• Home
  • Latest
  • Fortune 500
  • Finance
  • Tech
  • Leadership
  • Lifestyle
  • Rankings
  • Multimedia

Trendingnow

1

Why did a $154 billion CEO just endorse stripping most Americans of voting rights—and taking us back to the 19th century?

2

eBay will pay nearly $50 million after employees reportedly sent a Massachusetts couple a bloody pig mask, cockroaches and death threats

3

Current price of oil as of July 28, 2026

1

Why did a $154 billion CEO just endorse stripping most Americans of voting rights—and taking us back to the 19th century?

2

eBay will pay nearly $50 million after employees reportedly sent a Massachusetts couple a bloody pig mask, cockroaches and death threats

3

Current price of oil as of July 28, 2026
MPWglass cliff

Condoleezza Rice As Cleveland Browns’ Head Coach Would Give the NFL Its Own ‘Glass Cliff’ Moment

Claire Zillman
By
Claire Zillman
Claire Zillman
Editor, Leadership
Down Arrow Button Icon
Claire Zillman
By
Claire Zillman
Claire Zillman
Editor, Leadership
Down Arrow Button Icon
November 18, 2018, 3:35 PM ET
Add Fortune on Google for similar content.

The buzziest news of this weekend is no doubt the ESPN report that the Cleveland Browns are considering former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to be the NFL team’s next head coach.

The Browns have denied the report, but if true, she’d be the first woman to interview for an NFL head coach job.

Rice, who served in the George W. Bush administration, is known to be a passionate sports fan and is a lifelong Browns supporter, having inherited an allegiance to the notoriously woeful team from her father. She even has some sports management experience. She recently chaired the Commission on College Basketball that sought to root out corruption in the sport. What’s more, she was one of the first two women admitted to the Augusta National Golf Club, and sat on the College Football Playoff selection committee from 2013 to 2016.

Rice’s name being floated for the Browns’ job also fits into a larger trend of women assuming prominent roles in professional sports franchises long dominated by men. In the NBA, the San Antonio Spurs promoted Becky Hammon to a top assistant coach role in June. Just last week, the Denver Nuggets introduced WNBA legend Sue Bird as a new basketball operations associate and the league promoted two women, Ashley Moyer-Gleich and Natalie Sago, to be full-time referees, making them the fourth and fifth women ever with that designation. The English Premier League, meanwhile, just named Susanna Dinnage as its first female CEO. And in the NFL, the Oakland Raiders hired Kelsey Martinez to their strength staff, the Buffalo Bills added Kathryn Smith as a quality control assistant, and the San Francisco 49ers tapped Katie Sowers as an offensive assistant.

Smith and Sowers are names that pop up in a USA Today article taking issue with Cleveland’s reported eyeing of Rice. The former secretary of state is certainly brilliant, but she has zero NFL coaching experience. The Browns would be better off, writer Chris Korman argues, considering someone who has logged real time on the sideline and in the coaches’ booth, such as Smith, Sowers, or Jen Welter, who joined the Arizona Cardinals as an assistant linebackers coach for training camp in 2015.

“It’s admirable that Browns general manager John Dorsey is openly saying he’d hire a woman as head coach,” Korman writes, “but naming [Rice] cheapens the idea. This would be a gimmick hire.”

Others, like Rolling Stone‘s Jamil Smith, speculated that the Browns could use Rice as a diverse candidate to satisfy the Rooney Rule and avoid interviewing other black candidates for the top position.

The idea of a female head coach in the NFL, whether it’s Rice or someone else, is rather refreshing considering the different perspective she’d bring to the game. The league could use the injection of fresh blood given the high-profile slip-ups it’s suffered of late—the indifference it showed to players accused of domestic violence, its bungling of players’ national anthem protests, the flurry of lawsuits by professional cheerleaders accusing the league of unlawfully low pay and mistreatment, to name a few.

At the same time, it’s worth looking at the point in Browns’ history that’s given rise to the Rice rumor. The Cleveland Browns have been, to put it bluntly, downright atrocious in recent years, winning a total of seven games in the last four seasons, including going winless last year.

Last week, The Broadsheet wrote that, amid Brexit, Prime Minister Theresa May was facing “one of the starkest examples ever of the proverbial glass cliff”—the phenomenon in which women or people of color are promoted to top roles when firms are struggling and are often pinned with blame if things continue to go badly. (Think Marissa Mayer at Yahoo, Mary Barra who turned around GM, and, more recently, Jill Soltau at J.C. Penney.) In that sense, Condi Rice as Browns’ head coach would, at the very least, give Theresa May some decent company out on her glass precipice.

A version of this story will appear in Fortune’s Broadsheet newsletter about women in business. Subscribe here.

About the Author
Claire Zillman
By Claire ZillmanEditor, Leadership
LinkedIn iconTwitter icon

Claire Zillman is a senior editor at Fortune, overseeing leadership stories. 

See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon
Add Fortune on Google for similar content.

Latest in MPW

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025

Most Popular

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Fortune Secondary Logo
Rankings
  • 100 Best Companies
  • Fortune 500
  • Global 500
  • Fortune 500 Europe
  • Most Powerful Women
  • World's Most Admired Companies
  • See All Rankings
  • Lists Calendar
Sections
  • Finance
  • Fortune Crypto
  • Features
  • Leadership
  • Health
  • Commentary
  • Success
  • Retail
  • Mpw
  • Tech
  • Lifestyle
  • CEO Initiative
  • Asia
  • Politics
  • Conferences
  • Europe
  • Newsletters
  • Personal Finance
  • Environment
  • Magazine
  • Education
Customer Support
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Customer Service Portal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Single Issues For Purchase
  • International Print
Commercial Services
  • Advertising
  • Fortune Brand Studio
  • Fortune Analytics
  • Fortune Conferences
  • Business Development
  • Group Subscriptions
About Us
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • LinkedIn icon
  • Instagram icon
  • TikTok icon
  • YouTube icon

Latest in MPW

imf
EconomyArgentina
IMF praises ‘sacrifice of the Argentine people’ as Milei’s austerity measures bring end of debt deals into view
By Débora Rey and The Associated PressJuly 28, 2026
18 hours ago
c
HealthClinton Foundation
The Clinton Foundation thinks red states can adopt ‘practical, evidence-based solutions’ from blue states
By Glenn Gamboa and The Associated PressJuly 28, 2026
19 hours ago
Photo of McCall McPherson
SuccessMost Powerful Women
This CEO was bedridden 16 hours a day. She turned her own misdiagnosis into a self-funded, multimillion-dollar thyroid clinic
By Sydney LakeJuly 28, 2026
23 hours ago
katty
CommentaryLeadership
Katty Kay: confidence is the skill that turns thoughts into action—and companies need to start teaching it
By Katty KayJuly 26, 2026
3 days ago
A supporter holds a sign for Democratic candidate for Texas governor Gina Hinojosa while she speaks during a rally.
PoliticsData centers
‘There are no rules. It is the wild west of data centers’: Texas Democratic candidates pounce on AI data center projects in Republican strongholds
By The Associated Press and Marc LevyJuly 24, 2026
4 days ago
Inside Flavor Flav’s unlikely effort to help female Olympians build their brands and careers
NewslettersMPW Daily
Inside Flavor Flav’s unlikely effort to help female Olympians build their brands and careers
By Ellie AustinJuly 22, 2026
6 days ago

Most Popular

Why did a $154 billion CEO just endorse stripping most Americans of voting rights—and taking us back to the 19th century?
C-Suite
Why did a $154 billion CEO just endorse stripping most Americans of voting rights—and taking us back to the 19th century?
By Nick LichtenbergJuly 27, 2026
2 days ago
eBay will pay nearly $50 million after employees reportedly sent a Massachusetts couple a bloody pig mask, cockroaches and death threats
Law
eBay will pay nearly $50 million after employees reportedly sent a Massachusetts couple a bloody pig mask, cockroaches and death threats
By The Associated Press and Leah WillinghamJuly 28, 2026
9 hours ago
Current price of oil as of July 28, 2026
Personal Finance
Current price of oil as of July 28, 2026
By Joseph HostetlerJuly 28, 2026
19 hours ago
The millennial generation is split in 2: an older crowd with boomer-style comfort, a younger set going 'back to the early 1900s'
Real Estate
The millennial generation is split in 2: an older crowd with boomer-style comfort, a younger set going 'back to the early 1900s'
By Nick LichtenbergJuly 25, 2026
4 days ago
The brutal math behind Gen Z's lonely weekends: $15 drinks are driving a generational 'spending hangover'
Economy
The brutal math behind Gen Z's lonely weekends: $15 drinks are driving a generational 'spending hangover'
By Nick LichtenbergJuly 28, 2026
16 hours ago
No. 1 on the Fortune Global 500: Amazon's Jeff Bezos on how his garage startup became the largest company in the world by revenue
Magazine
No. 1 on the Fortune Global 500: Amazon's Jeff Bezos on how his garage startup became the largest company in the world by revenue
By Kristin StollerJuly 28, 2026
22 hours ago

© 2026 Fortune Media IP Limited. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy | CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information
FORTUNE is a trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, registered in the U.S. and other countries. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.