Nancy, Tony and Lovie

2007 is starting out to be a pretty decent year or at least a year of some good milestones. I speak here of course of the facts that, for the first time in the 231-year history of our country and the 218-year of our Constitutional democracy, we have a female Speaker of the House of Representatives. As the Speaker is technically the head of the legislative branch and there has never been a female President or female Supreme Court Chief Justice, this is the first time a woman has been the head of one of the three branches of government. No matter your politics, this is a big deal. Go Nancy Pelosi!

Perhaps just as historic or at least as relevant to our culture these days, we have the fact that one of the Super Bowl teams has an African-American coach. In fact, both teams do, of course. No matter on whom you are betting -- of course, with the Super Bowl, it is possible to bet on both teams in one way or another, as well as the coin flip and the possibility that there will be nudity at some point during halftime (with Prince being the halftime entertainment, I personally will be betting that something inappropriate will happen during halftime, although I doubt he'll play Darling Nicky) -- go Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith!

What is interesting is the different routes by which these things have happened.

It really wasn't that long ago that there literally were no women in congressional leadership. Nancy Pelosi was elected minority whip less than 10 years ago. From that point to the time that she ascended to the Speakership, I don't think that there were any other women in the top three or four congressional leadership spots in either party. Pelosi was more or less on her own. Pelosi becoming speaker therefore was really a very significant individual accomplishment. After the 2004 election, she, along with Rahm Emanuel, apparently decided that the Democrats needed to recruit moderate or even rather conservative candidates in a lot of districts if they ever wanted to be in the majority again. That was some thinking outside of the box, particularly because Pelosi might represent the most liberal district in the country. Pelosi becoming speaker thus seems like a very individual accomplishment.

The African-American football coaches in the Super Bowl, on the other hand, seem like more of a culmination of a long group slog. I had a subscription to Sports Illustrated from about 1979 to 1990 or so and have read it on and off since. During that time, the magazine frequently wrote articles about the lack of African-American head coaches in the NFL. I mean, they were talking about Tony Dungy as a possible head coach by about 1985. He kept not getting interviewed, not getting jobs. The Raiders finally hired Art Shell in about 1989, he stunk, got fired and then wasn't followed by another African-American head coach for years. The situation got so horrendous that the NFL adopted a rule that requires any team interviewing for a head coach to interview at least one minority candidate. And Dennis Green got hired and came really, really close to getting to the Super Bowl -- if Gary Anderson hadn't missed his first field goal of the year in about the last 2 minutes of the Vikings-Falcons NFC championship game in about 1997, the Vikings would have gone to the Super Bowl. And Tony Dungy finally got hired in Tampa Bay and had really good teams, couldn't get them to the Super Bowl, got fired and watched as Jon Gruden took his team to win the Super Bowl the next year. And Lovie Smith, after a lot of probably token interviews, but got hired by the Bears -- as the lowest-paid NFL coach.

Meanwhile, morons like Wade Phillips -- who benched Doug Flutie as QB for a playoff game after Flutie [full disclosure here: Doug Flutie is one of my personal heroes] had led the team to the playoffs -- and semi-retirees like Steve Spurrier kept getting big-money NFL jobs. (I personally found it hilarious that, in the game that Phillips benched Flutie, Phillips' team -- the Bills -- got beat on the Music City Miracle. Instant karma got him, for sure.)

So, given all of the obstacles, it really is a remarkable triumph for African-American coaches generally to have both Super Bowl coaches be African-Americans.

Futher-so, you have like a year that starts with two major glass ceilings being broken. Maybe 2007 will be a good one. Seven is a lucky number. I just hope I get 7 in a Super Bowl pool because that always rocks. That is almost always a winner.