I am normally one of the first people to admit that making an issue about race when it doesn't need to be is annoying.
You know what I'm talking about - people who point out the fact that "He was black" or "She's an Asian" when it's not necessary to the conversation.
However, I feel the media buzz surrounding the first two black head coaches to reach a Super Bowl is a completely different story.
Two black coaches reaching the highest valley a coach can in the NFL at the same time doesn't happen everyday.
As a matter of fact, it has never happened to even just one.
Super Bowl XLI will pit Tony Dungy and his Indianapolis Colts against Lovie Smith and his Chicago Bears. And we are guaranteed to have the first black head coach to ever win an NFL Championship.
Leading up to the big game in two weeks, we are going to hear all kinds of other storylines that have nothing to do with race.
Stories like "Can Peyton Manning finally get a ring?" and "Will Rex Grossman choke once again and have to be bailed out by the Bears' defense.'
Dungy and Smith's accomplishment will be the most compelling for obvious reasons.
For starters, with the recent hiring of new Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin, there are a total of six black head coaches in the NFL.
That's six out of the 32 total teams with black head coaches. But at least 60 percent of the players on those teams are black.
Being a black man myself, it would be ignorant of me to dismiss the fact black coaches have had a raw deal getting head coaching jobs in the NFL over the past few decades.
Even though a majority of the players in the league were black, few got head coaching opportunities.
Not to take anything away from any of the accomplished white head coaches, but several black candidates were passed over time and time again for head coaching positions and never given the chance to prove themselves as leaders.
Things were so bad at one point that the NFL felt a need to make it mandatory that teams interview at least one minority candidate for head coaching vacancies.
I also recognize that currently, team owners are not letting skin color factor into whether or not they feel a guy can get their teams to win.
That's what makes this year's Super Bowl so great.
I see it as a culmination of the years of hard work by so many different people to get respect to black coaches in the NFL, regardless of their own race.
Dungy has been particularly influential.
Dating back to his days as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' coach, Dungy has never shied away from the topic.
Dungy was one of the most vocal critics of what he felt were unfair practices, and made it a point to give black coaches a chance on his staff.
What's really ironic is that Smith got his start as an NFL coach under Dungy in Tampa Bay.
Now, years later, they are both the names we think of when we think of today's great coaches.
Smith put it best on Martin Luther King Day last week when he expressed his feelings about two black coaches reaching the conference finals.
He said he hoped eventually the day would come where two black coaches in the Super Bowl would go unnoticed, but today isn't that here.
Reach the reporter at: devin.hicks@asu.edu.
