Fee, Hadlock, and Pierce (2006) studied the job movements of professional football coaches both within and across franchises. They focused on the promotions that offensive and defensive coordinators can receive to move up and become head coaches. They find that individual performance of coaches is significantly positively related to the chances that a lower coach will be promoted up one level. It is likely that if a higher level job position opens up, the franchise will promote a lower-level coach (Fee, Hadlock, and Pierce 2006). They gathered their data and sample selection from 1970 to 2001 because this is when different professional football leagues were merged. Fee, Hadlock, and Pierce (2006) found that there is an interesting relationship between how jobs are assigned, both internally and externally. Lastly, discrimination of lower coaching levels or titles may result in the lack of representation at the head coach position because they do not have the confidence or opportunity to move up in the ranks (Solow and Walker 2011).
Kelly, Pastore, Hodge, and Seifried (2015) focused their work on Black collegiate coaches and their journeys and career in trying to move up the coaching ranks. Although there are many more collegiate schools (129) than NFL teams (32) the lack of diversity is still present and very relevant. They used descriptive-qualitative research methods when conducting their studies. The authors found that in the 2009-2010 season there was a decline in the percentages of black head coaches in college football. In the 2007-2008 season Black males accounted for 7.2% of head coaches and dropped to 6.6 the following year (Kelly, Pastore, Hodge, and Seifried 2015).
Bozeman and Fay (2013) had similar work by focusing on career trajectories of minorities in college football. They use a pipeline method to determine if the large number of minority players would lead to higher numbers of minority coaches. The authors focused on what type of people are more likely to move up in the coaching ranks. For example, quarterbacks lead the offense, and linebackers lead the defense. These are high considered IQ positions and are more likely to be hired as offensive/defensive coordinators (Bozeman and Fay 2013). Their results show that coordinator positions are the people with the highest chances of landing a head coaching gig.