Paul Tagliabue, as NFL commissioner, was more focused on advancing the role of African-Americans in coaching and leadership positions than any other commissioner in the history of the NFL.
He was the commissioner from 1989 until he retired from the position in 2006, and he presided over the greatest period of growth and success of the game in the history of the league. Tagliabue took over from Pete Rozelle, and ultimately handed the reigns over to Roger Goodell upon his retirement.
Tagliabue was an attorney, and worked as the NFL’s principal outside counsel for years. In 1986, he was representing the NFL in the $1.6 billion antitrust lawsuit filed by the USFL. The NFL ultimately lost the ruling but won the war, as the case presented by Tagliabue resulted in the USFL being awarded $3 in damages. The decision was technically in favor of the USFL, but it put them out of business.
Jeremiah Tittle caught up with Tagliabue at the sixth annual Shirley Povich Symposium at University of Maryland, where the guest speakers included two men who were instrumental in integrating their respective sports – NFL Hall of Famer Bobby Mitchell and former college football great Darryl Hill. Mitchell was the first African-American player with the Washington Redskins, the last NFL team to integrate, in the early 1960s. Hill was the first African-American football player in the ACC, and at the Naval Academy. The Symposium celebrated the 50th anniversary of both of these events.
Tagliabue let many efforts to improve the hiring for minorities into coaching and front office positions in the NFL during his tenure. Most notably, the Rooney Rule was established in 2003, which requires NFL teams to interview minority candidates for head coaching positions and senior football operations positions.
The rule is named for Dan Rooney and the Rooney family, owners of the Pittsburgh Steelers, who have a long history of hiring minorities into leadership roles within their organization.
While he was instrumental in implementing the Rooney Rule, Tagliabue said, “Rules don’t make progress. People make progress.”
“I think there was a lot of progress before the Rooney Rule. I think the rule has been successful because of all of the progress that was made at the beginning and the mid-90s, six or seven years before the Rooney Rule was put in place. I think that’s critical.”
Tagliabue cites African-American coaches like Dennis Green, Tony Dungy and Ray Rhodes, who helped to open the door for other minority coaches like Mike Tomlin of the Steelers, Lovie Smith of the Bears, Jim Caldwell of the Colts and Raheem Morris of the Buccaneers.
He also talks about what is necessary for minorities, and really for anyone interested in working in football, to be successful in business leadership positions within sports.
“I’m a big believer that if you want to be a successful in sports management, you should get some experience outside of sports,” Tagliabue says. “I always tell young people who want to be in sports, ‘if you want to end up in sports, you better start someplace else.’ “
“In my case, I think a big part of the reason I became commissioner, frankly, was because Pete Rozelle knew that I had a lot of experience outside of sports. My sports experience was just a piece of a much bigger fabric that he and the owners looked at.”
While many of the people that want to get into sports management, focus on the “sports” side of the equation, as Tagliabue points out, “Sports business is business.”
Now retired from the league, Tagliabue is currently the chair of Georgetown University’s board of directors.
