the planet, actually not so funny thing. we haven't been deluged to this point with gushing stories about joe, the bengals quarterback who beat the chiefs, or the pressure from the rams and front sevens in the nfl. the dominant headlines have been off the field and they aren't gushing. the nfl has a racial equity problem. in a class action lawsuit filed last week against the league and three of its teams. he's been fired as the miami dolphins coach and didn't get a fair shot at any of the other eight head coaching jobs filled the past few weeks. he says rules implemented, promises made, yet nothing has changed and he called the nfl, quote, in certain ways, racially segregated and quote, managed much like a plantation. the league's commissioner roger goodle admits there's a problem, saying the league's failure to add diversity to the head coaching ranks, indeed the numbers are stark. in a league in which 70% of the players are black and only two head coaches are black and five minorities. of course, john feinstein, one of the best sports journalists on the planet was in front of this story. his latest book, raise a fist, take a knee, race and the illusion of progress in modern sports came out in november. it decidedly mixed record of success at sports, not just the nfl, but also major league baseball, big-time college football and basketball and other pro sports, have had in promoting and especially achieving baseball. >> baseball, two black managers and one black executive running team baseball organizations. college football's top division, the one in which alabama and ohio state and missouri and kansas play, 130 programs in which 60% of the players were black or other minorities this past season, but well more than 80% of the head coaches were white. same for who hired those coaches, more than 81% of the athletic directors at least schools were and are white. of course, there's also the pushback against players that might dare to take a stand. we saw that six years ago when more than two dozen football players at the university of missouri threatened to sit out over the school's and university's system handling of racist incidents on campus. their coach supported them, many others did not. and when lebron james told to shut up and dribble. colin kaepernick is out of football. john i'm fortunately to call a friend pan former colleague is with us tonight to talk about his book and about the fact that the issues of racial discrimination and inequitity plaguing the society at large do not spare sports. they haven't in the past, they still don't now. joining john in the conversation is another old friend who directs the sports journal program at northwestern's renowned school of journalism, media, and integrated marketing communications. and when i first talked to john a little while back about tonight, about a program revoling around his book, this is the most important book i've written, which for john is saying something, he's written 45 books, including two of the most acclaimed and best selling sports titles of all time, the season on the brink and a good walk spoiled. john's a long time writer and columnist for "the washington post." he's contributed to many other national outlets, both print and broadcast and is a member of five, count them, fall halls of fame, including the national sports writers and sports casters hall of fame and the naismith memorial basketball hall of fame, a member of the curt gowdy award. and since 2016, an accomplished sports journalist, 10 years as columnist for the los angeles times and as a writer at "the washington post" alongside john and the chicago sun times. you may recognize jay from his more than thousand appearances on espn's round table discussion show, around the horn. now, if you had a question over the course of their discussion and we hope you do, you can submit it by the youtube chat box. we'll get as many answered as we can at the end of the presentation. john, jay, it's great to see you again and it's great to have you here. thanks so much for joining us and welcome to both of you. jay, i'll let you get things started. >> thank you so much, steve. it's great to see you again, it great to be reunited with the two of you and certainly appreciate you thinking of me for these topics. one of the reasons i got into sports journalism is to help tell the story beyond the field and beyond the arena, and to look at the interaction of sports and society, and john has certainly taken on that challenge most specifically in in book and john, of all the multitude of books that everyone starts with the same thing, and that's an idea, right? so what was the idea and the motivation behind this book at this time? >> well, jay, first of all, thanks for doing it with me and i'm grateful to you for taking the time and he think we're both grateful to steve for reaching out to us. my history with race in sports really goes back to when i was in college. i grew up in new york city, i played ball all the time in my neighborhood with white kids, black kids and hispanic kids and the only thing that mattered, and i'm sure that you experienced this as a kid, too, could you play? it didn't matter what race you were, or your ethnic background was, but when i got to duke, troises a lot different. politically and in every possible way, and my junior year, duke played a football game at army and duke back then as now, was lousy in football. and so the morning herald, the local paper, i was starting to do some stringing work for them as a nonstaffer and they asked me to cover the duke army football game, i was thrilled $50 to write a lead and a side bar and that was huge money. and duke rallied in the second half to win the game when they brought in a freshman quarterback named mike dunn and i wrote about mike dunn and side bar on him and how they recruited him and turned out to be a very good college player. was very happy with myself, i made deadline, flew home with the team and picked up the paper the next morning excite today see two by lines and when i got to the part where i introduced mike dunn, duke black freshman quarterback mike dunn, i was like what? duke had black linebackers, and black everything, and dunn was the first black quarterback at duke, this was 1975. and so i called the editor, who had edited the two stories and put in a side bar, too. i said what whether you doing, what difference does it make what color he is? >> john, he's the first black quarterback duke has had and that's part of the story. >> i was furious. the funny thing was when i was working on the book i was talking about the book and doug wrote the story and he laughed, you're naive. of course they were putting that in the story. and dealing with the fact that race is always there in one form or another, and in 2010 there were other incidents and i've obviously known a lot of black athletes and black coaches through the years. but in 2010, donovan mcnabb came to play quarterback in washington and in the eighth game of the season against the detroit lions he'd taken every snap and washington fell behind 30-25 at the two minute warning and they took the kickoff and rex grossman, the immortal rex grossman, you probably remember. >> the very last super bowl. >> and proves a great coach. but rex grossman came in, hadn't taken a snap all season like i said. first play, he was strip sacked by ndamukong suh, and picked up the ball, into the end zone, game over. after the game shanahan was asked what made you change quarterback. he could have said look, i had a gut feeling about rex, could have said donovan wasn't having a great game, he wasn't. instead he said i didn't know if donovan knew our two minute offense. >> this is a 11th year quarterback midway through the season and he didn't know the offense. na didn't sit well with the media and then asked again. i didn't know if donovan was in shape to run back-to-back plays. wow. so, this simmered for a week and washington was off the next week, it was a bye week, their bye week, and chris more tennison who you know well and who i know well, reported on espn that weekend that the shanahan's according to sources, it was anonymous, according to sources, the shanahans had to cut their play back in half for mcnabb, a guy taken the team to the super bowl, taken them, and made it seven times there and now in a week he's been called out of shape, not prepared, and finally, anonymously-- by his coaches, they knew where it came from, one of the shanahans, mike or kyle so the next day i went on a tv show, i think you were on through the years, washington post live and i attacked mike shanahan. this is racial coding, goes back to the '60s and '70s, when people claimed that blacks weren't smart enough to play the quarterback condition. and most fascinating, i was attacked in the washington meeting, but also the national media. i was accused of playing the race card, which is what happens afternoon often when you bring up the race as an issue. tony dungy said, people ask why am i bringing up race as an issue? because it is an issue. that he's 100% right and that was the anthem protest when colin kaepernick was backballed out of the league. and quoting sources, no, no, he's not blackballed, he's not good enough anymore. he was 29 years old. been quarterback for the 49ers and all of a sudden not good enough to be with the top 64 quarterbacks in the league and they reported it and during the protest after donald trump's rant whenever players were kneeling, most black, fans were booing, most white and i thought, wow, wow, we're really polarized in this country right now racially and i went to see john tomorrow thomson at the post, excuse me at georgetown and we had fought much of that time. >> legendary fights. >> some of them were pretty legendary, when i was stupid enough to offer to go outside with him and-- (laughter) >> figure things out that way which know the have worked out well for me. fortunately, he laughed at me and refused the offer. but had become a mentor to me in many ways because he was so damn smart and i went and i said to him i want to do a book on race in sports, but i don't know where to start and he said, you might as well try to explain the holy trinity and pointed a finger at me, which is why you have to do it. but i still didn't have a way in. the next year i found a way in, which was lamar jackson, who, as when you remember, came out of college, wide receiver, your still aren't right for an nfl quarterback. and four white quarterbacks were drafted in the top 10, one of them josh allen, a star. baker mayfield, okay, and josh rosen is on like his fourth team already and sam darnel failed with the jets, no surprise to me long life jets fan and with the carolina pan. and lamar jackson was taken by newton. and we know what's come to pass. lamar was unanimous mvp in his second year in the league and when he got hurt this year, the ravens fell apart completely and never won another game after he got injured. he's one of the-- at worst, excuse me, one of the five best quarterbacks in the nfl and yet, all of these experts, the scouts, the pundits on tv, and bill, not picking on him, but he happens to be a hall of famer on tv at the time all said he shouldn't be a quarterback. steve young was very fast. fran tarkenton was very fast. no one ever suggested they change positions. if lamar jackson was the exact same player and he was white, no one would have ever suggested he channing change positions. so that was my way into the book. >> i want to go back to that story you told about the duke-army game and see where that leads. i'm wondering what you learned about how-- or your more recent conversations with doug williams about that, how in some cases, black people want the race to be included, you know, it's not a side bar when lamar jackson is the mvp, that there's significance, that the racial components, when patrick mahomes wins the super bowl mvp, the racial component of that is significant. how did you become aware of that and how did you come to incorporate that into your writing? >> it's funny because i obviously candidates-- obviously, i went to talk to mike dunn and we were fellow students and i apologized to him and mike says, don't worry about it, i understand why they did it. he was a very bright guy and you make a good point that when the first time i interviewed doug williams when he was in tampa, i know this became kind of a famous story at the super bowl later, but i apologized to him because we were about a year late getting down there, we being "the washington post." he was in his second year by the time george solomon sent me down to write a story about them and by then the bucs had gotten good and went to the nfc championship game, but when i sat down with doug i sat down, i'm sorry to make you answer all of these questions again and he looked at me and he said, john, i've been a black quarterback all my life, fire away and don't worry about it. and when people reference white guilt, i think sometimes i probably have some of that, but it's for good reason. there's reason for us to feel guilty about the way blacks have been treated in this country for 400 plus years now, but also, in sports. and leonard hamilton, the florida state basketball coach who grew up with jim crow in charlotte, north carolina. look for any of us to say that progress hasn't been made is stupid. i grew up with white only water fountains and having to sit in the balcony at the movies and dealing with that throughout my boyhood and obviously, that's totally different now. he said, but people -- there are people, many of them, 74 million people voted for donald trump a little more than a year ago, to want to believe that because there's no jim crow, because there are voting rights laws although some of them are basically repealed, it's okay, we don't have to worry about race anymore. well, that's just not true. as we all know, it's the fact that mentioned the forest case, it's 2022. jackie, it will be 75 years since jackie robinson made his debut in brooklyn come april and we're still dealing with some of the same stuff. ja. you live with it every day. >> and participation in major league baseball, right? it's peaked into the '70s and mid 80 as. >> it was down to 6% and now up to 8%. >> half of where it was about 40 years ago. >> yeah, almost 20% at that point and part of it is just the way our society has changed, kids want to play basketball, and they want to play baseball-- football, they don't want to play baseball as much. when i was a kid, we played in the schoolyard or the park every single day when the weather was warm and now you don't necessarily see that. when the weather is warm, you see a lot of kid playing basketball. but again, mlb like -- has not done a great job and everybody, and saying, well the situation with coaches and general managers and quote, is unacceptable. we had three black coaches in the nfl last year. now we have two, plus someone who is biracial and identifies as black, so the number of black coaches has actually gone down. when it was already brutally low. for the long time, we only had one black coach in the nfl and that's mike tomlin, kind of hard to fire him at this point. i asked both mike and tony dungy, i leaned on them heavily in reporting the book. why wouldn't roger goodell talk to me? i knew him when he first got the job and i always got along fine with him and turned down flat to interview goodell. ironically when they put out the statement, almost word for word the e-mail i got from brian mccarthy the pr guy why roger wouldn't speak to me. roger is busy promoting diversity and i said to them why wouldn't he talk to me. they both said the same thing, he's embarrassed. i don't think that roger goodell is a bad guy. >> he's not the problem here. >> he can't tell the owners what to do they're paying him $40 million a year. >> so, doug williams wrote the forward to the book and in it he said if this book were to be written by someone who was black, a lot of people would shrug and say it's just another guy whining. i'm wondering you took your whiteness, and do you think it could have been published if you weren't white. >> you know both of them well, and said when i talked to them early in my reporting, that it was better that this book was written by a white guy and there are going some guys out there who say-- one the publishers who turned down the idea, there were five publishers that turned it down said how can you write a book about race when you're white? i said well, white is a race, isn't it? i've written about being a college coach when i've never been one on on the pga tour. as doug said and he said in the book, i don't pretend i know what it's like to be black. i've never been pulled over for dwb, driving while black, and every person i've interviewed, i guess you'd be in there, ja, has been pulled over at some point driving while black and the colin jones the olympic swimmer stopped by a cop while walking his dog and the cop was convinced that he had stolen the dog. and i told him you're the first one wdwb. >> walking dog while black. >> and i can empathize by the people i've known and the people i've got to interview for this book and you would be amazed the number of people-- no you probably wouldn't be amazed, but many, many of the people i interviewed thanked me for wanting to do the book. for the exact same reason that will bond and others said it's better you're doing it because you're white. they liked the fact that even though i can't understand what it's like to be black that i was trying to explain what it's like to be black. >> in my case, it was rbwb, riding bicycle while black and got pulled over and a gun pulled on me while in georgetown, washington post. >> you can't be a black guy in georgetown. >> we talk about coaching and where do we stand now? and in particular, why aren't we seeing the advancement. i want to stop and we criticize the numbers and i feel we don't do a good enough job of praising while the right thing is done. if you look at the tampa bay buccaneers, they've had three black coaches in their history and they just won the super bowl last year with a staff that purposefully was filled out with black coordinators at the three major coordinating positions in addition to two female coaches. let's not do one, let' do two. purposely built that staff and won the super bowl with it and yet it doesn't lead to a wave of hiring. we have the same in the playoffs, and frazier and morris, and all of these succeeding and why hasn't this success now, why haven't the people shown you can do it increase and created some type of copy cat around the league? >> that's a great point and one that tony dungy made to me, he said that the notion that there are not qualified guys out there is just -- is so far out of line right now because clearly there are plenty of qualified black coaches out there. some of it's back to the simple fact there are 31 nfl owners, the packers are owned by the city, basically or the fans. 31 nfl owners, 30 of them are white and interestingly, the owner in jacksonville who grew up in pakistan has never hired a black coach and general manager and we see how well that's worked out for him in recent years, especially this past year. this is not just nfl, it's true in college sports and major league baseball. it's true in the nba, although the nba has had success, so many black coaches have had success in the nba starting back with bill russell and ahead of the curve thanks in large part to red hourback, but the white guys look at somebody sitting in the office and they're more comfortable with somebody who looks like them and a lot of these are old, white billionaires who don't want anybody-- are used to nobody telling them what to do. are used to telling them that they're right no matte