Buccaneers assistant head coach Harold Goodwin threw his assist behind Eugene Chung.
Final month, Chung, a former participant and assistant coach of Korean descent, claimed he was as soon as instructed he was “not the fitting minority” whereas interviewing for an NFL teaching job.
“Being a minority on this league, there’s ups and downs, and we all know the method has been fairly onerous for us at occasions,” Goodwin, a black man, mentioned on Thursday.
Chung, as an assistant offensive line and tight ends coach with the Eagles in 2019, didn’t title the workforce or interviewer.
Goodwin expressed optimism that Chung’s allegations can be resolved by an on-going NFL investigation.
“We’ve obtained to maintain combating the nice battle,” Goodwin mentioned. “Hopefully the NFL will examine and resolve it and simply transfer on and make the entire state of affairs higher so we are able to put this subject to mattress for one time within the close to future,” he mentioned.
Chung mentioned he was not attempting to “bash” the league with the declare, which got here throughout a webinar.
“It’s simply when the Asians don’t match the narrative, that’s the place my abdomen churns somewhat bit,” he mentioned.
Goodwin has beforehand spoken out about considerations involving the NFL’s minority hiring. In 2019, he alluded that groups weren’t severe in regards to the Rooney Rule, which requires each NFL workforce to interview not less than one minority candidate for head-coaching and normal supervisor positions. The NFL has since expanded the Rooney Rule to advertise minority hiring to incorporate front-office and coordinator positions.
By way of the years, Goodwin, whose NFL teaching resume stretches again to 2004, has interviewed for head teaching jobs with the Buccaneers, Jaguars, Rams and Payments.
“It’s simply as much as us as coaches to maintain placing our faces on the market, to maintain placing our work on tape and to only preserve striving to get to the desk, to have the conversations to probably be a head coach or a GM or no matter it might be,” Goodwin mentioned. “That’s how we obtained to dwell. We will’t rise up, so far as being too excessive or being too low, so far as the state of affairs. Simply preserve stepping ahead each day and simply attempting to get higher, to place ourselves in positions to have that entry on the higher stage of the membership.”