Bengals Hosting Coaches Through Bill Walsh's Minority Coaching Fellowship Program

Through the NFL's Bill Walsh Minority Coaching Fellowship Program, the Cincinnati Bengals coaching staff will host three college coaches at some point from now through training camp. The addition of Glenn Holt joining the team during Cincinnati's minicamp next week, the team also announced that Dwayne Foster and Arnold Foster will take part in the program with the Bengals during training camp next month.

Joe Reedy of the Cincinnati Enquirer offers up a little background on both coaches:

The other two are Dwayne Foster and Arnold Ale. Foster, the assistant head coach and offensive line coach at North Carolina Central, will join the Bengals just before training camp, which may start on July 27, and work through Aug. 9. From 2005-10, Foster coached at Prairie View A&M. Ale, a linebackers coach at Los Angeles Harbor Community College, will join the Bengals just before training camp and work through Aug. 11. He also serves as head coach at Bishop Montgomery High School in Torrance, Calif.

As Reedy points out later in his posting, Marvin Lewis was part of the program with the San Francisco 49ers in 1988 and the Kansas City Chiefs in 1991. Chicago head coach Lovie Smith, Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin and former Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Raheem Morris are graduates of the program.

From the NFL:

The program, which was named after the man who conceived the idea – late Pro Football Hall of Fame head coach Bill Walsh – exposes talented minority college coaches to the methods and philosophies of summer NFL training camps. Walsh introduced the concept in 1987 when he brought a group of minority coaches into his San Francisco 49ers’ training camp. The program has mentored more than 1,500 minority coaches through the years.