Cowboys’ Jerry Jones should use his power, resources to be bigger force for NFL diversity | Opinion
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FRISCO, Texas – How many times over the years has something come out of the mouth of Jerry Jones that made you wonder: “Did he just say that?”
This popped into mind during an extended interview recently with the Dallas Cowboys owner as we discussed race – including the flood of criticism that came after The Washington Post published a 1957 photo that showed Jones in the background of a disturbance where a mob of white students blocked six Black students from integrating North Little Rock High School – and his role in NFL diversity efforts.
I asked Jones, arguably the NFL’s most influential owner, why he hasn’t been more of a force on the diversity front within the league.
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“The people they put on the diversity committee,” Jones said, “I sure would have gladly … if they had put in the Jerry Jones Rule rather than the Rooney Rule, I would have been there.”
The Jerry Jones Rule?
C’mon, man.
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Of course, the Rooney Rule was named after Dan Rooney, the late Pittsburgh Steelers owner who in the early 2000s worked with then-Commissioner Paul Tagliabue – under the threat of legal action led by attorneys Johnnie L. Cochran and Cyrus Mehri – to establish the mandate that teams must interview minority candidates for head coaching vacancies (which has been revised multiple times and now includes other key positions). Rooney was chairman of the NFL’s diversity committee, which is now led by his son and Steelers owner, Art Rooney II.
The Cowboys, who close out Martin Luther King Day with a first-round NFC playoff game in Tampa against the Buccaneers on Monday night, are one of 13 NFL teams to have never had a Black coach in a league where an estimated two-thirds of the players are Black.
While acknowledging that, Jones alluded to the new Diversity Advisory Committee, a group of outside experts enlisted last spring by the NFL as another resource.
“I was the very first owner to volunteer with the professional group they organized to come in and visit with every owner and not only give them ideas but get their ideas,” Jones said. “I was the very first in line.”
Yet it wasn’t too long ago that Jones was widely viewed as the NFL’s face of resistance for his hard-line, “toes on the line” stance against players kneeling during the Colin Kaepernick-inspired protests during the national anthem that aimed to bring attention to police slayings of Black people and social injustices. That angered many Black fans of the Cowboys, including NBA megastar LeBron James, who has publicly stated that he’s no longer a Cowboys fan.
While Jones still contends that his position against the protests had more to do with business and the use of the NFL stage than it did social statements, a significant number of fans – especially minorities – could better relate to the need to shed light on social injustices. During one game, Jones tried a compromise that involved him kneeling with players away from the flag before the anthem, then standing for the anthem. Yet most of the criticism came because he threatened the jobs of Cowboys players who knelt. The stance was overruled by the NFL, but except for a couple of marginal players who took a knee and were later released, no Cowboys protested.
“Whatever I am, or whatever I became, it sure as hell wasn’t that I wasn’t genuinely with my heart trying to give everybody the best I could to get the issues and handicaps (minorities) are facing, resolved,” Jones told USA TODAY Sports. “It’s the way I do it. So you say, ‘I disagree with that way,’ but it’s not that I’m not pouring my soul out … and it’s not an insensitivity to biasness. You’re getting the best I’ve got. The same thing my grandson gets. The same principles for what the NFL is about.”
In any event, when the photo from 1957 was published, depicting a 14-year-old Jones on the wrong side of history – despite his contention that he was there as a curious teenager – it was easy for some to connect the dots to his stance on the protests during the anthem.
Hello, lightning rod. Typically, the NFL’s highest-profile owner seems to easily shrug off criticism. Yet the recent firestorm as it related to race seemed to sting.
“You know my heart,” he said.
Growing up during Jim Crow era
Jones maintained that his upbringing in Little Rock during the Jim Crow era heightened his sensitivity, although he never attended school with Black classmates and played on all-white teams in high school and at the University of Arkansas. His father, Pat, owned a grocery store, where Jerry worked as a teenager, that was progressive for the times because it was desegregated.
Jones said the store was also a community hub where people would meet or gather and distribute emergency items during times of crisis. Then there was his Uncle Jack, whom Jones said headed the only white family to live, for 40 years, in the College Station section of Little Rock (where, shortly after he bought the Cowboys, he took the team on a relief mission after a tornado).
Undoubtedly, Jones was eager to share such details about his family history to add contrast to the heat he’s received over the photograph.
“I have totally lived my life without a biased bone in it,” he declared. “It was just a part of the sensitivity that my young life was about.”
At least two-dozen times during our visit, Jones used the words “sensitivity” or “sensitive” to make a point.
When it was mentioned that The Washington Post story revealed that his grandfather was a member of the Citizens Council that typically advanced racist causes, Jones said the first that he had heard of it was when told by one of the authors of the Post story.
“I grew up being coached up to be right around fellow human beings,” Jones said.
Could he do more with his influence?
I haven’t forgotten Jones’ response several years ago when I sat in his office and shared the opinion that with his profile and platform, he could have a huge impact on social issues.
“I know,” he stated flatly.
It seemed clear that being that type of influencer wasn’t a big priority, even though there are many examples of community service contributions by him and his family. He went on to preach about the wide demographics of the Cowboys’ fan base and the business of his franchise. It was the same type of philosophy expressed when protests during the anthem were rampant.
Jones is already in the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a contributor to the sport, prominently on the front lines when it comes to media deals, labor pacts, marketing and the development of stadium and revenue streams for the league. Yet it’s still true: Jones can make another significant mark by demonstrating and promoting how diversity is good for business.
“I’ve been in the league a long time,” Jones said. “You know me. Would you say that I’ve been sensitive to diversity?”
Sure, the Cowboys have had some significant diversity hires during Jones’ regime, which began in 1989. No, Jones has never hired a Black GM (he serves as his own GM), but one of the team’s highest-ranking executives is Will McClay, a Black man who has risen through the ranks to become vice president of personnel. During the 1990s, Jones hired former Cowboys running back Calvin Hill and his wife, Janet, to build what has become a robust player development program that includes counseling services. The culture that Jones has helped instill with the Cowboys includes several stories about how he has aided some former Black players, financially or otherwise, confronted by challenging circumstances.
The Cowboys have one of the NFL’s most diverse coaching staffs, according to research done by USA TODAY Sports, with minorities consisting of 50% of the assistants assembled by Mike McCarthy, tied for the sixth-highest rate in the league. They also have the distinction of being the only NFL team where all of the strength and conditioning coaches (three) are Black. But by another measure it’s not so progressive: None of the four coaches listed as coordinators or higher are minorities.
Still, in living up to the “America’s Team” tag, the Cowboys are always on watch – beyond the big TV ratings – as social issues such as equal opportunity increasingly intersect with the NFL’s business.
“I’m very sensitive,” Jones said. “I’m a poor boy (-turned-billionaire) that has had a chance through sport and work to use what you can do in this country, to get a platform.
“I would urge everybody to do that. On your way there, be as sensitive and clever as you can, because when you’ve won is when you’ve got the financial strength to really give, to do something. To me, just to be clear – I know this is sensitive stuff – that was the rationale of ‘I’ll kneel with you away from the flag, stand with me at the flag.’ We are together.”
It’s a noble theme. Yet the challenge remains for Jones to use his tremendous resources to help level the playing field.
Follow USA TODAY Sports’ Jarrett Bell on Twitter @JarrettBell.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Cowboys’ Jerry Jones should use his power, resources to be bigger force for NFL diversity | Opinion