The coach would not use the reasoning that Mary is promulgating here because several generations of thought are at work here, and they are different. 
Mike’s life, mine and many boomers, revolves around the GI generation. The saying, pulling up by the bootstrap, because that’s what I did, simply can’t be attributed to him, me and a fair number of Americans, simply because we were raised by, taught, and preached to by the WW2 generation. 
With respect to the flag and Anthem, our generation, out of respect for the men and women who saved America and the planet, can not approve of desecration of symbols that they fought and many died for.
The Coach is similar to Lombardy in that it was about building winning teams and the Super Bowl; color was never a factor.
All I’m saying is a young clueless journalist picked the wrong guy, and doesn’t know who he is and what he has accomplished in life.
We can a will change the culture of racist police departments one at a time though.