Talking about Dungy, Smith is a good thing

MIAMI -- The day will come, though no time soon, when the color of a man's skin is no more discussion-worthy than the shape of his earlobes. For that to happen, the arrival of racial milestones must be celebrated and dissected to exhaustion, allowing the message to resonate through ignorant minds. No matter how much you love the Bears and want to know how Brian Urlacher can shatter Peyton Manning's thumb, the next seven days are about Lovie Smith, Tony Dungy and a dream.

''I think we'll probably talk this subject to death,'' Dungy said. ''But hopefully, we're getting to the point when people realize you hire the best person.''

''That day is coming someday,'' Smith said of a color-blind world. ''Of course, we're talking about it now. It's not here now. In years to come, it won't be talked about, and I'll look forward to that day.''

If the Super Bowl is an annual gauge of the American condition, then the game never has had a story more powerful than the long-overdue emergence of two black coaches in a league traditionally overrun by good-old-boy management. How racist was the NFL as recently as 20 years ago? People remember a 1987 meeting, featuring 200 league and team officials, that included only one African-American representative. Since then, there has been enough progress that Bruce Gordon, president and CEO of the NAACP, had no clue that new Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin was black until he noticed a photo in a newspaper last week.

Leave the halftime wardrobe malfunctions to the voyeurs and goofy entertainment shows. Forty-one years too late, yet better late than never, a black head coach is going to win the planet's biggest sports event. Society finally is catching up to the spectacle, at long last.

''This is one of the great moments in American history,'' the Rev. Jesse Jackson said. ''It really is. It comes 60 years after Jackie Robinson broke through. It's an American feel-good moment.''

Those not fond of Jackson might accept the perspective of James Brown, the CBS pregame host, who views the week as a temperature reading on race in America. ''I'm kind of curious to see how the dialogue will take place now that it's forced into the national landscape,'' he said. ''It'll be fascinating to see various viewpoints articulated. We often hear the expression, 'We'd be glad to get past this point where it's of any significance.' I think [former Georgetown basketball coach] John Thompson said it best: 'You can't get past it until you get past it.' And we haven't got past it yet. Many societal shifts don't take place until people see it in front of them and embrace what the significance of that is. Sports have led the way so many times in that regard.''

This is a time to think of the trail blazers who created chances for equal opportunity, a time to reflect on the worst forms of hatred through the centuries. My ESPN colleague, Michael Smith, compares the ascension of Dungy and Smith ''to when Halle Berry and Denzel Washington and Jamie Foxx won Oscars for leading roles.'' The difference, of course, is that the two coaches weren't elected to the Super Bowl. They had to crash through barriers by themselves, surviving unfair ordeals. Dungy related a tale about an NFL job interview -- of the token variety -- in which it was suggested he cut off his beard because ''people were looking for a certain kind of person.''

''I scratched my head at that one,'' he said. ''When you would get questions like that, you could see some people were concerned with things that weren't really related to football. You could see we had a way to go.''

He finally was given his head-coaching opportunity by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 1996. Soon after, he hired Smith as his linebackers coach. They have dared, in private, to talk about making history, wondering if it was possible in a league where most of the players are black and most of the decision-makers are white. When the landmark moment crystalized last Sunday, with the Colts eliminating New England hours after the Bears crushed New Orleans, Smith couldn't wait to chat up his mentor and close friend.

''Of course, you could hear the excitement in his voice right away -- when I finally let him speak a little bit,'' said Smith, drawing laughter. ''This is a time we both wanted. When people asked me, I let everyone know we wanted the Colts to win. We wanted an opportunity to play them, and that dream came true.''

You couldn't have chosen men better constructed to handle the moment. Each is dignified and steady, oozing class and equilibrium. Both would rather talk about the game, but they understand the responsibility of their historic convergence. Said Smith: ''I can say, 'Nah, I don't feel any pressure. I'm just like anybody else trying to win.' But there are not a lot of black coaches. In order for others to get a chance, the ones in position need to do well.''

The work is only beginning, you see. The NFL still has only three black general managers. The college ranks have been much slower to respond, with 119 Division I-A programs employing the same number of black coaches -- six -- as the NFL. This is why Super Bowl XLI is so vital to humankind. Triumphant as the day will be, it also will expose the lingering injustice.

''I've been thinking about my generation of kids who watched Super Bowls and never really saw African-American coaches and didn't think about the fact that you could be a coach,'' Dungy said. ''Hopefully, young kids now will say, 'Hey, I might be the coach someday.' That's special.''

A team will win, a team will lose. But this Super Bowl, in the larger world beyond Chicago and Indianapolis, won't be remembered for the score. Except, perhaps, 2-0.

Jay Mariotti is a regular on ''Around the Horn'' at 4 p.m. on ESPN. Send e-mail to inbox@suntimes.com with name, hometown and daytime phone number (letters run Sunday).