Former Eagles Assistant Eugene Chung Highlights Hypocrisy in NFL Hiring Practices

PHILADELPHIA - Former Eagles assistant offensive line coach Eugene Chung was startled when he was told he was "not a minority" while interviewing for an NFL job this offseason.

"It was said to me, 'Well, you're really not a minority,'" Chung, who is of Korean descent, said during a Boston Globe-sponsored webinar this past Thursday. "I was like, 'Wait a minute. The last time I checked, when I looked in the mirror and brushed my teeth, I was a minority.'"

Chung, now 51, was once a first-round pick out of Virginia Tech in 1992 as a player and ended up toiling for five NFL seasons, appearing in 55 career games for the team that drafted him, the New England Patriots, as well as Jacksonville and Indianapolis.

He had two stints in Philadelphia as the assistant offensive coach, starting in 2010 under Andy Reid.

When Reid was fired before the 2013 season and landed in Kansas City, Chung followed him there as the assistant OL coach from 2013-15 only to return to the Eagles when Doug Pederson got the top job in Philadelphia before the 2016 season.

Chung remained the assistant offensive line coach while also helping at times with the tight ends and running game through 2019 when his contract expired. Roy Istvan took over the assistant duties to Jeff Stoutland on the O-Line at that point.

Since then Chung has been out of the league as an assistant.

Chung did not identify the team that claimed: “he wasn’t a minority” but admitted he was stunned by the flippancy and pressed the situation.

"I asked about it, and as soon as [I did] the backtracking started,” Chung claimed. “I was like, 'Oh no, no, no, no, no, you said it. Now that it's out there, let's talk about it. It was absolutely mind-blowing to me that, in 2021, something like that is actually a narrative."

Despite being off-put Chung refused to blame the NFL as a whole for the incident or the treatment as a whole, alluding to mentors like Reid, Pederson, and Stoutland who only helped him along the way in his journey from player to coach.

"I'm not sitting here bashing the league at all, because there are great mentors and there are great coaches that embrace the difference," Chung said. "It's just when the Asians don't fit the narrative, that's where my stomach churns a little bit."

The real takeaway is despite being a minority Chung feels most in the NFL don’t feel that he is.

"For me, in this profession, I don't think I'm looked at as a minority," said Chung. "Whether that's good or bad, I don't know."

John McMullen contributes Eagles coverage for SI.com's EagleMaven and is the NFL Insider for JAKIB Media. You can listen to John, alongside legendary sports-talk host Jody McDonald every morning from 8-10 on ‘Birds 365,” streaming live on both PhillyVoice.com and YouTube. John is also the host of his own show "Extending the Play" on AM1490 in South Jersey. You can reach him at jmcmullen44@gmail.com or on Twitter @JFMcMullen

Ed Kracz is the publisher of SI.com’s Eagle Maven and co-host of the Eagles Unfiltered Podcast. Check out the latest Eagles news at www.SI.com/NFL/Eagles and please follow him on Twitter: @kracze.