'They swept it under the rug': How the NFL missed a major opportunity with Eugene Chung

Eugene Chung played in the NFL for eight years. He was an assistant offensive line coach for Kansas City and Philadelphia, and with the Eagles from 2016-2019, his responsibilities included assistant offensive line coach, tight ends coach, and run game coordinator, winning a Super Bowl with the team. He could have easily been a head coach. In fact, he should have been. There's a possible reason why he wasn't.

Chung told the Boston Globe in 2021 that while interviewing for a coaching job he was informed by an NFL team interviewer that he was "not the right minority." Chung, who is Korean American, didn't identify the team.

His comment to the Globe initiated a mini-firestorm. The NFL said it investigated but couldn't confirm Chung's allegation. Chung told USA TODAY Sports this week that he believes the NFL never did a serious investigation.

"What I thought would happen, ended up happening," he said. "They swept it under the rug. I was hoping for some clarity but nothing."

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"I'm disappointed with how they addressed all of it, or the lack thereof," he said. "When I came into the league, I thought people in the league office got your back both as a player and coach, but that wasn't the case with me."

The league said in a statement at the time that, "After multiple discussions, including with Mr. Chung and his representative, we were unable to confirm the precise statement that was made, or by whom and under what circumstances any such statement was made."

The incident became another symbol of how the NFL often, and historically, treats its coaches of color as second-class citizens. It also speaks volumes about the two entities involved in Chung and the NFL. Chung remains (and I rarely say this about any player I've covered) one of the classiest people I've ever known. That's not an exaggeration. As a coach, he obviously wanted to win, but he also cared about developing the players he coached as people. He didn't see them solely as commodities.

When it comes to the NFL itself, things get more complicated, and in some ways, troubling.

This month we celebrate the achievements of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and it's not difficult to see how the NFL, with a self-inflicted wound, wrecked a huge opportunity to diversify its head coaching ranks with Chung.

The NFL missed, and continues to, a chance to hire a highly respected coach and former player who checked all the boxes. While the focus of head coaching inequality in the NFL has mostly been on Black coaches (which is understandable in a majority-Black league), Chung represents another face of that inequality.

According to the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport, there were two Asian players in the league in 2022, comprising 0.1 percent of the NFL. There were 27 players of Hawaiian or Pacific Islander descent making up 1.6 percent. There are no Asian head coaches and just three assistant coaches, the institute says. There are seven Hawaiian or Pacific Islander assistant coaches and no head coaches.

In hiring Chung as a head coach, someone who was highly qualified to be one, the league could have had an inspirational figure in the same way Ron Rivera has been for Latinos and Art Shell was for Black coaches.

Chung has long been a genuine hero, fighting racism at every point of his football career, including the NFL. "I had coaches making comments thinking they were funny," Chung told Andscape in 2021. "I would be like, ‘Is that funny? Help me understand that.'"

In 1992, after being taken 13th overall by the Patriots, Chung was the first Asian American taken in the first round of the NFL draft. The Boston Globe notes he was just the third Asian and second Korean American to play in the NFL. He had a solid playing career and exceled as a coach, but he's moved to a different chapter, and says he's as happy as he's ever been professionally.

Chung is the athletic director at the Community School of Naples in Florida and while he stays in contact with friends in the league, and trains college players for the NFL's scouting combine, he's put much of his NFL past behind him.

"The time I get to spend with my family is so important," he said, "but also the time I get to spend with the kids at school. I'm doing with them what I tried to do with players I coached in the NFL. I try to develop the whole person."

Those kids couldn't have a better teacher and the NFL missed a great opportunity.