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Field Generals History of the Black Quarterback - Season 1 - Episode 02: Alternative Route
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00:15Welcome, football fans, to the 2018 NFL Draft, Texas style.
00:23So, where are you going to end up tonight?
00:26I don't know, I can't tell you.
00:28I'm just happy to be here.
00:29Hopefully, I'll get paid early, get out of there early, celebrate my family.
00:32I'll be quite frank.
00:33It still angers me to this day, what happened to Lamar Jackson.
00:37Are you guys talking about, and let's put this to rest, only playing quarterback, a team
00:42talking to you about anything else?
00:52News about the quarterbacks.
00:54This quarterback out in Louisville, Lamar Jackson, is here.
00:57And he will throw tomorrow when the quarterbacks work out.
01:00But we now know a number of teams have also requested the Jackson workout with the wide receivers
01:05as well.
01:06They want to see both workouts.
01:09Lamar, what was your honest reaction when multiple teams asked you to work out as both
01:15a quarterback and a wide receiver, being the Heisman winning quarterback that you are, though?
01:19You know, I'm a quarterback.
01:21That's all I've been all my life.
01:22I don't know where I come from, but you know, I'm here to be a quarterback, not anything else.
01:25When Lamar Jackson was coming out of school, Bill Polian, who'd been around the game a
01:30long time and designed some great teams, suggested that he switch positions.
01:34Lamar Jackson, speaking of size, quarterback or wide receiver on the next level?
01:38I think wide receiver, exceptional athlete, exceptional ability to make you miss, exceptional
01:47acceleration.
01:48Lamar Jackson was the best player on the field in almost every game he played in college.
01:53And, you know, you're going to tell me he doesn't even deserve the opportunity to come
01:56into the NFL and make it as a quarterback.
02:00You're already planning to see that he needs to change positions.
02:06Like, man, I'm not giving up my position, man.
02:08Like, I'm not switching no position.
02:09Like, y'all just seen what I just did?
02:11I don't like...
02:12That's not on the table.
02:13Not at all.
02:13I'm not going to be at all with you at all tomorrow.
02:16I'm a quarterback position.
02:17If a team did ask you to do that, would you do it?
02:21No, sir.
02:21I'm a quarterback.
02:23On the one hand, there's someone whose opinion you respect, who's been around the game,
02:27who's seen this person up close, who has a dissenting point of view.
02:30On the other hand, was this bullshit again we're going to hear this?
02:34Every time there's a black quarterback coming out, he's supposed to switch positions?
02:37With the first pick in the 2018 NFL Draft, the Cleveland Browns select Baker Mayfield.
02:45Wow.
02:46Quarterback over the moment.
02:48It is Baker Mayfield.
02:51And guess who has moved up?
02:54That would be the Arizona Cardinals.
02:58Will it be Josh Rosen?
02:59Maybe Lamar Jackson?
03:01Could it be Lamar Jackson?
03:03Could Lamar Jackson actually have to move for Josh Rosen in this prep?
03:06With the 10th pick in the 2018 NFL Draft, the Arizona Cardinals select Josh Rosen, quarterback, UCLA.
03:17And we've got history.
03:20First time in the common draft, there are four quarterbacks going to top 10.
03:25First of all, why is he dropping like this?
03:27And which teams might come up and take him?
03:30Final pick of the first round, it is the Ravens trading up.
03:34Is it for Lamar Jackson?
03:37I'm so happy for you and I'm so happy for Josh Rosen.
03:40You and I are going to talk tomorrow.
03:42We're going to have a long talk about you being great, all right?
03:45Turn it up.
03:45Turn it up.
03:46Turn it up.
03:46We've got to hear this.
03:48We're the 32nd pick in the 2018 NFL Draft.
03:52The Baltimore Ravens select Lamar Jackson.
04:01Listen to this place go crazy right now.
04:04I can see it in your eyes.
04:05I can see you a little bit upset, a little deterred.
04:08But guess what?
04:09I'm here.
04:09It's here.
04:09You're here.
04:10I'm a Raven.
04:11I'm happy to be a Raven.
04:12It don't even matter.
04:14Yesterday does not matter.
04:15You're looking forward to today.
04:17I'm looking forward to being a Raven.
04:18What are they getting?
04:20Everything out of me.
04:22You know, I went last in the draft.
04:25And I don't know how I went last in the draft.
04:27I still don't know to this day, you know?
04:29Ozzie Newsome, at the time one of the few black general managers in the NFL,
04:33traded back up into the first round and used that pick on Lamar.
04:37Otherwise, he would not have been drafted in the first round.
04:40Ozzie, man.
04:41I love you, man.
04:42Ozzie, you know.
04:43I love you.
04:44I appreciate you.
04:51We were all saying we had come so far and we had made so much progress.
04:55In the NFL now, the quarterback position was open to blacks and whatnot.
04:59And here was the same old thing happening that happened to, say, a Warren Moon or a Jimmy
05:04Ray or a Marlon Briscoe or you name it, where all of a sudden you're not even given a chance
05:09to come and prove yourself in the position you've played all your life.
05:12You're just being told right away, not good enough.
05:41I want to talk about three words, style, movement, and improvisation.
05:49And think about that in the context of the black experience in the United States.
05:56Look at any sport before and after integration.
05:59And what do you see?
06:00You see style.
06:02You see movement.
06:03And you see improvisation.
06:04Now, the mistake that people have always made is to think that there is no thought or no genius
06:09in style, movement, and improvisation.
06:11That's like saying Miles Davis wasn't a genius.
06:14Music has structure.
06:16Sports has structure.
06:17You know, there is genius in knowing how to integrate that within the structure.
06:23Douglas Dickey was probably the best high school quarterback to come out of Houston back in
06:29the 60s.
06:31I distinctly remember the first time I saw him play that, wow.
06:39Dickey is back to pass.
06:40He's clear back in the end zone.
06:42And he's going to run.
06:44He's up for the 10, the 15, up to the 20, 25, 30.
06:47That's crazy.
06:48We had Lamar Jackson before Lamar.
06:52Eldridge Dickey was Lamar Jackson.
06:54He just blew everybody away with how he could pass, you know, his mobility, how he could run.
07:00He could throw it goal line to goal line, you know.
07:03And he had that attitude.
07:05Looking the same as now.
07:07Like, you know, it's just years, years before us.
07:10Like, before I was thought about, way before I was thought about, you know.
07:13But it's looking the same way.
07:15Mobility, making things happen with his legs.
07:17He gets to Tennessee State.
07:18Tennessee State is downtrodden.
07:20They hadn't won a thing in years.
07:22Eldridge Dickey gets there and he's playing for the great John Merritt.
07:26Dickey turns that program around.
07:29And Merritt starts to call him the Lord's Prayer because he said Dickey was the answer
07:35to their prayers for a winning program.
07:39He had an IQ of around 160.
07:42You know, he understood defenses and he understood how to run an offense.
07:52Eldridge Dickey gets drafted in the first round in 1968 by the Oakland Raiders.
07:57And everyone who cares about race and sports thinks, here's the breakthrough person.
08:02Here is the chance.
08:03Eldridge was the guy who was going to break that mold.
08:06He's so good, they thought, that there would be no way that he'd have his position.
08:12When he gets his time in 1969, it's so short.
08:18He has this preseason game against the Kansas City Chiefs in Birmingham, Alabama.
08:24Birmingham, Alabama.
08:26When the bus turned in to go down the runway headed towards the stadium, they had a stuffed
08:31dummy hanging from a lamp and they had on top of it no nigger would play quarterback in
08:35this stadium.
08:37It's crazy what those guys went through.
08:39I don't know how I would have reacted back then.
08:41I don't know.
08:42But just hearing stories, it's like, man, those guys went through a lot.
08:45And I said, look, I didn't come this far to stop now, you know, but I'm playing tonight.
08:52He does well.
08:53The fans are excited.
08:55The Black fans are excited.
08:56But John Madden, the new coach at that time, doesn't see things that way.
09:00He looks at it as just chaos.
09:08George Blanda, backup quarterback, talks to the press about how Eldridge Dickey, that's
09:13not how we play quarterback.
09:16Eldridge Dickey is a great player and gets drafted number one.
09:21And then they draft Ken Stabler in the second round.
09:26Well, now they've got two really good quarterbacks and Eldridge Dickey is this phenomenal athlete.
09:31So we'll move Eldridge Dickey to wide receiver and Ken Stabler, he gets the opportunity.
09:38Eldridge Dickey never gets to play a snap at quarterback.
09:43Probably the greatest quarterback in Texas high school football history.
09:49Never got to throw a regular season pass in the NFL.
09:54He kind of fell into the same slot, the kind of we'll never know slot.
10:02Patrick Mahomes is playing his game like Eldridge Dickey, and it's accepted.
10:08It's praised.
10:10Now that's in vogue.
10:12They didn't want what Black quarterbacks had to offer, you know, back then.
10:17Eldridge Dickey had years of struggle in his life after that.
10:21But the struggle isn't because he didn't have the grit and the metal and the persistence to get through difficulty.
10:29The thing that broke him is he wasn't even given the chance.
10:34He died from a stroke, but another theory is that Eldridge Dickey died from a broken heart because he was
10:41never able to realize an NFL dream.
10:44I feel like our generation and mindset is totally different from those guys, you know, because when they went through
10:49what they went to, it was like they kind of had no choice.
10:52Man, I'm grateful, you know, I'm grateful for guys like that, just paving the way for us.
10:57I'm grateful for that.
10:59It's the hardest thing to get minds away from the color barrier.
11:06Open the door and let the men play.
11:09Choose the men, not by the color of their skin, but performance on their own character.
11:14Dickey becomes this kind of barometer for a lot of people about how to measure their opportunities.
11:20He really becomes the symbol of what happens to these guys.
11:25As the league opens up to more black players, these incredible athletes and thinkers who are playing quarterback have a
11:34place in the NFL, but only if they switch positions.
11:38That, sadly, was the prevailing notion for a long time.
11:43Black guy?
11:45Quarterback?
11:46No.
11:46Black guy's the running back.
11:48Black guy's the receiver.
11:49Black guy's the defensive back.
11:51The pervading view of keeping quarterback as a white space was the dominant view well into the 2000s, let alone
11:59the 1970s.
12:01So, because of that, people like Tony Dungy all of a sudden are no longer playing quarterback when they make
12:07it to the National Football League.
12:09At quarterback, number nine from Jackson, Michigan, Tony Dungy.
12:27If they're going to have a chance to challenge the Wolverines, they'll ride on the arm and legs of Tony
12:32Dungy, senior quarterback from nearby Jackson, Michigan.
12:35Yeah, I remember Tony Dungy playing.
12:37Yeah.
12:38And you look and you're like, damn, this is a brother playing from Minnesota at quarterback?
12:44I want to put on my, my, my, my, my game.
12:47Dungy is probably the most established quarterback in the Big Ten this year.
12:51He has as much actual game experience as any quarterback in the country.
12:55My junior year, we light it up.
12:57I led the Big Ten in passing that year.
12:59Tony Dungy is a young man that is giving us the kind of leadership, the kind of intelligence, and the
13:04kind of physical skills necessary to make our offense go.
13:07And it was really, really a fun time.
13:10Truly, the glitter in the Golden Gopher offense was supplied by Tony Dungy.
13:15He completed more passes for more yardage than any other quarterback in Minnesota history.
13:22You know, Tony had a couple of really good years.
13:24And you're thinking, okay, this could happen.
13:32After my senior year, I had a number of quarterback coaches tell me, hey, you're on our board.
13:37I went out to the Vikings training camp and watched Fran Tarkenton.
13:42And I walked up to him, and I'm looking him right in the eye.
13:45And everybody's saying, well, you're a little too short to be a quarterback.
13:49I'm thinking, I'm as tall as Fran Tarkenton.
13:51This, this might be okay.
13:53I was pretty confident that I would get picked.
13:55I didn't know where, and I wasn't going to be a high pick, but I thought I'd get a chance
14:00to play.
14:05Well, the draft came and went, and I didn't get called.
14:09No one was interested in me.
14:11It was 12 rounds at the time.
14:12I didn't get picked.
14:13And I was, I was pretty crushed.
14:15The NFL never really sees him as a quarterback.
14:20Like, not even giving him an opportunity to come to camp to prove himself.
14:25The Jets are the only team midseason that actually have him rated as a potential quarterback.
14:30But every other team wants to switch him.
14:34He had all of the skills, or to quote Al Campanis, he had all the necessities to play the position.
14:41Starting with the intelligence to do.
14:43Anybody look at Tony Dungy now and think he didn't have the intelligence to do anything?
14:46No, it was lies.
14:47It was lies then.
14:49It was disappointing.
14:50And I, you know, I was hurt because I watched a lot of guys, and I saw guys who got
14:56drafted.
14:57I had watched NFL players, and I thought I could do it.
15:00But I kind of let it go.
15:04I got a call from the Pittsburgh Steelers.
15:07And they called me and said, you know, we're not really thinking quarterback, but you could come and make this
15:12team at another position if you're willing to switch.
15:15So I made that decision to be a defensive back and sign with the Steelers.
15:25It was a miracle for me to make the team as the Steelers, okay?
15:29I've been a quarterback my entire life.
15:31Now, all of a sudden, you switch positions, and they're trying to tell me how to make a tackle.
15:38I've never made a tackle in my life, and now I've got to tackle some of the best guys, best
15:43athletes in the world.
15:45It was a tough transition.
15:46And that's what happened to a lot of quarterbacks, especially black quarterbacks in that day.
15:53We're talking about the 70s and the 80s, 15 and 20 years after the Civil Rights Movement.
16:01You still couldn't have a black man play quarterback with any certainty, any comfort level.
16:07There was no security.
16:08No matter how brilliant the mind was, Tony Dungy, the opportunity wasn't there.
16:17From Television City in Hollywood.
16:20Good times, anytime you need a payment.
16:24Good times, anytime you need a payment.
16:28The 70s is really this interesting period because it's the first decade after the Civil Rights Movement.
16:35Better for water, making a way.
16:38You get a series of prominent television shows like Good Times and The Jeffersons.
16:43Well, we're moving on now.
16:45We're moving on now.
16:46These shows appeal to a lot of people, but at the same time, there's a limit to the representation because
16:52black people were not fully in creative control of how these images would play out.
16:57We saw blackness come more into popular culture, but often in more cartoonish sorts of ways, right?
17:05Here I am!
17:06You look at a character like J.J. from Good Times.
17:10You know, Jimmy Walker played what is effectively a coon.
17:14He became the 70s minstrel, right?
17:17Paraded around, clapped, he said, dynamite.
17:21Dynamite!
17:22If y'all excuse me, I gotta get ready for work.
17:26And it made the show very successful because it tied him into that long history of how white people saw
17:35black people.
17:37There are lies that were dropped on you that were meant for you to say because you were black.
17:46And I had to see behind all of that foolishness and say, no, no, no, no, no, I can't say
17:52that.
17:53When you talk about the representation of whiteness in television during the same era...
18:05You got broad representation from comedy to something much more serious and everything in between.
18:14So you didn't look at one, say, ridiculous white comic figure as the entirety of the white race
18:23because you had so many other images to put it in context relative to it.
18:31With black images, however, there were a lot fewer images.
18:35And so when you have such limited representation, the representation often takes on added meaning.
18:43All of these ideations of black people was kind of reflected in sports, where in the 70s, we begin to
18:52see white people's ideation of what black people are and what black people's abilities are.
18:58The ideas about who should play what position, not only quarterback, like a black person couldn't play center because, you
19:06know, they were thought not to be smart enough.
19:08Black people weren't supposed to be middle linebackers.
19:11You were supposed to be physical.
19:12You were not supposed to be intellectual.
19:16I remember going to the Los Angeles Coliseum with my dad, probably in high school at the time, and seeing
19:23James Harris play.
19:25And thinking, hmm, that's different. That's real different.
19:30When I was growing up, I was the guard in basketball. I was the quarterback in football.
19:35And I had this confidence, like, hey, I can play quarterback.
19:39When I got to Stanford, you were going to play defensive back. You were going to play wide receiver. You
19:44were going to play somewhere else.
19:50I had never played receiver before in my life, so I couldn't catch to save my life at the beginning.
20:00The experiences of James Lofton are emblematic, I think, of black athletes who may have played quarterback in high school,
20:08but realizing that at the collegiate level that switch is going to happen,
20:13there was a very slim chance that they would ever get a chance to play.
20:17When I saw how far the quarterbacks at Stanford could throw, I thought to myself,
20:21why am I not playing quarterback?
20:35For me in the late 60s, early 70s, I didn't know that somebody across the country who didn't know me
20:41might not have thought that I was smart enough to play quarterback.
20:45Smart enough? What's so complicated about it?
20:49The fact that the person in charge on the field was, for so long, white,
20:54is a reflection of all of those other parts of the entertainment industry.
20:59Like, you can't be behind the camera and be black.
21:01You can't be in charge of a music company if you're black.
21:05While all of this was going on, you know, we see Don Cornelius' Soul Train.
21:15What it was, was a real look into culture, right?
21:22I guarantee you'll enjoy the ride.
21:24And it wasn't just dancing, and it wasn't just live performances.
21:29That's how black people look.
21:31When we are in community, somebody's going to play some music and somebody's going to dance.
21:36Guaranteed.
21:39Don Cornelius starts this program that is essentially showing us and our full, authentic selves to us.
21:48There's been so little in this country given or made available to blacks that they want.
21:54There was tremendous desire of black people to see ourselves reflected.
22:01The hunger for black representation fueled an outburst of creative expression.
22:08And then that, of course, paved the way for blacksploitation.
22:15Melvin Van Peebles in 1971 releases his film Sweet Sweetback's Badass Song.
22:23That represented black culture and the black character who's at the center of the film in a way different than
22:31one had seen such representations before.
22:34But the thing about him is, he had to leave America to do it.
22:38So I went down to Hollywood, and I showed my films around.
22:41And I said, I like to work.
22:43And the guy said, well, maybe we got a job for you. Can you dance?
22:46I said, well, baby, that isn't exactly what I had in mind.
22:48So then I tried another place, and I asked them for a job.
22:52And they asked me, did I want to work as a parking attendant?
22:56So, you know, I got a little discouraged.
22:58Then I swooped, and I went to Paris, and that's where I got it all together.
23:02You don't have an iron mirror wall against Negro talent there.
23:06And just that little opening enabled me to get my ball rolling.
23:11You know, black people will make a way out of nowhere.
23:13Oh, you gonna stop me here? We will go elsewhere.
23:16We will go around the world in search of opportunities.
23:19Black folk have always chosen for various reasons, different strategies and approaches.
23:24Some, I can work through this. I can see if I can make it work.
23:27Others, I gotta go outside of the existing system and structure.
23:32I gotta choose a different route, an alternative route.
23:36In the NFL, you have really two kinds of players that come out in the 1970s.
23:41You have the overwhelming number that say, okay, well, I guess I'm gonna have to switch positions.
23:46And then those precious few who say, you know what, I refuse to switch positions because I am a quarterback.
23:52You may prevent me from doing what I do here, but it will not ultimately circumvent my ability to achieve
24:00my goal.
24:14I gotta tell you about Warren Moon.
24:16He could throw the ball through the car wash and I'd get the ball with him.
24:25He threw the prettiest football, the tightest spiral I've ever seen.
24:35You hear players talk about how they could hear the ball coming by the ear hole on their helmets.
24:48The Warren Moon story is very damning and it's not history that the NFL can erase.
24:56I didn't want anybody to give me anything, but to not give me the opportunity, that's the thing that I
25:01just couldn't understand.
25:10I started playing quarterback when I was about nine years old.
25:13I knew that it was gonna be a position that was very tough for me to play because it just
25:17wasn't a lot of people that looked like me playing the position.
25:22When my dad passed away at seven years old, I become the man of the house now with five sisters
25:27and my mom.
25:30So it made me grow up a lot faster with the responsibility that was put on me at a very
25:34early age.
25:39I went to Hamilton High School when I was a quarterback.
25:42There's people telling you all along the way that you need to change and go to another position.
25:47But I'm sticking to my guns because I know I can play the position.
25:50I thought what I did in high school was good enough to give me a scholarship to play quarterback at
25:56a major university.
25:57But for whatever reasons, it wasn't.
26:00And I didn't want to go to a junior college. I just felt like I had to.
26:04I had a part-time job in the athletic department at that time.
26:08And I had the keys to the film library.
26:13So I sent film to the University of Washington.
26:17Coach James came to visit my mom at my house.
26:21And he really convinced her that that was a good place for me to go.
26:25He said he was going to give me a chance to play quarterback.
26:28That's all I wanted to hear. I just wanted an opportunity.
26:33He had a struggle at UW.
26:36There was sort of a xenophobia to Seattle where they liked people who were from Washington.
26:43And so Warren comes in. He's from Los Angeles, which already was a strike against him.
26:50And then he's black. And that's the second strike against him.
26:53And he's not of them.
26:54Warren Moen, the sophomore from Los Angeles, gets the starting call at quarterback.
26:59People were waiting for me to not do well.
27:02And we didn't get off to the greatest start.
27:06And I was getting booed profusely every time I entered the field.
27:11My girlfriend and some of my friends who would sit in the stands,
27:14they would hear all types of names that I was being called.
27:19You know, the N-word.
27:23Yeah, it was just a very tough situation for me at 19 years old to deal with that.
27:28I was burying everything inside of me.
27:31Fortunately, my roommate Leon, his dad had a lady that he went to college with named Thelma Payne.
27:38And she was a psychologist.
27:41And she could see how I was dealing with what was going on at the university.
27:46She knew that I was struggling.
27:48So I started going over there every week after games.
27:51It was tearing me up inside the stuff that I was dealing with.
28:00My senior year, we were playing USC and it was a game that we won to win the Pac-8
28:06championship.
28:07I think at the end of the game I ran a 71-yard touchdown run, believe it or not.
28:12Quarterback Warren Moon on that rain-slicked turf from the Husky Stadium
28:16iced the game with just 49 seconds to go.
28:18I scored that touchdown and the whole crowd is just chanting my name, Warren, Warren, Warren.
28:25And after all I had gone through during my, you know, three years there, you know, now I'm the hero.
28:33You know, my senior year, I can do no wrong.
28:36It took everything out of me not to just, I wanted to flip the whole stadium off, you know.
28:44That whole situation there made me learn a whole bunch about, you know, how tough I need to be in
28:50order to play this position.
28:52There are two or three sites in sports that I think are the most glorious, and this has to be
28:58one.
28:58The Rose Bowl to me was, it was like the Super Bowl, you know, if it was my Super Bowl
29:04at that time.
29:04Because I grew up watching the Rose Bowl right there in Los Angeles every year and dreamed of playing in
29:09one one day.
29:10He keeps it, he rolls, he is in!
29:14Touchdown!
29:15Warren Moon!
29:17Gibson nearly moved.
29:19Warren Moon!
29:20And he's over!
29:22Warren Moon has scored his second touchdown!
29:26Every goal I set for myself at the end of the year has been accomplished,
29:29and I think we've proved to the rest of the nation now that the Huskies can play national-ranked football.
29:36There was not much history in terms of black quarterbacks.
29:42Shaq Harris had played for the Rams and a couple of the teams.
29:47Before that, Marlon Briscoe had had a cup of coffee as a quarterback,
29:52but there wasn't a whole lot of history of success at that point.
29:56People have the wrong impression when they think Warren was overlooked by the NFL.
30:04He wasn't.
30:06He would have been drafted.
30:08But what happened is teams were asking whether or not he would be willing to give a try to playing
30:17wide receiver,
30:19or running back, or safety.
30:23Here I was, Pac-8 player of the year.
30:26I was MVP of the Rose Bowl.
30:28I made some All-American teams, but nobody's even looking at me to play quarterback.
30:34It is so disappointing.
30:37It is such a slap in the face.
30:40It is, I thought, racism at the time.
30:43I would ask him, are you interested in changing your position?
30:48And he said, never.
30:50I was born to play quarterback.
30:56Sometimes we want to attribute everything to whatever fits the narrative we're into.
31:02And usually there's complexity.
31:05The history of sports is littered with great players in all sports who are overlooked,
31:10who were traded for a lesser guy and then they went to the Hall of Fame.
31:13That happens, okay?
31:14But when you've got that many teams, and a guy that good, and he's a black quarterback at a time
31:19when that's a rarity,
31:21you can't say that in 100% of those cases, race was irrelevant.
31:29At that time, the Canadian Football League had also reached out to me, the Edmonton Eskimos.
31:35And their coach, Hugh Campbell, told me, I don't know why people aren't giving you an opportunity out here,
31:41but if they don't want you to play here, we want you in Canada.
31:45The key word in black culture is next.
31:50Black people are often obviously preoccupied with the next lane, the next avenue, the next opportunity.
31:58Going to Canada was a way to warehouse our skills, to make a decent living,
32:04and you could show the world that if you deny us opportunity here, we will go elsewhere.
32:10For African Americans, Canada represented a space of freedom.
32:17Going back to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, for example,
32:22that African Americans who were fleeing the South and fleeing slavery in the South
32:26could be recaptured in northern cities such as Boston or New York.
32:30So in order to secure one's, you know, personal freedom,
32:34many fled into Canada as a way of securing their own freedom.
32:40And so Canada has held in black communities this kind of space of freedom.
32:48A lot of African American quarterbacks ended up going there because that was their kind of alternative.
32:53Guys that I admired, Jimmy Jones that went up there and played.
32:56Condridge Holloway went up there and played.
33:00Chuck Ely went up there and played.
33:04Chuck Ely, I think he's one of the most embarrassing stories in terms of the NFL and the way it
33:12was then,
33:13and for a long time afterwards.
33:21Let me sit up here.
33:23It's really, really interesting you guys are doing this.
33:27Because, you know, it's kind of like a story that's been hidden for a long time.
33:45I was deep into the middle of civil rights movement, all the other things that were going on.
33:49So things were all very tough.
33:55My biggest idol was Jim Brown.
34:00There was not a thought to look for a black quarterback because there was none.
34:05Two universities I wanted to go to was Ohio U or Miami of Ohio.
34:10And I'm looking for a full scholarship so I can get my education, play quarterback.
34:14And both of those things got shot down.
34:17And when I went to Toledo, they offered me a full scholarship and a chance to play quarterback.
34:22And I said, that's all I wanted. And I signed it right there.
34:28Chuck Ely was this guy that could do it all.
34:31I mean, he could beat you in a whole lot of ways.
34:33I'll make this very short. 35-0. That's the quarterback.
34:38Chuck Ely never lost a game. Never lost a game.
34:45Not one NFL team looked at him as a quarterback.
34:52He went 35-0. Didn't get drafted by the National Football League.
34:59I had an agent at the time, and I said, yeah, just let them know that if I'm going to
35:04go to the NFL,
35:05I'm going to go as a quarterback because I don't want to play defensive backs.
35:11And no one from the NFL responded back to me.
35:18That was a bad time for the NFL to be proud of what they were doing.
35:27What a crime that Canada had to save so many black quarterbacks.
35:33When I came to Canada and I played, they all kind of, everything kind of opened up.
35:42Chuck Ely lit the league up.
35:53Got that team all the way to the Grey Cup and won it.
35:57First black to win a Grey Cup and was the MVP of that Grey Cup game.
36:02I mean, he was an amazing story.
36:05Here are the keys to the Levats car and your personal trophy.
36:10Thank you. Thank you.
36:11I hope you never forget this Grey Cup game.
36:13When I came in and was successful, it opened up the mindset for people
36:19that there's another option for the quarterbacks that we have pushed aside over the years.
36:24There's a thing about black quarterbacks in the NFL,
36:27and not too many of them have been successful because they haven't been given the opportunity,
36:31and I think I'm going to be given the opportunity up here.
36:33I opened a mindset to do it, and Warren and the rest of them did it on their own.
36:43The Edmonton Eskimos held a hurry-up news conference at the Plush Edmonton Club this afternoon,
36:48so we knew it had to be big news.
36:49And as it turned out, it was.
36:51The Eskimos have announced the signing of University of Washington quarterback Warren Moon.
36:56Here's a country that doesn't know me, but they want me.
36:58You go where you want it.
37:01Warren, Warren, and he's got to win.
37:03He'll get the first pass.
37:06Boy, he's fighting every step of the way, and that's a great individual.
37:09I just felt, you know, this would be the best place for me, you know.
37:14Warren fit into that thing seamlessly. He was remarkable.
37:18All we ever wanted was an opportunity.
37:20I think if I asked every guy that was up there that was a black quarterback,
37:23they would probably all tell me the same thing.
37:27Certainly when you go somewhere, you want to be wanted, and I feel that, you know, they did want me.
37:37I thought I was going to play my whole career up there. That's how refreshing it was. That's how much
37:41I enjoyed playing up there.
37:48I don't think there was, well I know there wasn't, there wasn't a daily focus on Warren Moon being black.
37:54The Grey Cup of 81 is underway.
37:57Myself and J.C. Watts were the first two African Americans to play in a professional championship game in 1981.
38:08He has to go back in the middle. He is hit by Gepley.
38:14It took 41 years for it to happen here.
38:22We had a great run. You know, I was the first quarterback to ever throw for 5,000 yards.
38:30And won five consecutive Grey Cups.
38:35It was a good situation. And again, I was getting paid very well.
38:39The big thing was I was not playing where I had always set all my goals and dreams to be.
38:46Number 18 is about to be history.
38:50And the Lombardi Trophy will go to the Los Angeles Raiders.
38:56I knew the best players in the world were here. And where did I stand in that?
39:01You know, how good was I?
39:04I'm Jim Simpson. And for the next few minutes, we're going to be telling you all about ESPN.
39:09There was this, this company called ESPN that comes up in 1979.
39:13They don't have the funds for the NFL yet, but they have funds to show Canadian football.
39:19The league-leading Winnipeg Blue Bombers take to the field Saturday night when they line up to base Calgary in
39:24a CFL contest.
39:24And so suddenly these starved sports fans looking for content are watching Warren Moon dominate year after year after year.
39:34And so gradually you see a Warren Moon build clout.
39:40Into the hands of Brian Kelly.
39:42And what happens too is the NFL goes on strike in 1982.
39:47Hello Cleveland, I'm Ted Henry, and the strike is on.
39:49The National Football League is called a strike that will begin tomorrow.
39:53During the strike, some of those CFL games are played on TV because the NFL aren't playing. People see them.
39:58Dick Enberg and Merlin Olsen will be joining us in a welcome to Canadian football.
40:03I didn't know that many people would watch, you know, a CFL game, but I guess because there was no
40:06other football on.
40:08Why not? And then it was somebody that they kind of knew, so that made it even better.
40:12Warren Moon, one of the stars, will be singing today in the uniform of the Eskimos of Edmonton as they
40:17made the Calgary Stampeders.
40:19I had tons of people calling me to let me know that they watched me play, and I think people
40:25started to recognize, oh, this is where he went, this is where he ended up.
40:31Start wondering again that burning inside of you, am I good enough to play with these guys? How good am
40:38I really?
40:45He has outstanding ability. I have no doubt that he could play any place.
40:50The business of sports can best be described in two words, that is, free agency.
40:54No team put a draft pick on Warren Moon, which meant that whenever he returned to the NFL, he would
41:03be the first pure free agent to come back into the NFL.
41:08It's a big decision, that's why I'm taking my time, and I don't want to rush into anything.
41:13I was offered land deals from Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Hugh Culverhouse, their owner at the time.
41:20Bud Adams was talking about oil wells when I was down in Houston.
41:25Bud Adams said, these are oil fields, you can have this well right here.
41:33I did go to Studio 54 because I had never been to New York City.
41:42Boy, was it an eye-opener. That was an eye-opener.
41:51People think I'm taking these trips to try and increase my bargaining power, where I'm really taking them to try
41:56and find out how we'd like the city and how comfortable we'd be here.
42:02As we said earlier this past Friday, a man that many have labeled as the best quarterback never to play
42:08in the National Football League came to terms with the Houston Oilers.
42:11At the end of it, Warren chose Houston and came back, and at that point, he was the highest paid
42:18player in the history of the NFL.
42:22You end up being a guy who nobody wanted to draft in the NFL until all of a sudden I'm
42:26the highest paid player in the National Football League when I came back.
42:30All the time in the world, Moon going deep!
42:35I'm not that different a player, and I'm still that same guy that they could have drafted coming out of
42:40college.
42:41I was an assistant when Warren Moon came with the Houston Oilers, and everybody was so excited.
42:48He's going to go for some more, and he's got Timmy Smith!
42:51Oh, look here!
42:52They knew what was coming.
42:58There was a part of me that wanted to prove people wrong.
43:01The people that told me that I couldn't play quarterback, that didn't think I was good enough to play quarterback,
43:05I wanted to show them that I was.
43:09He saw the whole field in his mind. He knew where to go a lot of times, way before the
43:15ball got in his hand, because he could see it.
43:19I broke the rookie passing record. It was kind of weird for me to be considered a rookie, and I
43:24made the all-rookie team as a 27-year-old.
43:30We eventually turned things around and went to the playoffs and became a perennial playoff team.
43:38And it's also an opportunity for me to show that a black quarterback can play in this league, and it'll
43:42give some young, inspiring black quarterbacks an opportunity to say,
43:45hey, I do have a chance of playing in this league.
43:47I'm the highest paid player in the league. I'm an African-American quarterback.
43:51I knew there was going to be more eyes on me, and then I knew I was in the South.
43:57And I didn't know what that was going to be like. And I quickly learned.
44:02I mean, there were fans who used the N-word. There were times it was tough for his family.
44:11It was nastier for my kids more than it was for myself, because I had been through that in college,
44:16so I kind of knew how to deal with it.
44:18But now I have, you know, four children, and they don't know what all this is all about.
44:24And, you know, my son's coming up to me after games crying at my locker saying, well, Dad, why are
44:29these people calling you all these names?
44:31And so you have to try and make sense out of that to a, you know, a six-, seven-year
44:35-old kid.
44:36I told him that everybody is not the same.
44:39There's a lot of people that just don't like people for whatever reason.
44:43When they don't like you, some people lash out with anger and evil.
44:52I thought our fans were all supporters of his.
44:56But he lived it. He had to live stuff.
44:59And every black quarterback that we had compassion and love for still lives differently than we do.
45:06Today, I think I would be a better, more receptive to knowing what was going on.
45:14I'm disappointed in myself that I did not help and see that.
45:21I was there. I was privy to the emotions of Warren.
45:24It's a painful story. Painful.
45:27And it doesn't get any easier.
45:29The more years you get from it, you realize it's still painful for those men to tell it, to relive
45:35it.
45:35I told you the story about Cleveland, didn't I?
45:42They were playing the Cleveland Browns.
45:44They generated an incredibly exciting second half.
45:47There's the two-minute timeout.
45:49So, the clock's running down.
45:51Our security guy comes walking up to me, and then he's got five police officers with him.
45:57And they surround me, and he says,
46:00Warren, you stay close to us right now, because there's been another death threat in your life.
46:04And you just walk next to us, and we're going to get you off the field.
46:09And I'm like, you've got to be kidding me.
46:11Somebody wants to kill me over a football game?
46:15And he's like, this isn't the first time this has happened.
46:20So, we get off the field, and then once we get in the locker room, he tells me,
46:25So, is this something that you'd want to know every time it happens, or before it happens or not?
46:31And I'm like, no, I don't want to know about it.
46:34Don't tell me anymore about it, because I don't want to know about it.
46:45I was very close with my minister, and we talked a lot. We prayed before every game.
46:51So, I talked to him a lot about stuff that was going on as well.
46:55And Thelma Payne, I would still talk with her on the phone, believe it or not.
47:00She helped me find a therapist so I could deal with everything that I was dealing with,
47:06because I got to the point where I felt like I was going to explode.
47:09I started seeing a therapist on Tuesdays and Fridays every week.
47:13The Friday sessions, they got to be so emotional that I would go into a weekend before a game
47:20with all this stuff I was dealing with that I had to cut back on the Fridays,
47:25because I was going into games just being too emotional about it.
47:31So, it was best that I only did it one day a week during the season.
47:35Even when I went into the building where my therapist was, I went through a back entrance
47:39and went up the back stairs, and so nobody saw me entering into this medical building.
47:48So, it was something that I, I don't know if I was ashamed of it,
47:53but I really didn't even talk about it until after my playing days were over.
47:59The notion that Warren was going to talk about this stuff openly at the time,
48:04because think of what he would have been seeing then.
48:06In addition to inadequate, he would have been seeing as weak-minded.
48:09Oh, he has to ask therapy? Really?
48:12I dealt with a lot of stuff, but I didn't let it stop me.
48:17I didn't let it dominate me.
48:19It might have drove me to therapy, but it didn't stop me.
48:24You know, Arthur Ashe once said, being a black man is like having an additional full-time job in America.
48:30It's like having an additional job to carry this stuff around all the time,
48:34while you're taking snaps and dealing with coaches and their expectations
48:38and your teammates and their expectations, I admire them.
48:41I don't know how they did what they did.
48:51The big issue is going to be precise passing.
48:53Can he put the ball in the tight windows?
48:55Whether he will ever be a good enough passer to be a winning NFL quarterback,
49:01there's a lot of work to do there.
49:02The first thing you've got to figure out is the football intelligence,
49:05how quickly he picks things up.
49:09You've got to come in with, I think, a higher level of consistency
49:13throwing the football in hitting spots.
49:162-13 is his real weight.
49:18Nobody makes a living in the National Football League at 2-13
49:21with the ball in his hands every play.
49:24If he doesn't get it done as a quarterback, moves to wide receiver,
49:27but he's got to be all in on the wide receiver transition.
49:30Right up the guts!
49:32Jackson turns on the speed!
49:34And he's got a touchdown!
49:37Touchdown, Baltimore!
49:39People still doubt to this day, you know,
49:41but somehow, someway, stats and the records and stuff,
49:45it shows different.
49:47You know, no matter what, people say, like,
49:48couldn't do this, but this right here is happening, you know?
49:50So I just try to lead by example.
49:52For only the second time in history,
49:54there was just one person that this year everyone voted for.
49:58So congratulations to this year's most valuable player,
50:02Lamar Jackson.
50:04I see 50-year-old white dudes from Baltimore County
50:07wearing his jersey and cheering for him
50:10like he was their long-lost son.
50:11Lamar, please!
50:12Lamar, please!
50:13Lamar, please!
50:13Lamar, please!
50:14Lamar Jackson!
50:15Lamar Jackson's ability to run and throw and pass,
50:19every draft is like, can they become a version of Lamar Jackson?
50:24With a defender chasing you each and every play, you don't want to get hit and throw the ball, like,
50:28you don't want to do that.
50:29I'm like, man, let me use my legs, get out the pocket and make this throw.
50:33The modern NFL relies on a particular skill set at the quarterback position that was often seen as negative attributes
50:41of black quarterbacks.
50:42There's been a lot of doubt going on, you know, me being a running back, a receiver, stuff like that.
50:49That came when I got to the league, and those guys all believed in me.
50:52They were there from the start.
50:54Let us bring you something of value.
50:57Let us entertain you.
50:58Let Lamar Jackson redraw the maps of what it means to be a quarterback.
51:05Jackson flings it downfield.
51:07Getting out of the pocket like that, protecting myself, protecting my guys, throwing the ball where only my guys can
51:12get it, you know?
51:13All that play a part with the dual threat ability.
51:17When you talk about the generations of great black athletes who had the ability to play quarterback and were told,
51:26if you want to play at the next level, if you want to fulfill your dream of being a professional,
51:30if you want to provide for your family, you have to play another position.
51:34I mean, that's something that a lot of players said, okay, then that's what I have to do.
51:40We talk about how much talent has the league missed out on playing that position.
51:43Do we have a bucket with an infinity bottom and like no top?
51:49Any receiver worth his salt knows he's only as good as his quarterbacks.
51:54I was lucky to have two great quarterbacks throw me passes.
51:58When you think about a James Lofton, Hall of Fame wide receiver, one of the fastest guys to ever play
52:03the game.
52:03Can you imagine him in today's game?
52:12They didn't have the opportunity to do that thing in real time.
52:16They were rerouted.
52:19Tony Dungy is still in there at quarterback for the Gophers.
52:22First of all, anyone who says that Tony Dungy wasn't smart enough to be quarterback, smart enough to take a
52:28team to the Super Bowl,
52:29smart enough to be a Hall of Fame head coach and a commentator and one of the most respected people
52:36in the league.
52:40Well, after four years of playing quarterback at Minnesota, I expected to continue doing that in the NFL, but it
52:46didn't happen.
52:48I didn't get picked and I was devastated.
52:52But it just is one example of God's plans being better than our plans.
52:57I don't get disappointed for myself.
52:59I am disappointed for guys who didn't get the opportunity.
53:02My disappointment is that the national TV audience, the national audience, didn't get to see an Eldridge Dickey play or
53:12a Chuck Ealy play because we're missing out.
53:14Can you imagine if Patrick Mahomes was playing baseball because he didn't think he'd get an opportunity to play and
53:20Lamar Jackson was playing wide receiver?
53:22Our game wouldn't be as good and it wouldn't be as exciting.
53:25Look at the magic of the quarterback.
53:27Like almost a no look.
53:29That is simply amazing.
53:32The one quarterback that I cannot get over is Warren Moon.
53:36Warren, for the second straight week, you've come on and just done a spectacular job.
53:41You can't say that however many teams there were that had less than 32, but they all whiffed on Warren
53:48Moon?
53:49There's no getting around the fact that Warren Moon was a generationally talented quarterback, and there's no getting around the
53:55fact that he had to go to Canada to play quarterback.
53:59And that tells us something I think that the NFL oftentimes wants to elide, which is that the progress that
54:07we've seen is actually very recent history.
54:12And the Lombardi Trophy will be awarded tonight at Gord Field as the Seattle Seahawks get ready to face the
54:21Pittsburgh Steelers for the championship of the National Football League.
54:28You know, I was doing broadcasting for the Seattle Seahawks, and they were in the Super Bowl, and I was
54:34there preparing for the games.
54:36And I'm driving on the freeway, not knowing exactly where I'm going, and all of a sudden my phone rings.
54:41And it's a lady from the NFL office that says, Warren, I want you to know that you got those
54:47Super Bowl tickets that you wanted and those tailgate passes.
54:51I'm like, well, thank you very much, but I got to get off the phone.
54:53And she said, by the way, congratulations on being inducted in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
54:58And I'm like, what are you talking about?
55:00And she's like, it's going across the ticker tape that you were one of the guys selected.
55:04I'm like, well, nobody's told me anything, so until somebody tells me something, I don't know.
55:09So finally I get off the phone, and then it rings right away, and it's the Pro Football Hall of
55:15Fame telling me that I was selected.
55:17And I had to pull my car over the side of the road.
55:29My wife took the wheel, and I just started bawling like a baby.
55:33I mean, everything that I had gone through, you know, kind of came out of me at that particular time.
55:47All the guys that I knew prior to, from Shaq,
55:55to Joe,
56:01Marlon,
56:07all those guys came to my mind of everything they went through.
56:14And I was the one that
56:16that made it that far.
56:18And, um,
56:21it was one of the most emotional moments I've ever had in my life.
56:25All of us did what we had to do
56:27to make the game a little bit better for the guys coming after us.
56:31And I only played this game not for just myself,
56:35not for just my teammates,
56:37but I always had that extra burden when I went out on that field
56:41that I had a responsibility
56:43to play the game for my people.
56:45I'm sorry.
56:55I'm just hoping one day there will be another guy with me.
56:59Because right now, I'm the only African-American quarterback
57:02in the, uh, in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
57:04And I know Donovan McNabb, I think, deserves to be there.
57:09I think Steve McNair deserves to be there.
57:12I think Randall Cunningham needs to be there.
57:18One day, that quarterback picture
57:20that we take every year at the Pro Football Hall of Fame
57:22will have another guy standing next to me.
57:25Hopefully.
57:26Sooner.
57:32I woke up to the morning sky first
57:37Baby blue just like we rehearsed
57:42When I get up off this ground
57:45I shoot leaves back down
57:47To the brown, brown, brown, brown
57:49Till I'm clean
57:53With all my favorite cars
57:57Yes, sir
57:57All my favorite cars
58:02Right
58:03My sisters and my brothers
58:07See them like no other
58:10All my favorite cars
58:15It's a good day to be
58:17A good day for me
58:19A good day to see
58:21My baby car
58:23My sisters and my brothers
58:28They see them like no other
58:31All my favorite cars
58:33I have a bad day for you
58:34I have five I Einflown
58:34Everybody, Danny
58:34I shot зр
58:34I like the trás
58:34But if my family
58:35I don't know
58:35I hate
58:35I love you
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