The Philadelphia Eagles announced several hires yesterday on Twitter, including the addition of one Ameena Soliman as a scout.
Nothing to see here, just a normal post detailing a new hire, and — OH. Oh, goodness, no…
Now, I’m all for making fun of a team’s hiring decisions, but never without merit. If it’s a bad hire, it’s a bad hire — but you gotta have a better reason for disliking a hiring decision rather than just, “Oh, they can’t possibly be good at their job because they don’t look how I would expect them to.” Wow, you really got them with that one. What an incredible evaluation. She can’t possibly understand football because she’s *gasp* a woman and *BIGGER GASP,* a Muslim!
Yeah, Soliman is both of those and has more than earned her new position with the Eagles. According to her LinkedIn profile, Soliman hasn’t just been working in football for several years, she’s been working specifically in personnel and/or recruiting roles since she was in college. Whether she was creating recruitment boards and ensuring player eligibility at Temple University, or tracking player transactions and preparing salary reports for the National Football League, she’s always been tasked with looking closely at individual players — a skill that will obviously serve her well as a professional scout.
And if you don’t believe those roles properly set her up to be a scout, she also served as a scouting assistant and player personnel coordinator for the Philadelphia Eagles since May of 2019. Those are the same positions that people like San Francisco 49ers college scout Ryan Kessenich held before he got his first job as an area scout for the Kansas City Chiefs. And Soliman’s player personnel coordinator position with the Eagles prior to becoming a pro scout, was the same exact position that Philadelphia’s Director of Scouting Operations, Casey Weidl, had before handing the role over to Soliman.
It’s an unfortunate irony displayed by these Philly fans (by the way, I’m not saying all Philly fans, just these turd blossoms). I’m sure these same commenters were crying, “You should hire based on merit, not race!” when the NFL announced changes to the Rooney Rule a year ago. And unfortunately, I agree with them — to an extent. Experience and merit should almost always come before meeting token standards, and the Soliman hiring seems to be entirely based on merit.
Nobody deserves to have their ability to conduct business judged based on their appearance. If you’re an Eagles fan, and have a problem with this hiring, you should be excited. Maybe with the addition of Soliman to the team, the Eagles won’t draft another J.J. Arcega-Whiteside in the second round or Jalen Reagor in the first round of the draft. Maybe then those Twitter warriors will look past their team’s scout’s appearance and value them for what they can add to the Eagles organization.
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