By Mark Curnutte
The Cincinnati Enquirer

SAN DIEGO - Jonathan Hayes, a former NFL tight end who coached that position at the University of Oklahoma, accepted the same post with the Bengals on Thursday.

Hayes, the brother of new defensive line coach Jay Hayes, is the final hire on coach Marvin Lewis' first Bengals staff.

Jonathan Hayes, 40, was Oklahoma's tight ends coach-special teams coordinator for the past four seasons. He coached there for former University of Iowa teammate Bob Stoops.

Hayes played 12 seasons in the NFL as a tight end and was a second-round pick in 1984 by the Kansas City Chiefs. He played nine seasons with the Chiefs before finishing his career with the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Hayes' teams were in the playoffs nine seasons, and he played in three AFC championship games and one Super Bowl.

Hayes played 184 NFL games with 115 starts. He had 153 catches for 1,718 yards and 13 touchdowns.

The Hayes brothers are childhood friends of Lewis', and their families were close. They attended the same church in McDonald, Pa., although Lewis and the Hayes brothers attended different high schools.

Six of Lewis' new hires are African-American, bringing the number of black assistants on his staff to seven - tying the Indianapolis Colts for the most in the NFL.

Lewis is just the third black head coach in the league. Tony Dungy's Colts staff also has seven African-American assistants, and Herman Edwards' New York Jets staff has six assistant coaches who are African-American.

Civil rights lawyers Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. and Cyrus Mehri praised the Bengals and team president Mike Brown on Wednesday for their "model" interview process that included two minority candidates for the head-coaching vacancy. Lewis and Bengals running backs coach Jim Anderson, both minorities, were two of the five candidates interviewed by Brown and his family.

E-mail mcurnutte@enquirer.com

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