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Our students in the DeVos Sports Business Management Graduate Program at the University of Central Florida were in the NFL league office two weeks ago. Leading off in an array of leaders from various departments to meet the students, commissioner Roger Goodell spent considerable time answering questions. He started by saying, I met Richard Lapchick approximately 30 years ago when we were discussing diversity.Three decades later we are still discussing it by issuing the National Football League Racial and Gender Report Cards (RGRC), as well as reports on all the other professional leagues, colleges and universities, and the media. We issued the 2016 NFL RGRC on Wednesday. I was the primary author of the report with co-authors Craig Malveaux, Erin Davison and Caryn Grant.In previous administrations with commissioners Pete Rozelle and Paul Tagliabue, progress was slow. Grades for racial and gender hiring practices stagnated while much attention was paid to the critical positions of head coach and general manager -- positions rare for African-Americans to hold. In fact, it was not until 1989 that the NFL had an African-American head coach in the modern era with the Raiders hiring of Art Shell. It was another 13 years in 2002 before the Ravens made Ozzie Newsome the first African-American GM.I was approached by civil rights attorney Cyrus Mehri who was working with Johnnie Cochran to present a study on how bad the NFL hiring record was. I told Cyrus that publishing another study would not have as much meaning as threatening legal action against the NFL. He agreed and a news release to that effect was sent out before a meeting with the league.On Oct. 23, 2002, Cyrus and I went to the NFL office to meet with senior leaders Jeff Pash, the NFLs in-house counsel, and executive vice president Harold Henderson, the highest-ranking minority executive in the league and someone I considered a friend. Commissioner Tagliabue did not attend. At the time of the meeting, there were only two African-American head coaches: Tony Dungy in Indianapolis and his former assistant, Herman Edwards, with the New York Jets.It was, as we would have guessed, a chilly reception but seemed somewhat productive. The lawsuit was taken off the table to see what the NFL would do. The meeting received significant media coverage. The Rooney Rule, which required a diverse pool of candidates for head coaching jobs, was adopted a few months after the meeting. It was inspired by Steelers owner Dan Rooney and quickly led to significant changes. Since then, Mike Tomlin helped lead the Pittsburgh Steelers to Super Bowl XLV in 2011, their second Super Bowl appearance in his tenure. In doing so, he became the first African-American head coach to lead a team to two Super Bowls. In 2010, Jim Caldwell helped lead the Indianapolis Colts to the Super Bowl in his first season as head coach. The Indianapolis Colts and Chicago Bears faced off in the 2007 Super Bowl with two African-Americans, Dungy and Lovie Smith, leading their respective teams. It was the first time this had happened in the NFL. Sometime later the NFL informed me that they would no longer cooperate with providing data for the Racial and Gender Report Card. Thus in subsequent years we could not include the league office because we did not have the data and focused only on the record of the teams. With no league office data, we did not have enough information to issue a grade for gender. I had no communication with the NFL in spite of several attempts to reopen lines of communication. In the meantime, attorney Mehri worked with the NFL to make progress.I will always remember taking a call from commissioner Goodell shortly after he took office. He said he wanted to discuss with me, as he was doing with others, his view on forming a consistent and rigorous policy on player behavior. I was glad that the line seemed open and asked for a meeting in his office, which followed soon thereafter. We discussed diversity at length. He enthusiastically told me that the NFL just hired a Senior Vice President named Robert Gulliver who would head up human resources and focus on diversity. In addition, the NFL resumed cooperation with the Racial and Gender Report Card.When Gulliver took over, the grades were still poor. But gradually the grade for racial hiring practices increased to the point where they have now received seven consecutive grades in the A range for racial hiring practices.Historically, the grades for gender hiring lagged behind to the point where the NFL even got a D-plus in this category in 2004, which was the last grade for gender after the NFL stopped providing league data. The grade resumed in 2009 when cooperation resumed. Starting in 2009 until 2015 it received a series of Cs with grades between 69 and 74 points out of 100.After the Ray Rice story broke in 2014, the NFL came under great scrutiny for policies on gender violence perpetrated by players. That created a spotlight on the low number of senior women working in the league office and on teams. I believed that if there were senior women on board to advise the commissioner, then the story might have taken the NFL on a different and more proactive path on the issue of gender violence.In the Report Card issued the year before the Rice story, the NFL had 69 points for gender. Redoubling their efforts and hiring women at senior leadership positions in the NFL and, to some degree on teams, the NFL jumped a stunning six points to 75 in 2015. In the newly released 2016 Report, it increased to 76 points for another C-plus on gender hiring practices.In the league office, the number of women and people of color at or above the vice president level continued to increase. In 2014, there were 14 people of color at or above the VP level. In 2015, there were 21 and in 2016, that number jumped to 24 people of color. Similarly, the number of women at or above the VP level increased from 31 to 35 in 2016.Just as the commissioner pointed out the hiring of Gulliver several years ago, he told me and the students that Cathy Lanier was named the NFLs new Senior Vice President of Security. Lanier had served as the Chief of Police for the Metropolitan Police Department for the District of Columbia for 10 years.While C-plus is not great, it does represent progress. The A grade for race is an overall look at all positions across the league office and the teams where progress is strong and is modeled by the league office and the commissioner. There are areas of concern in the NFL with only six head coaches of color. That leaves it two below the NFLs all-time high of eight. Only two of the 14 most recent openings have been filled by a person of color. Twenty-one of the 22 first-time hires between 2012-2016 were white. According to an ESPN story, 94 percent of head coaches hired over the past 20 years (133 of 141) had been NFL coordinators, pro head coaches (including interim) or college head coaches previously. Unfortunately for aspiring coaches of color, those jobs are overwhelmingly held by whites. There is no Rooney Rule for coordinators or college coaches. Since 2007, I have been urging the adoption of an Eddie Robinson Rule named after the iconic Grambling coach and patterned after the Rooney Rule. We also need a Rooney Rule for coordinators.In the new NFL RGRC, the percentage of assistant coaches of color had a very sharp drop from 37.9 percent in 2015 to 31.9 percent in the 2016 season. The number of GMs of color dropped from seven in 2015 to five in 2016. Those figures demand serious attention and the teams need to follow the modeling of the NFL league office.As commissioner Goodell told the DeVos students, Richard and I have disagreed on things. From the discussion about race in the 1980s when few were talking about it, to the progress in his 10 years as commissioner, it is clear that his interest in diversity and inclusion has led to significant progress in this area. While he is often criticized for other things -- as he said we disagree on things -- on these issues commissioner Goodell deserves the credit that I am suggesting here.Richard E. Lapchick is the Chair of the DeVos Sport Business Management Graduate Program in the College of Business Administration at the University of Central Florida. Lapchick also directs UCFs Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport, is the author of 16 books and the annual Racial and Gender Report Card, and is the President of the National Consortium for Academics and Sport. He has been a regular commentator for ESPN.com on issues of diversity in sport. Follow him on Twitter @richardlapchick and on Facebook at facebook.com/richard.lapchick. Wholesale Salomon Australia . 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MLS Commissioner Don Garber and Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez also will attend the session, which was announced Monday. The league has discussed placing its next two expansion teams in Miami and Atlanta. Editors:To help you with your planning ahead of the college football season, we will have the following stories, photos and more in coming weeks, anchored by a special project surrounding the Top 25 poll, team and Power Five conference previews as well as two weekends of feature stories. This digest is subject to change and will be updated throughout the month of August. For questions, please call 212-621-1630 or email Ed Montes (emontes(at)ap.org) and Dave Zelio (dzelio(at)ap.org). All times Eastern.DIGITAL NEWS EXPERIENCEAll the stories in this advisory as well as exclusive blog content, a weekly podcast and videos will be available through the College Football Digital News Experience, which is a fully curated digital presentation focused entirely on APs college football coverage and anchored around the marquee AP Top 25 poll. The site, which is responsive to all devices, is available for free and even pays a revenue share to participating sites. The DNE allows for local customization of the site logo, navigation bar, highlighted teams and other features, including embeddable widgets around the poll and Latest News. Some examples: http://collegefootball.ap.org/lufkindailynews and http://collegefootball.ap.org/wvgazette. Contact your local sales representative or Barry Bedlan at bbedlan(at)ap.org to take advantage of this free digital offering.TOP 25 POLLThe 2016 preseason AP Top 25 will be released on Sunday, Aug. 21, at 2 p.m. The weekly poll will begin on Tuesday, Sept. 6, and will then be sent every Sunday at 2 p.m. through the regular season. The final poll will be sent roughly an hour after the national championship game the evening of Monday, Jan. 9, in Tampa, Florida.AP SPORTS EXTRA -- PRESEASON POLL PAGEA paginated look at the preseason AP Top 25 poll will be available shortly after the poll is released on Aug. 21. The AP Sports Extra pages are available in full broadsheet, half broadsheet and tabloid size (perfect for your preseason football tab). They will include space for local advertising or content. The pages will focus on the 25 teams selected by AP poll voters with emphasis on those at the very top. The pages are available at no charge to all AP Sports subscribers. Contact your local sales representative or Barry Bedlan at bbedlan(at)ap.org for more information.ONLY ON APFor the first time, AP has tabulated every single one of its weekly college football polls since the first was released 80 years ago. That research has been used to determine an all-time rankings list and other stories, including an eight-part series looking at the top teams of each decade. A separate advisory on this package is also moving on AP wires.FBC--T25-AP POLL AT 80To look back, all the way back, to the first Top 25 college football poll is to take a walk through history. The great teams at Notre Dame and Army, at Oklahoma and Alabama, the coaching greats like Bud Wilkinson and Bobby Bowden, Joe Paterno, Lou Holtz and Nick Saban. For the first time, The Associated Press has sorted through all those polls -- all 1,103 of them -- to determine the top 100 programs of all time after eight decades of arguing whos the best. By College Football Writer Ralph D. Russo. UPCOMING: 800 words, photos on Aug. 2 at 2 p.m.With:FBC--T25-ALL-TIME AP POLL -THE TOP 100-LISTThe Top 100 college football teams of all time as determined by The Associated Press Top 25. By College Football Writer Ralph D. Russo. UPCOMING: 2,500 words. Capsules on the best 25 teams, then a list of the remaining 75 on Aug. 2 at 2 p.m. Will be featured on special page of the College Football DNE.FBC--T25-ALL-TIME AP POLL -THE NO. 1s-LISTAll 44 teams ranked No. 1 at least once over the 80 years, with capsules that include the overall top team for each school. By College Football Writer Ralph D. Russo. UPCOMING: 2,000 words, photos on Aug. 4.Also:FBC--T25-ALL-TIME AP POLL-1930s-40sThe Associated Press college football poll was created to try to answer the simplest yet most divisive question in sports: Whos better? The poll helped give a regional sport more of a national scope. The poll helped define the Army-Notre Dame rivalry in the 1940s and was part of their games becoming major events. By John Kekis. UPCOMING: 700 words, photos on Aug. 14.FBC--T25-ALL-TIME AP POLL-1950sBy the 1950s, college footballs power has drifted away from the elite Eastern schools and into the Midwest. Bud Wilkinsons Oklahoma dynasty dominated the polls as it set a record winning streak that still stands. By College Football Writer Eric Olson. UPCOMING: 700 words, photos on Aug. 15.FBC--T25-ALL-TIME AP POLL-1960sThe focus on the national championship race and the polls reached new heights in the 1960s, with a peak in 1966 when the matchup of No. 1 Notre Dame and No. 2 Michigan State late in the season ended in a famous 10-10 tie. By College Football Writer Ralph D. Russo. UPCOMING: 700 words, photos on Aug. 16.FBC--T25-ALL-TIME AP POLL-1970sCoaching icons dominated the AP poll during the 1970s with Bear Bryant at Alabama, Joe Paterno at Penn State, Woody Hayes at Ohio State, Bo Schembechler at Michigan, Barry Switzer at Oklahoma and Tom Osborne at Nebraska. Their matchups would often help determine No. 1. By College Football Writer Ralph D. Russo. UPCOMING: 700 words, photos on Aug. 17.FBC--T25-ALL-TIME AP POLL-1980sA new dynasty emerges at Miami, where the brash Hurricanes upend the established Midwestern powers, with pro-style offenses and speedy defenses that smother option football. It takes a little while for AP poll voters to catch up to the power shift, but when they do, Miami becomes a fixture. By Tim Reynolds. UPCOMING: 700 words, photos on Aug. 22.FBC--T25-ALL-TIME AP POLL-1990sControversial championships, sometimes with the AP poll breaking one way and thhe coaches poll going another, prompt the bowls and conferences to start working toward a more definitive way to determine the national title.dddddddddddd Eventually, it becomes the BCS. By College Football Writer Ralph D. Russo. UPCOMING: 700 words, photos on Aug. 23.FBC--T25-ALL-TIME AP POLL-2000sThe first half of the decade is dominated by USCs unprecedented run at No. 1, but then the SEC takes over. The overlap produces the last split national champion with the Trojans taking the AP title and LSU winning the BCS. The constant controversy leads to the AP asking out of the BCS process. By David Brandt. UPCOMING: 700 words, photos on Aug. 24.FBC--T25-ALL-TIME AP POLL-2010sA new power emerges in Oregon, a rarity for college football. But an old one in Alabama dominates as Nick Saban reigns. AP voters are asked to judge a changing brand of football that is played fast and furious and often without a lot of defense. By John Zenor UPCOMING: 700 words, photos on Aug. 25.CONFERENCE AND TEAM PREVIEWSEach of the following will move in a `things to watch chunky text format of approximately 700 words, with photos.Team previews:All previews for Power Five conference schools, BYU, Notre Dame and the service academies will move on Aug. 12.Conference previews:Aug 8: SEC, Pac-12Aug. 9: Big Ten, Atlantic CoastAug 11: Big 12, Mountain WestAug. 12: American Athletic, Sun Belt, Conference USA, Mid-AmericanSHAREABLE CONTENTEvery Wednesday until the regular season, AP will offer a FBC--PICK SIX story from July 13 until Aug. 31.- FBC--Pick Six-SEC-Pivotal Players. SENT: 700 words, photos on July 13.- FBC--Pick Six-Pac-12-Pivotal-Players. SENT: 700 words, photos on July 20.- FBC--Pick Six-Big 12-Pivotal Players. SENT: 700 words, photos on July 27.PLAYOFF PULSE PODCASTPosted Wednesday evenings on top topics of the day. All podcasts can be accessed via the College Football DNE blog at http://collegefootball.ap.org/ap-now-college-football and through your locally branded version of the DNE.PREVIEW PACKAGE FOR AUG. 6-7 WEEKENDFBC--SEC SCHEDULINGKNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- The SEC gets plenty of criticism each year for essentially taking a week off in November to play some scuffling teams. It makes up for it with a high-powered opening lineup that is particularly noteworthy this year, including Alabama-USC, Ole Miss-Florida State, Auburn-Clemson, Texas A&M-UCLA and LSU-Wisconsin. Does frontloading the nonconference schedule help the SEC impress the playoff committee and boost its national perception? By Steve Megargee. UPCOMING: 750 words, photos by noon Aug. 5.FBC--HARBAUGHS NEXT ACTANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Hes slept at recruits houses, had his wife mock his $8 khakis and taken his team on the road for camp, rankling the SEC and forcing the NCAA to take a stand. There may be no louder voice in college football. But whats happening behind the scenes makes Harbaugh much more than a meme. By Larry Lage. UPCOMING: 750 words, photos by noon Aug. 5.FBC--HEISMAN HYPELeonard Fournette. Christian McCaffrey. Deshaun Watson. Baker Mayfield. Four of the top six vote-getters from last years Heisman race are back, giving this falls competition for college footballs top honor plenty of intrigue. By David Brandt. UPCOMING: 800 words by noon Aug. 6.FBC--HELTONS HOLLYWOODLOS ANGELES -- Clay Helton, USC coach, is not Hollywood. The longtime assistant was a surprising choice to go from interim coach to simply coach of a program that is one of college footballs crown jewels but has been unable to recapture its greatness under former Pete Carroll assistants, Lane Kiffin and Steve Sarkisian. The hope is that Helton can provide stability if not flash, but he also starts the season with a two-game losing streak and an opener against defending national champion Alabama. By Greg Beacham. UPCOMING: 750 words, photos by noon Aug. 7.PREVIEW PACKAGE FOR AUG. 13-14 WEEKENDFBC--GOING INDEPENDENTUMass is going it alone this season, its first as a football independent since essentially being booted out of the Mid-American Conference. New Mexico State and Idaho have faced similar decisions recently, too -- to go independent and stay in the Bowl Subdivision or drop to the FCS. New Mexico State is staying. Idaho will be going. When you arent Notre Dame, there are a lot of pros and cons to independence. By College Football Writer Ralph D. Russo. UPCOMING: 780 words, photos by 5 a.m. Aug. 13.FBC--YEAR OF THE RUNNING BACKIts another year of the running back in college football. LSUs Leonard Fournette, Stanfords Christian McCaffrey, Oregons Royce Freeman and Florida States Dalvin Cook all are back after rushing for over 1,800 yards last season. The talent at running back is so loaded that guys such as Tennessees Jalen Hurd and North Carolinas Elijah Hood -- who would be boldface names in any other year -- are relatively under the radar. By Steve Megargee. UPCOMING: 700 words, photos by noon Aug. 13.FBC--CHASING BEARTUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- Nick Saban is one national title away from matching Bear Bryants record and, with his 65th birthday coming up on Halloween, shows no signs of slowing down. By John Zenor. UPCOMING: 750 words, photos. By noon Aug. 14.FBC--RUGBY-STYLE TACKLINGLINCOLN, Neb. -- Rugby-style tackling, which positions the defenders head to the side of the ball-carrier rather than straight-on, is growing in popularity in a sport beleaguered by concussion concerns. The Seattle Seahawks were the first team to teach the technique, with Ohio State following last season. Nebraska, among others, is the latest program coaching rugby-style technique. By College Football Writer Eric Olson. UPCOMING: 750 words, photos by noon Aug. 14.AP Sports ' ' '