One additional thing...

Hell, this is my lunch break so I will write however many additional things I want to write. I've been thinking this for a while since Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith won their respective AFC and NFC championship games to make it to the Superbowl. And the biggest deal that was made was the fact that this is the first time a black coach is in the Superbowl... let alone, two of them facing each other. Ok, that's great. But one of the first things that I thought was that it's kinda sad that in this day and age where we talk about racial integration and stuff, it's still a big deal because the Superbowl coaches are black. I don't know. I think I might be making a bigger deal out of this than I need to but I guess part of me thinks, so what? What does the color of the skin have anything to do with who coaches the Superbowl? I like Lovie Smith (not so much Tony Dungy) and so I think that's great. But instead of making a big deal about what the coaches have done (like the adjustments Indy made to all of a sudden being able to stop the run or the amazing job the Bears did in kicking Saints in the ass after everyone was picking the Saints to win), they are talking about how it's great for NFL that two black prominent coaches are in the Superbowl. Are we still in that phase? Hasn't this society come far enough to look beyond the color of the skin?

I guess the one key thing for me is that it is a historic moment and so even though the color of the skin should not be a big deal, anything that happens for the first time is probably a big deal. Also, I think it was Tony Dungy that said this but it was very interesting nonetheless. He mentioned that there's still a lot of very well qualified black coaches that are not head coaches only because they are black. But he also added that it's not so much racism as it is that it's more about the owners' comfort level. In other words, the owners may not be racists. But they just want to hire someone as a head coach with someone they are comfortable with. And in that sense, being that all the owners are white, they are more comfortable with the people of the same race which is quite understandable. It's not that they are biased. It's more the fact that they are comfortable with what they know. Thus, white owners tend to hire white coaches. Dungy's point was that that was why winning and making it to the Superbowl is important because the owners will not be able to overlook the fact that with qualified coaches, they could win. And in the end, that is the bottom line for all the owners (except Al Davis maybe).

So good for Dungy and Smith. Just one day, I hope that regardless of the skin color of the coaches, we could just celebrate the good job that they did in getting the teams to the Superbowl and not about what race they are.