‘This problem has persisted for decades,’ says Dallas Mavericks coach on racial divide
A few blocks from Rick Carlisle’s condo in Dallas he could see, and hear, the sounds of America’s latest rounds of protests that turned to riots.
Before those events unfolded, and he 29 other NBA coaches gathered on a Zoom call to talk.
“This problem has persisted for decades, and really for centuries. It’s been ongoing and it’s tragic,” the Dallas Mavericks head coach said Monday morning in a phone interview.
The President of the National Basketball Coaches Association said he had a candid dialogue on Saturday afternoon with his fellow coaches, which included the always outspoken Gregg Popovich of the San Antonio Spurs, Steve Kerr of the Golden State Warriors, and the rest.
On Monday morning, the group released a statement of what is easily the most candid assessment of America’s latest unrest. In part, it said, “reality is African Americans are targeted and victimized on a daily basis.”
“It’s the most aggressive statement by any organization. It’s graphic and it’s honest and it’s accurate,” Carlisle said. “We know that there is a great deal of work ahead of us. We are committed to get into the weeds on this thing with local leaders, law enforcement officials. We have to get people to understand that this is not right.”
There may not be a more high profile group of professionals that includes more minorities than the NBA, or its head coaches. There is a level of sadness and disgust, and Carlisle is pushing for his group to affect real change.
The question is, how? Carlisle said a group of his peer NBA coaches have formed a committee to attack an issue that has been around since America was born. Anyone over the age of 3 bristles at the pitch of yet another committee being formed to fix a problem.
For a person living in Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston or wherever I asked Carlisle what he feels like is a step to combating this persistent issue, rather than simply be sad, mad, angry and then move on.
“Honest conversations within the family. And it’s a problem that must be tackled by all of society,” he told me. “We know that we have a huge task ahead of us to dig into this and make a difference, but we are committed. We have the platform. We have the wherewithal. We have the stomach for it.
“We must first admit that we have a serious, serious problem here, that continues to happen like a broken record. And we are not going to stand back and treat this as an isolated incident of outrage. That tends to be the pattern on these things.”
Therein lies part of the issue here. America has seen this before in the past. Well-meaning statements have been issued before, condemning the violence with promises to affect change.
It’s one thing to say it as a reaction to the moment. It’s another thing to do it six months later.
“Everyone should be angry that this kind of thing could happen in our society,” Carlisle said. “One of the things that brought the coaches together was anger. We see and share their feelings of disgust, anger, frustration and helplessness.
“We want to engage our players. We need the support of the league and the owners and I believe we’ll have it. This is too important of a time in our history and we must act and act now.”
Carlisle has seen this before, and this latest round of racial unrest was this time a few blocks from his house.
He wants to see it change.
This story was originally published June 1, 2020 at 4:21 PM.
