King Kaufman, Salon’s sports columnist, is dependably excellent, especially when he writes about the third rail of professional sports in America: race. When I interviewed him last year for this blog, I asked him why the issue of race resonated so strongly with him. He responded:
Photo courtesy of NCAAIn today’s column (click through the ads to see it), King addresses another aspect of that slow process of integration when he highlights the fact that Warren Moon is about to become the first black quarterback inducted into the Football Hall of Fame. King finds that some sportswriters are minimizing this fact, because it highlights the racial struggles Moon went through during his career:
What I can’t get over is that Warren Moon is only six years older than I am, and we grew up in the same city, and it wasn’t in the South.
He led the University of Washington to the Rose Bowl in 1978, before the Huskies became Pasadena regulars. He dominated the CFL with the Edmonton Eskimos. And then, as a 27-year-old rookie — about five months younger than Jackie Robinson was when he made his long-delayed major league debut — Moon started an NFL career that lasted 17 seasons.
You couldn’t watch Moon, athletic and strong-armed, play quarterback at Washington and not think he at least had a chance in the NFL. He went undrafted not because teams didn’t think he could play in the league, but because he’d made it clear he only wanted to play quarterback. His longtime agent, Leigh Steinberg, has said Moon probably would have been a third- or fourth-round pick if he’d agreed to play some other position.
This isn’t how the NFL, always ready to bend history to suit its purposes, seems to remember it.
In his column on NFL.com, Gil Brandt, the longtime director of player personnel for the Dallas Cowboys, writes, “Moon, at just under 6-foot-3 and 210 pounds, was an athletic blend of fast legs and a strong right arm. It just took the arm a little longer to get there. And that’s what made Moon so difficult to scout as a college player … and probably why he had to go to a J.C. and to Canada to prove his talents to those at the next level.” (Ellipsis his.)
Yeah, Gil, sure. That’s probably why.
That a forty-nine year-old man has just become the first black quarterback in the Hall of Fame is a measure of how far we have to go. As King notes, the first step towards getting there involves an honest look back at Moon’s career.
Update: This post reminded me of an earlier one about an Asian college player trying to make it into the league: Racism in the NFL.
Timmy Chang, the subject of that piece, was picked up by the Eagles last year, but sent off to play a season in Europe. He may get his chance this year as a third-string backup to Donovan and Jeff Garcia. He’s currently on the roster.
6 Comments on "The Full Moon"
Kevin Wolf:
I’m not a big follower of pro sports but as a prism through which to study our attitudes toward race it can be fascinating.
It was only about 5 years ago that I found out that the PGA had kept its caucasian requirement well into the 1960s. Stuff like that - interesting, weird and embarrassing.
albert:
moon could throw the bomb like no other. i loved watching him operate the 4 and 5 wide shotgun. he threw a ridiculously tight spiral.
deggeh:
just as a side note:
i am a college football player two classes behind tommy. not to say that race plays zero role, but he did sustain a lot of injuries in college, and he IS frail. there are a lot of big men in the nfl, and sending him to play a season in europe is a good barometer of how he can stand up to a 17 game season.
also, hawaii passed more than any team save texas tech. chang hit lots of short passes, and is a great athlete, but i question how much of his struggle is race and how much results from his body type and athleticism. this may be a good business decision.
also, dat nguyen has been a sucessful linebacker with the cowboys for seasons, because of his tenacity and great athleticism.
Matt:
I don’t claim that Chang’s struggles to play in the NFL are due solely to his race. It sounds like one of the biggest issues for Chang (and one of the reasons the Eagles wanted him to play in Europe) was that he had trouble taking snaps under center, having played mostly (or only) from the shotgun at Hawaii. And, certainly, like the recent quarterbacks of Texas Tech (almost none of whom, I think, have gone on to successful careers in the NFL, despite having some of the best college numbers around), there is the possibility that his stats were due more to offensive schemes than individual skill.
And yet, as the original SI article points out, Chang’s size is no different than many quarterbacks who have succeeded in the NFL. As Chang himself argues in the second article linked above, he’s only one inch shorter than Joe Montana. So, you can point to his size as a detriment to his game, but then you’d have to explain why size didn’t prevent all of those other quarterbacks from starting on NFL squads. Again, race doesn’t explain everything, but I find it hard to believe that racial stereotypes aren’t somewhere in the mix.
Similarly, you write that Chang is “frail.” Where is your evidence of that? Here is his injury report from his NFL Prospect Profile:
2002 — Played most of the season with a broken pinky … Suffered a knee sprain that forced him to the sidelines (returned later in the game) vs. Cincinnati (11/23).
2004 — Suffered a left shoulder sprain in the San Jose State game (10/23) … Sat out most of the fourth quarter of the Idaho game (11/20) when he re-injured his left shoulder … Again hurt his left shoulder in the Northwestern game (11/27) when he was pushed into the metal bench, sitting out one play before returning.
I guess that that could be interpreted in a number of ways, but I’d hardly call someone who plays “most of the season with a broken pinky,” or returns to games after being pushed into a metal bench, frail. That’s a pretty strong characterization; why do you use it?
Finally, in regards to Nguyen: that’s great, but there is a big difference between being a linebacker on a team and being a quarterback. Is the NFL ready for an Asian quarterback? Are NFL fans?
That remains to be seen, because it hasn’t happened yet.
Eric:
Huh. I didn’t even know Timmy Chang was Asian. I thought it was like that episode of Seinfeld where he dates the woman named Donna Chang, who turns out to be white.
Another problem black QBs typically faced in the past was that even if they were playing the position in college, it was in wishbone/option-type offenses, where the passing game isn’t as prominent, and they either don’t have an opportunity to showcase their passing skills, or never get to develop them. Don McPhereson was like that at Syracuse — he had a cup of coffee with the Eagles as a third-stringer. Even though he was tremendous running the option at Syracuse, it wasn’t a pass-oeriented system so he didn’t have NFL-type skills to showcase for teams.
Hell, Donovan would have had that problem for the same reason, but they started modifying the option to run a lot more pass plays. Of course, it didn’t hurt that his receivers in college were more talented than the batch he has now.
Matt:
Of course, it didn’t hurt that his receivers in college were more talented than the batch he has now.
Seriously. I hear people predicting a great season on the radio, but all I see ahead of them is one long stretch of mediocrity.
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