Years after Sherman Lewis, Black NFL coaches face familiar journey ...Middle East

A generation ago, Sherman Lewis was a lot like Eric Bieniemy.

Lewis was one of the NFL’s most accomplished assistant coaches, winning three Super Bowl rings as part of Bill Walsh’s staff with the San Francisco 49ers in the 1980s and another with Mike Holmgren and the Green Bay Packers. He was in fact the first Black offensive coordinator to win a Super Bowl, a milestone largely overshadowed as Holmgren called the plays when Green Bay toppled New England in XXXI.

Then there are coaches Lewis mentored or otherwise trained along the way. The who’s who lineup includes Andy Reid, Jimmy Raye, Ty Willingham, Steve Mariucci and Jon Gruden.

Yet despite his sterling resume, Lewis, who died on May 15, never had the chance to become an NFL head coach. He was 83.

Sad, that for a man whose life offered so much to celebrate – Lewis was an All-America running back at Michigan State who finished third in balloting for the Heisman Trophy in 1963 – a glass ceiling shutout is also part of his legacy.

“It’s just a shame that with the times, the systemic racism that existed – and still exists – he was denied an opportunity to be a head coach in the NFL,” Raye, the former NFL coordinator and legendary Michigan State quarterback, told USA TODAY Sports.

“Yet he never complained about it. He kept his head down and kept going. I guess because of us being from the South and dealing with Jim Crow during our lives, we understood the denial of opportunities that existed.”

Understood, but hardly agreed with.

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Barret Robbins, football, 1973-2026

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Bill Mazeroski, baseball, 1936-2026

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Mike Wagner (right), football, 1949-2026

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Barry Wilburn, football, 1963-2026

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Martin Chivers, soccer, 1945-2026

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Robert Pulford, hockey, 1936-2026

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The barriers indeed went way back. Lewis grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, in the same neighborhood as the kid who grew up to be Muhammad Ali, but segregation prevented him from attending the University of Kentucky or some other big school in the South. That led him to East Lansing, Michigan, where he became one of the early Black recruits from the South that formulated the so-called “Underground Railroad” pipeline of talent – Raye hails from North Carolina – lured to Duffy Daugherty’s integrated program.

Unfortunately, decades later, the matter of equal opportunity when it comes to NFL head coaching jobs is still a constant conversation on the NFL landscape. During the most recent hiring cycle, Black coaches were shut out for 10 openings, with the Tennessee Titans’ hiring of Robert Saleh, of Lebanese descent, marking the only person of color to land a head coaching job. Over the past two cycles, the New York Jets’ Aaron Glenn was the only Black hired among 17 openings.

Meanwhile, the class-action lawsuit filed in 2022 and headed by Minnesota Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores, is still pending, maintaining among other allegations, that several teams conducted sham interview processes to comply with the Rooney Rule.

And when Bienemy returned to the Kansas City Chiefs this offseason as offensive coordinator – the most prominent stepping-stone position to head coach – it snapped a string of 30 consecutive OC jobs that had gone to white men.

While such patterns have increased scrutiny and criticism on team owners and the NFL, the dearth of opportunity for Blacks to ascend to the most prominent and visible coaching positions continues to be an embarrassment for the league. The environment is so similar to the one that existed during the late 1990s – a few years before the Rooney Rule was established in 2003 — when Lewis was the most prominent Black coach bypassed for the ultimate promotion.

That Lewis was honored at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2023 for its inaugural class of Awards of Excellence honorees, is a testament to the respect earned over several decades in the NFL. Yet it also prompts me to wonder what-if.

“The goal posts kept moving,” reflected Raye, mindful of the knock that Lewis – who ran offensive meetings with the Packers – didn’t call the plays. “It was always another roadblock.”

Sherman Lewis (20), was a running back for Michigan State, and scored 23 touchdowns over three seasons for the Spartans.

A generation later, the similarity to Bienemy’s journey is striking. Like Lewis, Bienemy, a Colorado product, was an All-America running back who finished third in Heisman balloting. And like Lewis, Bienemy, a two-time Super Bowl winner on Reid’s staff with the Chiefs, has for years been considered a worthy candidate for a head coaching job … only to be passed over while others with lesser credentials land opportunities.

Then again, as Raye points out, this didn’t just happen on the NFL level with Lewis, who broke into the coaching ranks on Duffy Daugherty’s staff at Michigan State in 1969. Lewis, who served as an assistant coach under three head coaches at Michigan State before joining Walsh’s staff with the 49ers in 1983, was passed over by his alma mater, too.

In 1980, Michigan State hired Frank “Muddy” Waters to succeed Darryl Rogers.

“That’s one of the biggest travesties in the history of that program, when they chose Muddy Waters,” Raye said. “He should have been named head coach.”

If not then and there, then somehow and somewhere.

Contact Bell at jbell@usatoday.com or follow on X: @JarrettBell.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Why Chiefs assistant Eric Bieniemy has similarities to Sherman Lewis

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