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      Reeling Texans Set to Hire David Culley as Head Coach

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyReeling Texans Set to Hire David Culley as Head CoachCulley, who is Black, is one of only two nonwhite N.F.L. head coaches hired in this cycle. His task: leading a Houston franchise that has alienated its star players.David Culley, 65, takes over the Houston Texans, whose 4-12 record last season almost belies the bleakness of its circumstances: limited draft capital, no elite receivers, a forbidding salary-cap situation. Credit…Scott Galvin/USA Today Sports, via ReutersJan. 28, 2021Updated 7:11 p.m. ETAs their tumultuous season bleeds into a tumultuous January, the Houston Texans have reportedly chosen the Baltimore Ravens assistant David Culley to help foster their revival, making him the first — and only — Black head coach hired after the 2020 regular season.Culley, 65, has a long and distinguished N.F.L. résumé, but this will be his first head coaching job at any level, and he joins the organization at a fraught time, as it strategizes how to proceed with disgruntled players, a star quarterback, Deshaun Watson, who is reportedly seeking a trade, and without many draft assets after trades gutted the supply.Culley, the Texans’ first full-time head coach of color since their inception in 2002, is the second head coach from a nonwhite background hired by a team this winter. Romeo Crennel, who is Black, had been interim head coach since October 2020 when the team fired Bill O’Brien, the coach and general manager, after starting the season 0-4. The Jets hired Robert Saleh, believed to be the league’s first Muslim Arab American head coach, earlier this month.The league, which has long been scrutinized for lacking diversity across its coaching positions, updated its interview processes last May, increasing the minimum number of interviews teams were required to conduct with external head coaching candidates from nonwhite backgrounds from one to two. But the guideline, the Rooney Rule, does not require teams to hire coaches of color, and the league will enter the 2021 season with only one more nonwhite coach than it started with last year. Three-quarters of the league’s players are people of color, but the vast majority of top coaches and player personnel executives are white men.“They are trying, but they are struggling,” Nellie Drew, director of the Center for the Advancement of Sport at the University at Buffalo School of Law, said of the N.F.L. in an interview Thursday. “The results to date have not been impressive, especially given the number of people of color who play in the league.”Saleh and Culley join Ron Rivera of the Washington Football Team, Mike Tomlin of the Pittsburgh Steelers and Brian Flores of the Miami Dolphins as head coaches of color. In 2011, the N.F.L. had, for the first time, eight nonwhite head coaches among its ranks, a peak it reached again in the 2017 season.The Ravens will get two third-round draft picks, one in 2021 and one in 2022, as compensation for losing a nonwhite staff member who became a head coach as part of the N.F.L.’s incentive system that was ratified by league owners in November. The new measure was criticized by some, including African-American coaches and players.“I just have never been in favor of rewarding people for doing the right thing,” Tony Dungy, a former head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Indianapolis Colts, said in May 2020. “And so I think there’s going to be some unintended consequences.”Culley filled several roles for the Ravens across the last two seasons — assistant head coach, passing game coordinator and wide receivers coach — helping to establish the league’s leading rushing offense in 2020, but one that ranked last in passing. In 2019, Culley helped bolster the Ravens to No. 1 in scoring with an average of 33.2 points per game.Noted for his ability to develop creative schemes that improve players’ weaknesses and complement their strengths, Culley cultivated a reputation as an excellent teacher and communicator across his 27 seasons as an N.F.L. coach, most of which have been spent assisting Andy Reid, first in Philadelphia and then in Kansas City.“David will do a good job,” Reid said after practice Thursday. “He’s a people person. He’ll bring energy to the building.”Ravens Coach John Harbaugh overlapped nine seasons with Culley as assistants in Philadelphia and has said that he tried multiple times to hire him in Baltimore. When Harbaugh finally succeeded in 2019, luring Culley from Buffalo, where he coached the Bills’ quarterbacks, he called it a “coup.”Culley was an athlete growing up in Sparta, Tenn., about 90 miles east of Nashville, where he played football, baseball and basketball at White County High School. He was a quarterback at Vanderbilt and went on to coach at several colleges before entering the N.F.L. in 1994 as the receivers coach with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.It came as no surprise to Harbaugh that Culley would be picked up this year — by the Texans.“I do believe that David Culley would be a tremendous hire for any team; maybe, especially, the Texans with Deshaun Watson,” Harbaugh said on Jan. 11.But the opportunity to coach Watson may not come, as the quarterback reportedly requested a trade after a series of disagreements with the Texans’ upper management. He reportedly became disgruntled when the team hired a new general manager, Nick Caserio, without his consultation this year and felt the team had been inattentive to social justice causes, including diversifying their hiring practices.Watson had signed a four-year, $156 million contract extension in September 2020 that included about $75 million guaranteed, a $27 million signing bonus and a no-trade clause, meaning that he will have a say in where he ends up next, if the Texans pursue a deal. Culley’s hiring will not have an effect on Watson’s decision, according to ESPN.Culley takes over a team whose 4-12 record last season almost belies the bleakness of its circumstances: limited draft capital, no elite receivers, a forbidding salary-cap situation. After finishing 10-6 in 2019 and winning the A.F.C. South for the fourth time in the previous five seasons, the Texans flopped last season. O’Brien had reportedly argued with players, including the star defensive end J.J. Watt, who later ranted about the team’s “trash” season in a postgame news conference.“We need a whole culture shift,” Watson told reporters in a videoconference after the regular season ended. “We need new energy. We need discipline. We need structure. We need a leader so we can follow that leader as players.”Culley will have to be that person, with or without Watson.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      With Purses Filled, L.P.G.A. Chief Will Step Down This Year

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyWith Purses Filled, L.P.G.A. Chief Will Step Down This YearMichael Whan’s marketing savvy and commitment to players helped grow women’s golf and, more important, get better paydays for its athletes.L.P.G.A. Commissioner Michael Whan played a shot during a charity event ahead of a tournament in 2018.Credit…Michael Reaves/Getty ImagesJan. 14, 2021, 10:23 a.m. ETWhen Amy Olson went to play golf at North Dakota State in 2009, she didn’t know if the L.P.G.A. Tour would be there for her when she graduated. Many had feared that the women’s tour was on the verge of folding, after it lost 10 events from 2008 to 2010 while the total annual prize purse went from $60.3 million to $41.4 million.But the tour made a prescient hire in 2010, plucking Michael Whan from the world of corporate marketing to take over as commissioner. In the ensuing decade, Whan resurrected the top women’s golf tour in the world. The 2021 season is set for 34 events — 12 of them outside the United States — for a total purse of $76.5 million.Olson joined the tour full time in 2014 and has 12 career top-10 finishes, which include a tie for second at the United States Open last month, and over $2 million in earnings.“That’s the story of hundreds of girls around the world who wanted to play golf at the highest level,” said Olson, 28, who is a player representative on the tour’s board of directors. “Mike gave us that opportunity.”Whan has now decided it is time to move on, after the longest and arguably the most successful run as L.P.G.A. commissioner. Last week he reached out to players and sponsors with whom he has established close friendships to let them know that he was stepping down, before the news release went out on Jan. 6. Whan, who did not give a specific reason for his departure, plans stay on the job awhile, to help find his successor. His next job is unclear.“I like to live my life pretty nervous, and I haven’t been really nervous in a while,” Whan said at the news conference to announce his decision. “I want to get back to that.”The United States Golf Association, the governing body of the sport that runs the men’s and women’s U.S. Opens, announced in September that its chief executive, Mike Davis, would step down at the end of 2021. When asked if he would pursue that position, Whan demurred.“I think for any job — that one certainly included — requires a cleanse of my brain,” Whan said.Before joining the L.P.G.A., Whan, 55, worked on both sides of sponsorship sales, in the golf divisions at Wilson Sporting Goods and TaylorMade. He knew companies could find value in connecting with women, and he believed that the L.P.G.A. Tour belonged at the forefront of their marketing plans.“He has rebranded the L.P.G.A.,” Olson said. “It’s not just about us pursuing our dream. It’s now about women and women’s empowerment, and giving girls opportunities. That resonates so strongly with corporations.”For example, Whan worked with KPMG and the P.G.A. of America to rebrand and revitalize one of the women’s five major championships, arranging the inaugural KPMG Women’s P.G.A. Championship at Westchester Country Club in 2015. It was the first L.P.G.A. event to include a women’s leadership summit, and more than a dozen such events are now associated with tournaments throughout the calendar.“It completely changed the way that Mike sold to sponsors,” said Shawn Quill, the managing director at KPMG in charge of sports sponsorships. “He embraced what we were doing, and it led to a complete change in what the value proposition was for the L.P.G.A. Tour.”Players say Whan’s impact wasn’t limited to the tour’s relationship with sponsors. The players, both current and retired, felt a connection to their fast-speaking, self-deprecating commissioner. He created many catchy nicknames — Olson was “headband” because of her penchant for wearing the accessory as a rookie — and he constantly wrote thank-you notes.Whan kept players top of mind as he deftly led the Tour through the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, publicly lobbying sponsors to pay their athletes even when they were not competing in the contractually required number of tournaments for the year. There was no reduction in purses for the 18 events that were played, and every tournament sponsor is set to return for 2021. When tournaments resumed, safety protocols yielded only 42 positive coronavirus tests out of the approximately 7,200 that were given throughout the year.Communication and transparency were the two words players repeatedly used to describe Whan’s tenure, which has had a personal touch they say will be sorely missed.The tour veteran Christina Kim remembered that when Whan was first hired, she was playing in an event in South Korea. At 3 a.m., her phone started ringing like crazy. She finally sent a text that said: “Who are you? Please stop calling me.” Whan responded that he was the new commissioner and wanted to say hello, so Kim got out of bed and called back, starting a warm relationship.“He provided us with the knowledge that we needed to know where the Tour was and where the Tour was headed,” Kim said. “He gave us the ability to not only believe in his desires and wishes and ability for the L.P.G.A., but he made us believe that we mattered.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More