By C. JEMAL HORTON
The Indianapolis Star

INDIANAPOLIS - It no longer can be about the legal concerns. It no longer can be about the mind-jolting fact that 67 percent of the National Football League's players are African-American, while barely 10 percent of its head coaches are African-American.

The hiring process for head coaches in the NFL has to become wholly about doing what is right. Nothing else.

This may seem naive and idealistic, but NFL teams, ultimately, are going to have to have a desire to the right thing when it comes to hiring coaches. People are going to have to know that the best man for the job, in many instances, is a man of color.

That is the only way real change will occur.

That is the only way change, though infinitesimal, came back in 1992, when Minnesota president Roger Headrick hired Dennis Green. It was the same in 1989, when Al Davis made Art Shell the Raiders' coach.

Attorneys such as Johnnie Cochran and Cyrus Mehri can speak of lawsuits all they want, but they aren't always going to be able to help the people doing the hiring see things clearly.

There has to be a philosophical evolution among the employers.

As it is, the employers clearly have shown that rules and threats don't matter. They not only are saying, "You're not going to tell us whom to hire," they also are saying, "You're not going to tell us whom to interview."

That's why, just months into the league's mandate that teams interview a minority when they have vacancies, I'm compelled to deem the move an utter failure.

Look how many minority candidates Detroit interviewed before hiring Steve Mariucci. Look how many Dallas interviewed face-to-face before hiring Bill Parcells. The rules meant nothing. And there's justifiably been an outcry.

"I'm not surprised by the controversy, because it's a high-profile issue," Tampa Bay general manager Rich McKay said Friday during the NFL combine at the RCA Dome. "It's an issue that deserves attention, and none of the attention bothers me. It's an issue that should be out there.

"(But) I do get frustrated when there is that feeling, 'Why haven't they solved it in six months?' This is a process, and it's going to take some time."

How much time?

It's laughable that many people assume minority coaches only have been waiting months, during the mandate, to be treated equitably.

This is not a new phenomenon. This goes back 82 years, when Fritz Pollard was named the league's first African-American coach. Since then, a paltry six African-Americans have been hired as full-time head coaches.

Damn.

The efforts of Cochran and Mehri, while noble, seem to have only made employers more defiant.

Here's the problem with the new system

• Some teams will parade African-American candidates through merely for show. That's what it seems San Francisco did with Ted Cottrell and Greg Blache before hiring Dennis Erickson.

• When African-American candidates feel the job they're interviewing for already belongs to someone else, they, rightfully, are going to be uninspired about going through the process. We saw that with Detroit.

"When I went to interview at Tampa (in 1996), there were a lot of people who told me not to go because Steve Spurrier had the job," Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy said. "And it didn't work out that way. So you never really know."

That's because the Glazer family wanted to do the right thing, even though there were no legal concerns.

Today's legal concerns must be pushed aside for what's morally right.

That doesn't mean the pressure should go away. That doesn't mean the fight for equality should stop.

It just means the owners and front-office people have to become a major part of the fight, too.

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