The Rooney Rule was named after Dan Rooney, the late and legendary owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers.
The rule was enacted in 2003 and designed to bring awareness to qualified minority candidates for NFL head coaching vacancies by requiring that all teams interview at least one minority during its search.
However, the rule does not state that a team must hire a minority to be its head coach. I feel it important to make that distinction in this article because ever since the Steelers, the team with the owner that helped pioneer head coaching opportunities for minority candidates, hired Mike Tomlin to be their head coach in January of 2007, it has been assumed that race was the only reason the former Vikings’ defensive coordinator got such a prestigious job.