Much of the praise for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers winning the Super Bowl in 2021 went to Tom Brady, now forever known as the greatest quarterback of all time. But head coach Bruce Arians and his diverse coaching staff deserved plenty of the credit as well. –By Brian Hurlburt, Founder and Host, Magnifying Excellence Podcast.
Arians, who is white, entrusted his top four head coaching positions to black men, and also had two women on his staff. Following the victory, Arians was effusive in his praise, while others looking on said what Arians did was burst the myth that “you don’t have to choose diversity over Excellence,” as the headline read at WTSP.com, Tampa Bay’s channel 10.
Arians’ coaches were Byron Leftwich (offensive coordinator), Todd Bowles (defensive coordinator), Keith Armstrong (special teams), Harold Goodwin (assistant head coach and run game coordinator), Lori Locust (assistant defensive-line coach), and Maral Javadifar (strength and conditioning coach.)
“I thought Byron had a great, great plan and I just can’t give him enough credit. He’s just a superstar,” Arians told the media after the victory. “The player is going to ask the coach, ‘how are you going to make me better?’ And he doesn’t care if the answer comes from a male or female, or someone who black, white, brown, yellow.”
ESPN commentator Jay Adande said what Arians is doing is dispelling a long-held erroneous thought process.
“It’s this false choice that is presented often that you can either have diversity, or you can go for excellence … we’ve just seen that’s not the case,” Adande said in the Tampa 10 story.
We agree. Excellence knows no limitations for those who truly aspire to it. And Arians has a history of just finding the best to do the job. Period.