Color commentary

When I put up that post below on the two Super Bowl coaches (“Content of their characters”), I had not yet read today’s Chicago Tribune. I would say ‘Imagine how surprised I was to find this in the Sports section’….but I wasn’t.

I have been trying to figure out why the Lovie Smith-Tony Dungy story hasn’t captured my imagination the way it has other people’s imaginations.

Whatever the outcome Feb. 4, an African-American head coach will win the Super Bowl for the first time in history, no small thing…

But I think it’s something simpler and nicer: We’ve had so many minority coaches and managers in Chicago of late that the Super Bowl story line doesn’t seem like such a big deal. We’re used to it around here.

The Cubs hired and fired managers Don Baylor and Dusty Baker, both of whom are black. The White Sox hired and fired Jerry Manuel, who is black, and now employ Ozzie Guillen, who is from Venezuela, as their manager. Ken Williams, the Sox’s World Series-winning general manager, is black. So is former Bulls coach Bill Cartwright. At one point, Baker, Cartwright and Manuel were leading teams in this town at the same time.

And now Smith and the Bears are headed to Miami to face Dungy’s Colts in the Super Bowl.

(For good measure, one of Illinois’ U.S. senators, Barack Obama, is black and considering a run for president.)

Trib sports writer Rick Morrissey admits there’s ugly racism still around, even with popular black coaches.

But when I look at Smith, I see a coach. And I get the distinct feeling from listening to him that he would like to be viewed that way too. Not as a black coach. As a coach.

Exactly what I said earlier.

This obviously is a huge national story—Smith, the guy from tiny Big Sandy, Texas, who worked his way up the ladder and through discrimination to get to this moment, facing Dungy, his mentor, who had his own challenges as a black man. But in a way, it does a disservice to both gentlemen. There’s something about the topic that tends to take away from the coaches’ abilities and implies that their blackness is their entire identity.

Smith has endured shots from people like me who have questioned his see-no-evil approach to Bears players.

Yes, Lovie Smith has a patient endurance with the team that has driven some Bears fans to distraction.

But he has proven he has what it takes to nurture a team all the way to the Super Bowl. Dungy is one of the architects of the Cover-2 defense. But in the days ahead, you’re going to hear less about that and more about the skin color of the two men.

The honor paid to Smith and Dungy should not be focused only there, or even there for long, all things considered.

Many African-Americans are proud of what is going to happen at the Super Bowl, and rightly so. History will be made in Black History month. Some who otherwise might not have considered a career in coaching will be pulled along by the momentum.

And maybe someday soon they will be known simply by what they are: coaches.

Great coaches. And mighty honorable men. Gentlemen.