smith and other African Americans hired after the NFL made a proactive move to diversity its head coaching ranks should put to rest claims that Affirmative Action benefits the unqualified and hurts the concept of meritocitiy," Chastang says.

While some continue to see the race of the two respective coaches as a non-story, others view it as the inevitable end result of blacks having improved access to head coaching positions. ESPN columnist Michael Smith writes, "In the African-American community, the excitement of having Dungy and Chicago's Lovie Smith -- two of the league's six coaches who happen to be members of said community -- make history by becoming the first such coaches to reach pro football's biggest game (played during Black History Month, no less) is similar to when Halle Berry and Denzel Washington and Jamie Foxx won Oscars for leading roles," writes Smith. "The difference is that awards and elections are subjective. Having two coaches whose skin happens to be darker than most of their peers lead teams to the Super Bowl simply is the inevitable result of equal opportunity."

Regardless of the game's outcome, the victory has already been noted in the ledger.

So who is Ward Connerly rooting for? He's not available today, but as soon as he contacts us, we'll update this story and let you know his rooting interest.

For more on the business case for affirmative action, see the upcoming issue of DiversityInc magazine. Subscribe here.

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