For the second time this month, two Black football coaches find their way back into the game. This time, it's the NFL's turn to swing the door open for two of the most respected minds in the game. Former Chicago Bears coach Lovie Smith finds way back to the team that made him a household defensive name early in his career, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Meanwhile, Jim Caldwell, three years removed from a short stint with the Indianapolis Colts, now heads up I-69 and I-94 to take over the Detroit Lions.
Just like Charlie Strong and James Franklin in the college ranks last week, Smith and Caldwell are proven winners. Both men are a part of just four Black coaches to have ever reached the Super Bowl. They also were on the losing end of pro football's biggest game as well. Smith couldn't overcome Peyton Manning's great second half as his former boss - Tony Dungy - won Super Bowl 41, the only meeting in the NFL championship between Black head coaches. Caldwell, who helped Indy become the first NFL franchise with two Black coaches in the Super Bowl, got surprised by an onside kick at the start of second half of Super Bowl 44 as New Orleans took home their first Lombardi Trophy. Despite these title game setbacks, both men are more than capable of holding their own on the sidelines.
Smith has been involved in big-time football since coaching linebackers from 1983-86 at his college alma mater, Tulsa. The Gladewater, TX native has been either a linebackers coach or - in the case of Tennessee and Ohio State - a defensive backs coach during the course of his career. It was under Dungy's tutelage at Tampa that Smith helped develop the now-popular Tampa 2 defensive system. It's the same system that led the Bucs to the 2000 NFC Championship game before losing a heartbreaker to eventual titlist St. Louis. Lovie's run in Chicago included the Super Bowl run plus another visit to the NFC Championship and also featured perennial All-Pro linebacker Brian Urlacher, who defined Smith's teams the same way current Minnesota defensive coordinator Mike Singletary defined the Mike Ditka era.
On the other side of the ball, Caldwell has had his hand in the development of quarterbacks and wide receivers since graduating from Iowa in 1977, unusual considering he was a defensive back for the Hawkeyes during his playing days. The Beloit, WI native has had stops ranging from Northwestern to Tenessee to Penn State. Unlike Smith, Caldwell was a head coach in college, leading Wake Forest to the Alamo Bowl. Caldwell was QB coach when the Colts took the Lombardi and was instrumental in helping Peyton Manning reach elite status.
If you haven't noticed, the common denominator in this latest hiring success in the NFL is Tony Dungy. The recently retired coach and current NBC commentator is quietly making history of his own as a Super Bowl winning coach that spawns other coaches that reach the big game. It is with Smith's and Caldwell's recent successes that the former Pittsburgh Steeler defensive back - the only Black NFL coach with title wins as a coach AND player - is being mentioned in the same breath as Bill Walsh.
Maybe that's what Martin Luther King was talking about after all.
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