Brand NFL: Making and Selling America's Favorite Sport

6 Football in Black and White

6 FOOTBALL IN BLACK AND WHITE Whatever the product the nfl was selling in the 1990s and early 2000s, it came predominately in shades of black. The commercialization and racialization of nfl football have proceeded hand in hand since the 1960s, as pro football’s thrills have been disproportionately provided by African American players. The number of black players in the nfl increased from 12 percent in 1959 to 28 percent in 1968, 42 percent in 1975, and 49 percent in 1982, the last season that African Americans constituted a minority in the nfl. The black majority grew to 54 percent in 1985, 61 percent in 1990, and 68 percent in 1992, where it has more or less stabilized (fluctuating between 65 and 69 percent).∞ The Miami Dolphins’ Larry Csonka and Jim Kiick in the early 1970s made up the nfl’s last white glamour backfield, known for power and grit, not grace and speed (Mercury Morris provided the speed and received less credit). Since then, the runners providing most of the highlights on SportsCenter have been Walter Payton, Tony Dorsett, Earl Campbell, Eric Dickerson, Marcus Allen, Barry Sanders, Emmitt Smith, Edgerrin James, LaDainian Tomlinson . . . the list could go on. White quarterbacks have continued to throw most of the long, arcing touchdown passes loved by nfl Films and fans alike, but the players on the receiving end have also been mostly black. For every Steve Largent, the ultimate white ‘‘possession receiver,’’ there have been several Harold Carmichaels, Art Monks, Jerry Rices, Michael Irvins, and Terrell Owenses. Players such as Bruce Smith, Lawrence Taylor, and Ronnie Lott even redefined the positions for the guys who make the crushing hits. From such evidence it would seem obvious that the National Football League, along with the National Basketball Association, represents the abso- FOOTBALL IN BLACK AND WHITE 211 lute triumph of merit over racial prejudice. The reality, of course, is more complicated, not just because the men with the headsets on the sidelines remain disproportionately white and those in the owners’ suites exclusively so, but also because race itself is so burdened with loaded significance in the United States. nfl football since the 1960s has provided a stage on which a sort of racial theater has been performed. As the nation disavowed the racism in its past and o≈cially embraced color-blind equality, racism has persisted without o≈cial sanction, and in our professed color blindness we continue to see color but are reluctant to talk about it publicly. In nfl football, as in American society at large, race still matters, but exactly how is less clear than in the days of segregated public facilities and Jim Crow laws. Barriers Pro football was marginally integrated from the nfl’s beginning until 1933—with no more than five black players in any one season—when an uno≈cial ‘‘gentleman’s agreement,’’ apparently demanded by George Preston Marshall, owner of the Boston (soon Washington) Redskins, kept the league lily-white through 1945. In 1946 Paul Brown signed Bill Willis and Marion Motley for his Cleveland Browns in the new All-America Football Conference, while pressure from black groups and others in Los Angeles forced the Rams to sign Kenny Washington and Woody Strode. These four were the collective Jackie Robinson of professional football, still a minor sport whose integration received little public attention while Robinson was turning the ‘‘American Pastime’’ upside down.≤ Over the late 1940s and 1950s, integration in pro football proceeded slowly and fitfully, with Marshall’s Redskins holding out against increasing pressure (even from the Kennedy White House) until 1962. Black players in the 1950s and 1960s were disproportionately stars, since it was much easier to justify making room for a great running back than for a mediocre tackle. The increasing number of African Americans over the 1960s was to some extent led by the rival afl,a and it now conspicuously included players from the all-black schools in the still-segregated South. In 1949 Tank Younger became the first athlete from a black college to play in the nfl. In 1970 nfl clubs drafted 135 players from black schools.≥ Grambling, the small agricula . Besides making Grambling’s Buck Buchanan the league’s first draft pick in 1963, afl clubs had pro football’s first black starting middle linebacker (another Kansas City Chief, Willie Lanier, in 1968) and first two black starting quarterbacks (Denver’s Marlin Briscoe in 1968 and Bu√alo’s James Harris in 1969...