Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Todd Bowles was praised by conservatives after scolding the media for "making a big deal" about race when a White reporter from ESPN pressed him about diversity.
"The minute you guys stop making a big deal about it, everybody else will as well," Bowles said.
Bowles, who is Black, was taking questions from the press on Wednesday ahead of the Buccaneers' upcoming game against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Instead of asking about football, one reporter pointed out that the Steelers also have a Black coach.
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"You and Mike Tomlin are the few Black head coaches in the league, I wonder what your relationship is like with him and your thoughts on Steve Wilks joining that," a reporter asked, Wilks, who was recently named the interim head coach for the Carolina Panthers to become the fourth current Black NFL head coach.
Bowles said he has a very good relationship with Tomlin but they don’t "look at what color we are" when their teams face off.
"I have a lot of very good White friends that coach in this league as well, and I don’t think it’s a big deal. As far as us coaching against each other, I think it’s normal. Wilks got an opportunity to do a good job, hopefully he does it, and we coach ball. We don’t look at color," Bowles said.
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ESPN’s Jenna Laine, who is White, pressed Bowles, asking if he "understands that representation matters" across the league.
"You have aspiring coaches and football players, they see you guys—they see someone that looks like them, maybe grew up like them," Laine said. "That has to mean something."
"When you say, ‘see you guys,’ and, ‘look like them,’ and ‘grew up like them,’ it means that we’re oddballs to begin with. And I think the minute you guys stop making a big deal about it, everybody else will as well," Bowles said.
Outkick founder Clay Travis blasted ESPN's Laine for "lecturing" Bowles about race.
"A white woman at ESPN telling a black NFL head coach why his race matters is a perfect distillation of the broken sports media culture ESPN has created. It’s all left wing identity politics and cancel culture there. Good for Todd Bowles for his answer," Travis wrote.
"Good for Todd Bowles. ESPN offered the race-bait and he refused to take it," Outkick’s Ian Miller added. "Bowles is entirely correct; endlessly pointing out the race of black head coaches makes their job about their skin color, not their performance… but that’s what modern identity politics is all about, putting race above any other considerations. Trying to achieve ‘equity,’ instead of equality."
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Miller – who wore that Laine’s question was "racist" – is thankful Bowles took the time to answer the question honestly.
"He has good relationships with coaches of all races and that focusing on skin color does nothing to normalize black head coaches," Miller said.
Many others have similarly praised Bowles:
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Laine responded to criticism of her question on Twitter.
"Let me clarify something...I wasn’t telling Todd Bowles how he should think or feel about racial representation. I was seeking clarity because his response to the initial question from another reporter Wednesday differed quite a bit from this response March 31 when he was hired," Laine wrote to accompany footage of his introductory press conference when he expressed that "it means a lot" to get hired after being asked about diversity.
"My line of questioning was directly in line with Todd Bowles’ own comments that day. I would never tell someone whose life experience is different from my own and whose shoes I haven’t walked in, how to feel," Laine continued. "My job is to seek clarity and to gain understanding."
Bowles is in his second stint as head coach after three years as Tampa Bay’s defensive coordinator.
Bowles was fired as head coach of the New York Jets in 2018 after four seasons that resulted in no playoff berths.
Fox News' David Rutz and Joe Morgan contributed to this report.
Outkick and Fox News share common ownership.
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