Racism has placed a black eye on the sporting world once again and this time it hurts.

Last week, Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Tony Dungy alleged that some of the NFL teams in this league prejudice toward black coaches.

This came just days after Baltimore Ravens defensive coordinator Marvin Lewis was passed over for the Buffalo Bills head coaching position.

Lewis, who was the backbone for what might be the top defense in NFL history, appeared to be a lock for the job.

Although he had yet to be hired by Buffalo Bills general manager Tom Donahoe, several people in the Baltimore organization were wishing Lewis well and saying thanks for the work he had done in Baltimore.

Donahoe, who waited until after the Super Bowl to interview Lewis, was the only the team to do so. However, after meeting with Lewis and some of the other coaching candidates, most notably Tennessee Titans defensive coordinator Gregg Williams and New York Giants defensive coordinator John Fox, he chose Williams instead of Lewis.

Now, for the record, the NFL does not allow the coaches of teams involved with their current teams to interview with other teams until the season is over.

Lewis lost the opportunity to talk to some of the other teams that had openings by being on a winning team.

In fact, outside of the Buffalo, not one of the nine teams who fired a coach in 2000 waited until the season was over to talk to Lewis. They all had their head coaching positions filled before the Super Bowl ended.

Which brings me to my point. Every time a predominate black assistant has the opportunity to get a head coaching position and is turned down, someone screams racism.

"You would have thought more than one team out of nine would say that here's a guy that should be at least talked to," Dungy told Sports Illustrated last week. "And you can only beg the question in your mind: If he were white, would it have been one out of nine. I would suggest more than one team would have talked to him with the credentials he has and what he's done the past two years."

The term racism never leaves the sports spectrum and this is my biggest problem.

The only time people are classified by the color of their skin is when they do not get a job.

These same people that throw around this word, tend to forget who the highest paid athletes are in their profession. The majority of top paid athletes in their professional sports primarily come from African-American, or Hispanic descent.

I don't see the Chipper Jones scream that the Atlanta Braves were racists when Alex Rodriguez got $252 million a couple of months ago and he only got $93 million.

My point is this, people use racism as the cop out for a lot of things. On this case, I believe it was uncalled for.

The NFL is always trying to bring more coaches of color to the head coaching ranks.

Yes its true there is more white coaches running more programs than there are black coaches. And that is a problem.

But in this case, I believe racism was not involved with the decision of any of the teams who selected their head coach this off-season. I think a lot of programs wanted to name a head coach as shortly after the season and may have missed out on the best man for the job in Lewis.

Unless it is bluntly obvious, don't blame it on racism.