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Black History Month has been celebrated in some form since 1924. For sports fans, it is a chance to reacquaint themselves with those who broke down barriers in all areas of competition and all segments of society. Many are now household names and American icons: Joe Louis, Jesse Owens, Jackie Robinson, Wilma Rudolph, Muhammad Ali, up to Tiger Woods, Tony Dungy and Venus and Serena Williams today.Throughout February, FanHouse will shed light on the other figures in the history of sports whose breakthroughs were as significant as those mentioned above, but who aren't as instantly recognizable as pioneers. During Black History Month 2010, FanHouse aims to give them their due.
Al Attles and K.C. Jones
First two African-American coaches to meet for a major pro championship
At the Super Bowl in Miami three years ago this week, no story was bigger than the two coaches -- Tony Dungy of Indianapolis and Lovie Smith of Chicago, not just the first black coaches ever to lead teams to the NFL's biggest game, but only the second time two black men had faced each other in a major sports league championship.
The first and only other time that happened, virtually nobody talked about it. Including the two coaches.
"The thing I cherish most about it, and a lot of people might not think it's right, is that they didn't bring a lot of attention to it,'' Al Attles told the Baltimore Sun in 2007 about his Golden State Warriors meeting K.C. Jones and the Washington Bullets in the 1975 NBA Finals.
Then again, black coaches were not curiosities even in the NBA of 1975. That spring, baseball broke its managerial color line with Frank Robinson in Cleveland, and another 14 years would pass before the Los Angeles Raiders would make Art Shell pro football's first black coach of the modern era. Bill Russell, named player-coach of the Celtics in 1966, had already won two NBA titles, in 1968 and '69.
By 1975, Jones -- a teammate of Russell's on two NCAA and eight NBA title teams -- had not only been coaching the Bullets for two seasons, he also had coached in college and the ABA. Attles, a member of the Warriors organization continually since being drafted in 1960, had finished the 1969-70 season as player-coach, becoming full-time coach the following year.
So who beat whom to the honor, the way Dungy got the upper hand on Smith at Super Bowl XLI? Attles' heavy-underdog Warriors swept Jones' Bullets, still the biggest Finals upset. It was his only championship and the last for the franchise, which he now serves as vice president. Jones later coached the Larry Bird-era Celtics to two NBA titles. He now runs basketball camps in Massachusetts.
Between them, Attles and Jones won 1,074 games in the NBA in 24 seasons. Their combined contribution to history goes beyond numbers: the hiring, firing, failure and success of an NBA coach today is not examined through the prism of black and white. That's something the NFL -- even with four African-American coaches reaching the Super Bowl in the last four years -- can't say yet.
"Back when it was Al Attles and myself, no one even thought about it,'' Jones said. "Now it's a big whoop-de-do. That tells you something.''
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