American Tragedy Brings Home Importance of Mental Health

Article was originally published by FORTE in October, 2001.

American Tragedy Brings Home Importance of Mental Health
By Anthony McCune

Facing personal tragedy is a well known trigger for the onset of depression.

Experiencing a high level of stress over an extended period of time is associated with developing anxiety disorders.

These issues came to the forefront of the American consciousness on September 11, 2001. Horrific terrorist attacks were executed against civilians working in one of America’s landmarks, the World Trade Center in New York City, and the heart of the nation’s defense establishment, the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.

More than 11,000 people were killed or injured in New York City including police and firefighters.

Howard Lutnik, President and CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, {the world’s leading bond trading firm} wept openly on national television as he spoke of his 700 employees who’d lost their lives. Mr. Lutnik did not understand how the surviving members of his firm voted to return to work. It had nothing to do with their making money; it is the importance of work to all of us. It is part of the healing process people need to go through. Work is vital to recovery.

In the days and weeks that followed there were airplane pilots and flight attendants talking about the anxiety they were experiencing when considering returning to work. They also experienced the fear many Americans have felt, and continue to feel, about returning to the air.

People working at the Sears Tower in Chicago, America’s tallest building, spoke of the anxiety they felt about returning to their offices in the sky. Similar fears were expressed by other workers from offices in skyscrapers across the nation.

A month later, and for months to come, workers are cleaning up the devastation in the area which was the World Trade Center…now referred to as Ground Zero.

This raises the issue of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. There was a well known picture of a firefighter at the scene of the bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building; he was holding an injured child who had been at the on-site day-care center. The stress and depression related to this event led to this firefighter committing suicide.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency {FEMA} has allocated $38 million for provision of mental health counseling services in New York City and Washington, D.C.

America will never be quite the same after the unprecedented attack on our homeland.

While Americans are working to return a bit of normalcy to their lives…there is fear lurking in the back of people’s minds. There is anxiety we haven’t felt before.

The terrorists’ infiltration of our society has made people re-think the value of a totally “open” culture. There is not so much of an objection at having our personal freedoms infringed upon a bit.

Many people experience feelings or exhibit behaviors that could be considered symptoms of one or another mental illness. It depends on the degree to which a person’s life is impacted whether they are diagnosed.

People from around the world were in the World Trade Center the day of the terrorist strikes. People from coast to coast knew individuals who were killed, injured or experienced unspeakable horror that day in New York City, Washington and rural Pennsylvania.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is something “survivors” of September 11, along with rescue workers, are going to have to face.

What must be realized is that you did not have to personally know anyone who was touched by the tragedy of September 11th; in reality it has touched us all. The need for mental health intervention is not going to end with the $38 million FEMA has allocated to victims and families.

Watching the events unfold night after night on television has an effect on us.

People are anxious about the possibility of a wide-spread chemical or biological attack. Nuclear power plants have been targets of what have been called “creditable threats”.

Terrorists, not yet known to be domestic or linked to the group responsible for September 11 attacks, are spreading anthrax through the postal system; disrupting business and government.

There is fear about the security and safety of the nation’s water supply.

One of the main lessons that September 11, 2001 must teach us is that mental illness is not an us and them issue. It is a WE issue. More money is needed to address the mental health issues we face.

A Landmark Week For The Rooney Rule

A Landmark Week For The Rooney Rule
By Anthony McCune

What a week it’s been in the National Football League. Two teams won their way into the Super Bowl with coaches of color and the Pittsburgh Steelers hired their first African-American Head Coach!

Being the head coach of the Steelers is one of the marquee positions in the league. Even more than that, though, because of “The Rooney Rule” the hire in Pittsburgh was watched closely.

It all started in 2002. Attorneys Johnnie Cochran Jr.and Cyrus Mehri, a labor law attorney in Washington, D.C., released a report calling attention to the “dismal record of minority hiring” of head coaches in the National Football League.

The study – titled Black Coaches in the National Football League: Superior Performances, Inferior Opportunities – noted that over 400 head coaches had been hired since 1920. Six of them were African-Americans and five of the six had been hired since 1989.

Using statistical evidence from the proceeding 15 years, the report indicated that the black coaches outperformed their white counterparts. Notably, the study determined that these same coaches were often the first fired by the team’s owners.

Cochran declared at a news conference in September, 2002 that black coaches were being held to a higher standard than their white counterparts. He threatened to take the NFL to court.

There were several interesting findings in the report commissioned by Cochran and Mehri. Analyzing the data, Dr. Janice Madden of the University of Pennsylvania found that:

• 70 percent of all NFL players were black
• 28 percent of the assistants and coordinators were African-American
• Six percent of all head coaches were people of color
• Whites accounted for 30 percent of all NFL players
• 72 percent of the assistant coaches and coordinators and 94 percent of the head coaching positions were white

Win and loss records of the five African-American coaches from 1986-2001 {Dennis Green, Art Shell, Tony Dungy, Ray Rhodes, and Herman Edwards} were compared with the 86 white coaches during that same time period.

Dr. Madden concluded that black coaches averaged 1.1 more wins per season than white coaches. White that may not seem to be a significant difference, winning nine wins instead of eight could realistically be the difference between a team making the playoffs or not.

Teams during that period who had white coaches made the playoffs 39 percent of the time. 67 percent of the time teams with African-American coaches played in the playoffs.

Some teams had both black and white coaches during the time period studied. Dr. Madden found that the African-American coaches increased the average wins from 7.4 to 9.1.

While all indications were that the black head coaches consistently outperformed their white counterparts, the report does conceded that “there were too few black coaches to apply formal statistical analyses.” Success of African-American coaches during the period did not lead to other minority candidates being hired.The report showed that nine new coaches were hired in 2002; They were all white with either losing records, little experience as a head coach or no experience.

The Cochran/Mehri report proposed a Fair Competition Resolution to “promote an atmosphere in which African-American coaches are fairly and equally considered for head coaching positions.” The study proposed incentives and penalties to motivate NFL owners toward a more open selection process.

According to the resolution, the NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue could award teams an extra draft pick for hiring minorities in management positions. All teams would select coaching and coordinator positions from a group of candidates who were racially diverse and interviewed in person. Finally, a team could opt out of the process by forfeiting a first-round draft pick for head coaching positions, or a third-round draft pick for assistant coaching and coordinator positions.

The NFL responded to the Cochran/Mehri report by establishing a committee of owners to investigate diversity. The committee was chaired by by Dan Rooney, owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers. As a result of the work done by the committee, the NFL enacted “The Rooney Rule”.

The Rooney Rule required each team to interview at least one minority candidate when filling a head coach position. Failure to do so would result in a fine. The committee did not adopt the proposed Fair Competition Resolution.

In January 2004, two black coaches were hired among seven vacancies. Two years after the Cochran/Mehri report, there were five African-American head coaches in the 32-team NFL. It was, at that time, more than any other season in league history.

In July 2003, the NFL invoked the Rooney Rule. Matt Millen, president of the Detroit Lions, was fined $200,000 for violating the new rule because he hired a white head coach without interviewing any black candidates.

Millen had long wanted his old friend Steve Mariucci to be his head coach. When San Francisco let Mariucci go, Detroit went after him. The Lions president tried to give the appearance that he was following the Rooney Rule. He contacted five different assistant black coaches for an interview. It was common knowledge in the league that Millen would hire Mariucci; the coaches declined to be interviewed. Millen paid the fine and received a great deal of negative attention both from the media and community groups.

Dan Rooney is now the chairman of the NFL’s committee on workplace diversity.

In December, Rooney was given a list of about a dozen qualified minority candidates to replace recently resigned Bill Cowher. {In the past 38 years there have been only two head coaches in Pittsburgh.} Minnesota Defense Coordinator Mike Tomlin’s name was on it.

Tomlin had what has been characterized as “two strong interviews” with Rooney, Art Rooney II and the Steelers’ director of football operations Kevin Colbert. He was chosen, it’s been reported, largely because of the motivation, enthusiasm and organizational skills he showed.

Look around the league and things have markedly changed. Four years after the Cochran/Mehri report, The Rooney Rule is a success.

This past week was Martin Luther King Day. I purposefully didn’t post about Dr. King on that day. His contribution should be remembered every day.

When I was in Atlanta I made a point of going to the neighborhood that was Dr. King’s home, Sweet Auburn. It was an interesting experience in a number of ways.

Atlanta has a great system for Taxis. When you drive within a certain area, you pay a flat rate. What disappointed me was when I told the cabbie I wanted to visit Dr. King’s neighborhood he was less than enthusiastic about driving there.

The cabbie’s in Atlanta, at least at that time, were unusual in that they would offer you business cards if you wanted to call them for future rides. I’d never seen that before; about a decade later I don’t know if they still do that. This particular guy, though, didn’t offer to come back to pick me up. In fact, he said he didn’t know how difficult it would be to get someone to come pick me up.

I would not be deterred.

I had him drop me off at the King Center. I remember when Dr. King was murdered; my Grandmother admired him. It was intense seeing so many of his most personal possessions on display. His bible, things he had worn the day before his death. The King Center is an incredible place.

There was a couple taking pictures of each other in front of Dr. King’s grave. I asked if they’d like a picture taken together; they were happy to have me do that for them. Then he took my picture; I flashed a peace sign.

The thing that saddened me is that this African American couple and I were the only people there at that time.

There were a couple parts of the Center that were closed; one a movie theater where you could see films of Dr. King speaking. Why was it closed? The King family was having a hassle with the National Park Service about some project the government was wanting to develop. They felt it would take away from The King Center. As I recall it was going to be located across the street – I think this is the complex.

I shook that off and went on my way. It was eerie in a way, thinking about Dr. King walking along these same streets. I had that feeling before, when I first had a press pass to cover a game at Three River Stadium. Walking past the Pittsburgh Pirates dressing room; thinking about Roberto Clemente walking down that same hall.

When I went to the Martin Luther King Jr. birthplace, it was also closed due to the squabble with the Park Service. In any case, I went and stood on the porch; looked into the windows to see what I could see. I sat on the porch for a few minutes; thinking of him doing the same thing. I felt his presence.

Thinking back on it, I believe I said to my soulmate that I was surprised that there seemed to be no traffic in the neighborhood. That part was odd. I went to the Ebenezer Baptist Church; I stood there for awhile thinking what it might have been like to hear him preach. Before I left I took a place in one of the pews to say a prayer, for peace.

The National Park Service has information on The Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site. The place I went to, though, is not shown. Maybe it no longer exists. It was in a house that was somehow connected to Dr. King; definitely not his birthplace. It was small, surprisingly so to me. Which, I suppose, is why they wanted to build the new facility.

The people I took the picture of were there too. And another woman. We sat together and watched a movie they had on Dr. King’s life. I was able to get a taxi to come pick me up; something the park rangers questioned as did the cabblie. It seemed to take longer than it had getting other taxis duing the days we were there; that may have just been my imagination from the doubts the rangers had.

I am happy that I had the chance to visit the home of Martin Luther King Jr. and to see the legacy he left behind. If I go to Atlanta again it will definitely be priority visit to make again.