Pete Carroll on Jon Gruden: ‘All people deserve to be treated well...we can all be better’
Being a leader in any vocation in 2021 requires sensitivity.
Yes, even for a football coach.
Don’t believe that?
Ask Jon Gruden.
Ask Pete Carroll.
Wednesday, the Seahawks coach gave his reaction to Gruden’s forced resignation from coaching the Las Vegas Raiders following reports by the Wall Street Journal and New York Times detailing e-mails from Gruden containing racist, homophobic and misogynistic language. Those e-mails spanned many years.
“I would say that the times that we are in and the awareness that we are now growing to understand is crucially important as leaders and people that have a chance to speak out,” Carroll said Wednesday. “We have to demonstrate the sensitivity that all people deserve to be treated well and spoken of well. Because they deserve it.
“It’s not because of some rule or guideline. You should treat people like they should be treated. When anything comes out that demonstrates that the sensitivity is not there, you are getting called out — and rightfully so.”
Carroll, 70, is the NFL’s oldest coach. Gruden was 10 years old when Carroll began his coaching career, in 1973 as a graduate assistant at his alma mater, the University of the Pacific.
Carroll says he has learned and grown over the last few years by listening to players about issues of racial and social justice. In doing so, he’s noticeably supported their beliefs and words.
He has canceled practice to have voter-registration drives. He’s had guests in to speak on race and social justice at the Seahawks’ facility.
Those talks have stressed to Carroll the importance for all leaders to “be true and fair to all people.”
That’s particularly important for white men leading Black persons, as is the case in almost all the NFL.
“I’m not saying it’s easy or that I have it nailed,” Carroll said. “I’m just saying that as leaders that have a chance to speak out we have to do a great job of relaying that message, being the message, and be true and fair to all people.”
As for Gruden: “I think that illustration showed otherwise, and that’s too bad,” Carroll said.
There is another practical lesson for leaders from Gruden’s professional demise: beware of e-mail.
Carroll and Seahawks All-Pro linebacker Bobby Wagner made the points that today’s technology makes e-mail communications more retrievable and able to be found, even when presumed to be deleted or forgotten.
The initial, Wall Street Journal story of Gruden’s racial trope describing NFL Players Association head DeMaurice Smith was in an e-mail sent 10 years ago to former Raiders and Washington team executive Bruce Allen. It was part of 650,000 e-mails spanning several years the NFL has reviewed in its investigation of the Washington Football Team and owner Daniel Snyder over conduct with team employees.
A subsequent New York Times story this week detailed more e-mails from Gruden over years containing homophobic and misogynistic language.
“The only thing that is different, is that are cell phones,” Wagner, 31, said.
He held up his.
“This is the only thing that’s different,” he said. “You’ve got cell phones that capture moments. Now, your emails sit there a little longer than they normally do. Things that used to be in the dark, that would never be found out about, is being saved on the cloud or wherever it’s at. It pops back up at some point.
“We have a long way to go.”
To Wagner’s point, the practical lesson for leaders in this digital age is: be careful of what you put in writing, in e-mails.
But that obviously doesn’t condone or address the bigger problem of thinking such as Gruden’s being so widespread in society, not only in the NFL.
Wagner knows that better than most white people do.
“What I will say is I think there are people out there like that, that speak that way, that have that mindset, that have not grown. It’s not just football,” Wagner said. “It’s not just NFL ownership or coaches or anything like that. There are more people that’s like that. Whether it’s naïve, whether it’s a lack of education, whatever the excuse or whatever the idea behind it may be, there are people out there like that.
“If you’re talking to me, it’s not something that shocks me anymore. You get it in so many different fields. It’s not just football.”
Carroll was asked if he was concerned about the league’s process of investigating the Washington team being the way Gruden was outed, that the now-former Raiders coach is collateral damage in a bigger investigation the league hasn’t disclosed.
“No,” Carroll said, “I’m not concerned about that. It happened because it was on record.
“I don’t know the ins and outs of it at all. It was out there so it was available to someone, and they got it. The rest followed suit.
“I think this is the world now, everybody is vulnerable. With the technology, they could find whatever they want to find out about people. I don’t think this is about the NFL, I just think this is a social evolution of where we are. It’s real. It’s the truth, and I don’t think there is any way of getting around it.
“In a sense, it’s really good and it makes us all have to understand and look at things and people in a way that they wanted to be treated well. It doesn’t matter who you are, where you come from, what you do, or what your persuasion is, none of that matters. One you start making choices of who you will treat well, then you are in trouble. That’s not the way to go.
“We are learning, we are all growing, and I hope that we can all be better as these sensitivities become so important to us.”
This story was originally published October 14, 2021 at 10:15 AM.
