Race and MLS

I believe Manchester City's Juan Carlos Osorio was also considered, a Colombian, if I'm not mistaken.

 

Angie yer a friggin piece of work!

First of all, how do you know that there are any prospective coaches or gm's of color who applied to be interviewed, or expressed an interest in the positions? How do you know that all of the qualified "brown" people in the soccer industry refuse to come to a second rate league in a country that barely acknowledges the game....... I'd say we are damned lucky to get the qualified applicants that we have gotten.

And oh, by the way, it was, is, and will be people of western european background who have shown the most support financially and physically for soccer in america........... sorry, maybe there is a snow owl you can go save, I might even have a tree in my back yard you could hug, (but only at night when the neighbors won't see).

 

I started a discussion about this on the
Burn newsgroup a couple years ago, and was compared to Al Sharpton and John Wiley Price (a local African American who spouts of idiotic ramblings about racial injustice, and who appears to be quite racist himself). The impetus was not to whine about how things were so unfair, but to point out that, of the many people in their front office, there were no African Americans (you could tell, because there were pictures of all of the staff) included (Dallas did hire a recently retired Brian Haynes, a Trinidadian, as an assistant for a while).

My point was that, look, you are having games in an area that's like 99% minority (fair park) and no one at all from those groups (at least the AA group). Why not give a shot to just a couple of people, and at least avoid the overt appearance of the Burn being a completely Anglo-run thing. I don't know if they changed the makeup of the front office, but I do know the next year there were no pictures of any of their office staff on their page (I'm taking credit for that, who knows if I deserve it . That's one way to take care of the problem...

I was told by people on the board to F$#K off, that if they were interested then AA's would be on the staff, so therefore none were interested. Or if I had a grievance to talk to the Burn directly. My response was that people at the Burn read the mailing list, so there was nothing for me to say directly. I wasn't a community activist, but a huge Burn FAN who wanted my team to somewhat reflect its community, on and off the field.

I'm not for affirmative action, but as a community gesture selecting some minorites for posts at the Burn and other front offices might be interesting, and potentially fruitful.

I would like to see how many of the personnel overall are black or hispanic in MLS front offices.

 

you're right, it isn't accurate. I was generalizing. the point is that the number of Latinos considered for these jobs is disproportionate to greater latin involvement in the game in the US. Also, we can't forget that there have also been latino head coaches in MLS in the past. how many, 4? and how many coaches have there been total?

 

You forgot to include that all of the owners are white too. It must be a conspiracy!

 

Sorry to rant, but I have one more thing for the limp wristed libs out thee crying about this non issue.

The strength of this country is NOT in our diversity. Our strength lies in how hard the most determined, brilliant, innovative people have been willing to work to make the impposible - possible.

Everyone of significance recognizes it, respects it, and is looking for their own chance to prove themselves within that system.

Some of those not good enough to make it in that system have always stood on the sidelines and talked about how "unfair" the system is, rather than cheering on the people they should be admiring and thanking for making this country and our lives so rich.

Prove to me and the rest of the posters here that the bigotry actually exists, not on paper, but actual evidence of racism, and I for one will go to bat for the cause...... but don't you dare try to create a scandal where none exists. The baseless (admitadly baseless), accusation that this thread started with is disgusting.

 

You have no proof of MLS agressively acting to stop minorities from advancing.

 

Forgot to add, the President's of both AEG, and HSG are both white too!

 

hey, just because I acknowledge institutional racism doesn't mean I'm a tree hugger, heh heh. but letting me is a good first step, devils, even if you don't want them to see me.

I should have been more clear that I was making general statements about the sport and society, not claiming to have specific knowledge about these cases. also, I'm talking about latinos coming out of the american system, not Carlos Alberto Pareirra. This is about which americans have the opportunity to get to positions of power in america, not simply skin color regardless of national origin.

now, there must be stats that disprove your point about who supports soccer in this country. would MLS be here without latin fans? seriously, does anyone want to speculate about their significance?

ultimately, this is about greater society, not soccer. if anything, there are far more opportunities for minorities in soccer administration/coaching than in other fields. which is what makes this that much more frightening. c'mon, 4 or whatever tiny number of latin coaches? no latin gms? that's madness.

 

White people suck

 

What's to prove?

Your rants and claims of "institutional racism" without any substantiation is enough proof.

There are disproportionate numbers of minorities, or lack thereof, in various professions like lawyers and doctors. Does that mean we should reduce medical school for black people or give an easier BAR test to hispanics?

I have no problem with minorities anywhere, and I don't see any reason to believe MLS does either. In fact, I believe the converse is true. MLS has made a very concerted effort to attract the Latino community.

The fact that it isn't working hardly warrants slandering MLS as a bunch of racists.

 

Did you not actually READ the post, the latinos who would actually be qualified do not WANT to work in our market, not when their latinoness makes it easier to go back to their home country and get a job in an established league.

Oh, and your failure to put any qualifiers about not actually accusing anyone of wrong doing makes the comments that you and the few other like minded posters all the more disturbing.

Do you know of any minority applicants who have been turned away? Any doors slamed in faces?

Do you know any of the people who make the descisions you are alluding to? How can you know what goes into their thinking? You can't. So until there is a solid case to be made for mls turning away minorities applying for these jobs, I suggest you quit making spurrious suppositions.

Deal with facts and quit pontificating about issues that really you and I have no actual knowledge of. You might say that all you are doing is asking questions, but...... questions about inflamatory issues such as race usually lead to a "jumping to conclusions" effect from the people who take it for granted that you and I know what the hell we're talking about.

 

http://www.soccer365.com/_365_Features/page_121_65983.shtml

 

sorry, i thought you were refering to foreigners as in not US residents. my bad.

again, no, i don't know specifics, of course not. and i'm not slandering MLS as racists, whoever said that. i specifically said I wasn't. and yes, MLS has made overtures to the latino community, something else i also alluded to.

this is a discussion of something far larger than the hiring of mls coaches, because the reasons there are so few latino coaches is part of a mucher larger problem. i'm not going to try and convert people who think of racism as a problem only on an individual level, and therefore less and less of a problem. i happen to believe that it is deeply embedded in the way things work in america, to the point where everyone's best intentions can't solve the problem, and to the point where things like affirmative action are necessary. that's what's disturbing. most white people don't understand this, and have no reason to, as they are rarely affected by it directly. in general, things work to their advantage. this doesn't make them racists. people alive today didn't create these conditions, but it is up to us to fix them if we;re interested in living in a society that lives up to our constitution. if you don't think there's a problem, or if you think it's just a matter of people being lazy, relying on welfare and whining about their problems instead of just pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, well, you're probably not going to agree with a single thing i say.

 

a scandal where none exists? are you trying to tell me that racism isn't an issue in this country? that there is no discrimination against minorities? that the reason the inner city ghettos are full of minorities is because they don't try hard enough? your post is more than enough evidence that bigotry exists if this is what you're saying.

if you mean evidence of actual racism in MLS front offices, no, i don't have any, you win. but you're really going to tell me that the reason there aren't more latino coaches is because they think they're too good for US soccer and go home to coach? have any concrete examples of that? why do you think they came here, anyway? since when did experience coaching soccer in the US count for anything anywhere but here? or that there aren't more because they're not trying hard enough? I amnot saying that anyone in MLS is racist, as in, so ans so hates latinos and won't hire them. I'm saying that they're not trying hard enough to find and promote latino coaches. Why should they do this? because there are talented people out there who are left out of or held back by the primarily white soccer establishment. no individual is willfully holding them back, that is not what I'm saying. it is the system as a whole that is generally closed to people who do not come from within it, people without connections and therefore proper credentials. so, it is in MLS' best interest to look outside of this system for some of the other talent that is undoubtedly out there but is just missed. this kind of discrimination can't be pinned on any one person, it's just a problem with the way things are set up. I WISH your vision of a meritocracy was the way it is, that everyone really has an equal chance, but I don't see how you can see the racial inequality in this country as a matter of certain people lacking the effort and ability to advance. either you're just not seeing how great the disparities between groups are or you are open to the idea that whites are better than everyone else. be reasonable.

 

What does this have to do with soccer again? Much less, "MLS News and Analysis".

You have no news. You're making an issue out of something that isn't there.

 

I love to hear right wing, republicans or whatever they want to call themselves about how "liberals" always cry about things because "In the US is the land of freedom and opportunity"

I believe that's called a slogan, because it sounds nice it doesn't mean that it is true.

If you want to know the other side of the coin, talk to a young black (20-25 years-old) engineer, doctor, lawyer, politician, architect and ask him if he thinks that discrimination affects his chances of getting a job or being treated the way he should be treated.

Proof of racism in sports:
- 1st NFL game with 2 black coaches and 2 black quarterbacks was played less than 2 years ago.
- About 85% of the players in the NBA are black, about 10% of the coaches are black (maybe less)

 

Okay, can we get out of the GM mindset and look at coaches alone for a moment. I think GM and coach need to be looked at separately because they aren't the same thing. 8)

Right now we have 10 white coaches and because the sample is so small that isn't abnormal. I say that because if you went by population you'd have what 6 white coaches, 2 hispanic, 1 asian, and 1 black? Now let's modify this by the important factors determining who the coaches are like soccer participation of the ethnic group in the US. In that I would GUESS asians and blacks probably have a lower participation rate than latinos and whites. Furthermore, we can modify this by the route that the coaches took to get to MLS coach level: Sigi, Bradley, Sarachan, Gansler, Andrulis, and Hankinson I know are all college; Nichol, Clarke and Kinnear were proplayers that started as assistants in MLS and worked their way up; and Nowak goes from pro player to coach(proplaying in England to working up US coaching ranks).

Okay so what is my point in that? That 6 of the 10 coaches come out of the old college coaching group that use to run things before MLS. I think we might want to ask why we don't have more minority candidates coming out of that group. If that group develops the most potential coaches for MLS its a lack of minority candidates there that makes it appear MLS has a lack of minority candidates. What NCAA national champions in the past 20 years have been coached by a minority coach?

The next group is the group of proplayers that have gone into assistant coaching in MLS before making it to a head coaching job. Again, maybe MLS needs to hire more minorities in these positions, but the team whose games I attend most has 4 coaches on staff and 1 assistant is black the other three are white. I'm not sure how the other teams rate but this could be an issue. However, I'd like to know where these could come from? Of the recently retired minority MLS players Clavijo was given a shot and I can't say I know many other minorities that I would say should have gotten a shot. Perhaps retired players like Desmond Armstrong or Marcelo Balboa? I think this group will start to go up as we have more minority players play out their days in MLS. Maybe people like Oscar Pareja?

The final group is the proplayer that was such a team leader that he gets a direct shot at being a coach. This is only Nowak right now, but how many players could you see stepping off the MLS field and into this role? Maybe El Diablo? I just think this is a rare group and you won't see this happen very often.

So what I want to say is that the problem will correct itself as the number of coaches coming from the NCAA ranks goes down in percentage and as the number of coaches that take the player to assistant to head coach goes up. Again, why weren't there more minority coaches of the major NCAA programs from 1985 to 1995? If there were I would think there would be one or maybe two coaching MLS teams right now.

And if you really believe there is an intentional/unintentional race based bias on picking coaches I'd love to see the names of 10 qualified US based minority coaches that should get a look for the next MLS team spot that opens up and what their credentials are. I have a feeling that by and large their white counterparts will probably just have better resumes. This should be changing over the next 10 years though.

 

There was a study done on this. Believe Race and Diversity in sport by Northeastern University. You can read it here http://www.sportinsociety.org/rgrc2001.html

 

That is really off the topic, but I'll bite. I have worked with 2 black managers in the past 12 months one is 33 and the other is 22. Both are college educated and both give me the same line and that is that they don't believe that their race will in any way hinder them from having a career in the company we are in and have the belief that they can achieve their goals through hard work and opportunity. However, one of the two has told me straight up that its harder for a female to get the promotions and the pay rates that the males of any race get in the company. As we talk about race issues both of them are of the firm belief that race being a hindrance in career advancement is more of a cop out for laziness within the community than a fact of life in 99% of the US for starting position, college educated employees. But that is just two opinions and differs sharply from the world view of 90% of people that would be interviewed on say CNN or Fox news where they focus on extreme voices more than representative voices.

 

Obviously, the NBA is racist - that percentage of black players is WAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYY too high. Someone needs to do something on behalf of whites, hispanics and asians to even out the numbers.

And I ain't talking about Yao Ming - he's from China - I'm talking about what is the NBA doing to attract and support Asian Americans to the sport of basketball so they can be successful at its highest levels.

Where's the outrage for lack of female ownership/coaching in pro sports? Why isn't Akers offered an MLS job? Because she couldn't possibly want to work in the area of women's sports - MLS must be shutting her out!

The number of owners in MLS: Three - IIRC.
The number of head coaches - ten. And you happen to pick this one year - though Hispanics have coached in the past.

Not exactly a high number - and everyone knows that small samples are easily skewed. If there are 12 people in a McDonald's and they are all white - does that make the restaurant a racist entity that refuses to serve anyone else?

No. It makes your fallacy one of Hasty Generalization.

I'm a Hispanic female who does not feel the least bit oppressed by MLS. Why should I? The flag of the Mexican Federation flies over the HDC, the league's jewel. The league consistently attempts to attract Hispanic interest and involvement, even to the risk of alienating a loyal fan base. I've seen too many Latinos thumb their noses at MLS and openly wish its failure - yes, there are those of us who support it, but stop pretending the haters aren't out there - and I've seen too many acts of sheer bravado and guts on the part of pioneers like Uncle Phil and Lamar Hunt to resent that MLS is run by rich white guys. As far as coaches, Nowak bled red for his MLS team, who is to say he doesn't deserve the chance to instill that in his players? Perhaps El Pibe wanted to retire and enjoy himself in his home country without a demanding job.

Coaching or running a team is hard work. Many retired players might actually want to relax. Luis Hernandez certainly didn't seem like he came to the Galaxy to do any actual work - now he's supposed to get an administrational job? And he's whiter by far than Balboa.

Cienfuegos, however, I think may be a good coach one day, and I believe he's already been hired as a scout for the Galaxy, so he may work his way up. The numbers will change soon, I'm sure. In the meantime, that's not really my focus.


I care that the Galaxy win - I don't care what color Sigi is or how fat he gets if they do so.

 

What of that proves racism? You pointed out racial discrepencies.

 

that's what this is about, who gets the opportunities to build good resumes. credentials are meaningless when it is so much easier for one group to get them and when that one group determines exactly what good credentials are.