Women Scouts in the NFL

Over at ESPN, Jeff Davis makes the case for more women in the NFL scouting corps. Hard to argue with him. As I've said before, every institution benefits from diversity. More points of view are better for everyone, and while different genders don't guarantee meaningfully different points of view, it's a decent proxy. So, at the very least, any kind of formal or informal bar on women in any role in the NFL (outside of maybe playing, given the physical demands of the game) is indefensible and, ultimately, counter-productive for the NFL.

In fact, I'd say that the scouting corps has a uniquely pressing need for diversity. Scouting corps are, by and large, the exact sort of conventional-wisdom-spouting old-boys-clubs that resist every kind of major change in the game, whether it be broad scale reform or just hiring an athlete from a slightly different background. All too often, scouts are former players (of dubious skill or prestige) or long-time hangers-on. Generally speaking, they're way too focused on their subjective assessments of a players' "mental make up" or their narrow definition of "proper form" to understand the things that actually lead to success.

After all, the current NFL scouting corps says ridiculous things like this:

"I just don't know if football is that important to him. He was raised by women, which bothers me. I mean, how tough can he be? It's not his fault, but it's still reality."

On the micro-level, I'm confident that any woman working as a scout would dispel that bullshit right away. More importantly, at the macro-level, if scouts come from different backgrounds, it's a lot less likely that they will, as a group, be as beholden to the same outdated thoughts and resistant to new ideas. Which is not to say that any random woman is naturally more progressively-minded than the current NFL scouts. Just that different kinds of people are far less likely to think similarly.

Of course, there are many fine, open-minded NFL scouts out there already. They're willing to re-examine their own assumptions, and know that the game is changing- as is our understanding of it. They're not all in the smoke-filled backroom. But the good ones need their numbers bolstered. Greater diversity, and specifically, more woman is no guarantee of doing that- but it's a good place to start.

JEREMY LIN AND THE VALUE OF DIVERSITY

This is going to be part one in a continuing series that we'll call "Buzz Bissinger should shut the fuck up and just enjoy his well-deserved royalties from Friday Night Lights."

If you've been following the NBA even just enough to know what those letters stand for, then you've heard about Jeremy Lin. Sportswriter-cum-curmudgeon Buzz Bissinger certainly has. Here's his column. He makes some interesting points, such as saying that it's ridiculous to think that Lin is better than Jordan or Chamberlain.

It's important that Bissinger say this, as Sylvester Q. Nobody has been repeatedly making just that claim from his daily column in the Nowehere Daily Nothing-Courier.

The dutiful frisking of strawmen completed, Bissinger addresses the racial component of Lin's fame. YOU MEAN THAT JEREMY LIN IS ASIAN AND MOST OF THE NBA ISN'T? HEAVENS TO MURGATROID. I NEVER WOULD HAVE NOTICED IF A GROWN MAN NAMED BUZZ (who does not have the excuse of having walked on the goddamn moon) HADN'T TOLD ME.

The problem here isn't that Bissinger is obliviousness to the most obvious facts of the situation, though; it's that he's critical of anyone excited by Lin's diverse background. And that is just wrongheaded.

Diversity is a VIRTUE. We are better off when we acknowledge that different people have different backgrounds. We're better off when we learn from these backgrounds, and appropriately adapt our own lives to what we've learned. If we dismiss everyone's different backgrounds as "irrelevant", we're just cheating ourselves out of the whole story.

So, the NBA and the broader basketball community is right to celebrate its ability to attract players of different backgrounds. It is right to celebrate its successes in promoting diversity. It is right to take a little pride that someone can find success and fame in the NBA even if they don't fit the typical NBA profile. It is well justified for the NBA- for all of us, really- to be happy when the Grand Meritocracy that sports are supposed to represent actually seems to work.

Of course, we have to be careful that the NBA isn't making Lin into a token. We can't let the NBA just point to Lin and say "RACISM OVER." But let's wait and see if that actually happens before we start yelling about it, huh?

The NBA, like society as a whole, has plenty of hang-ups about race (the Fifth Blog Cylon Mike has a plan for a blog post about race and the NBA dress code). It's learning as it goes. We all are. And the work is never really done, we're always going to have to figure out how to live alongside different kinds of people. But it really is okay to smile a little when we have some success at it.