On Sunday, the Philadelphia Eagles will face the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl in New Orleans. It’s a rematch of the 2023 Super Bowl. In that game, Patrick Mahomes of the Chiefs and Jalen Hurts of the Eagles made history. It was the first time the Super Bowl featured two African-American starting quarterbacks.
That moment came 35 years after Washington’s Doug Williams became the first Black quarterback to start in the big game.
In his new book, Grand Valley State University Professor Louis Moore traces the history of Black quarterbacks and the obstacles they faced trying to play their position in the NFL. The book is called The Great Black Hope: Doug Williams, Vince Evans, and the Making of the Black Quarterback.
Doug Tribou: You open your book with the early history of the practices NFL teams used to keep Black athletes from playing quarterback long after teams had started integrating their rosters. You note that between 1955 and 1968, NFL teams switched the position of every Black college quarterback who made an NFL roster. Could you describe the racist tropes coaches used to justify forcing Black QBs to change positions?
Louis Moore: Yeah, there are many of them. This belief that Black men couldn't think as well as white men. And that's because the quarterback position was deemed the most important position. But it's also deemed a position that you needed intelligence. And just the way American racism worked at that time, it was automatically thought that this guy wouldn't be able to learn a complicated NFL offense.
There's also the trope of athleticism, this belief that he's too athletic to play this position and I want him somewhere else. So those guys got switched. And in sports we call that stacking. That's putting somebody in a position based on racial stereotypes.
And then there's stuff like his dialect. You know, many of these Black quarterbacks came from the South and they would say, "Well, what if the players couldn't understand him?" Or what if the players wouldn't follow his orders? These white players, especially the white offensive lineman, many also came from the South.
So over the years, they're just coming up with this whole slew of excuses to keep these men out of the most important position in football.
For years, NFL teams routinely drafted NFL quarterbacks, but never gave them a shot to win a spot at their position. Between 1955 and 1968, NFL franchises switched the position of every Black college quarterback who made an NFL roster.
DT: Your book revolves around the lives and careers of two pioneering Black quarterbacks — Doug Williams and Vince Evans — whose NFL careers began in the late 1970s. The fact that Doug Williams made it to football’s highest heights is even more remarkable when you consider his family’s circumstances when he was growing up in the tiny, Black community of Chaneyville, La. near Baton Rouge. There were times when he and his siblings used an empty bleach bottle as a football. Tell us about the chores he Williams credits with strengthening his throwing shoulder…
LM: So Chaneyville, it's a Black community. It's people who stayed after Reconstruction, who wanted to stay on that land and try to own land as best they can. But there wasn't many city services from Baton Rouge that came there. One of the things that Doug mentions like, you know, my arm is stronger because we had no paved roads and there's nothing but rocks. So I threw rocks all the time.
They didn't have plumbing until he was a teenager. And he said, look, people they use the restroom. And my job in the morning was to get up and take that bucket out there. He says, this is how my shoulders got strong, right? Because that bucket stinks. You don't want to carry it close to your body, so you carried it away from your body.
So it's that kind of stuff. It's that poverty that's created by, let's be clear, by racism. And he's crediting it as something that made him a better passer.
DT: After a successful high school career, Williams would play for legendary coach Eddie Robinson at Grambling, the historically Black college with a record of turning out pro football players. What did Robinson teach Wiliams that made him especially attractive to NFL scouts and executives?
LM: Even before Doug Williams got there, Eddie Robinson, who's one of the greatest college coaches ever, made it his mission to get a Black quarterback into the NFL because he really believed that America — Black America, white America — needed to see this type of leadership. And so he started to install different NFL offenses into his offense.
And then he had a type. He said, "My guy has to be tall." So all his quarterbacks were at least 6 foot 4. And they had to learn how to stay in the pocket because he knew how the stereotype went — If my guys run, then the NFL will switch them. And so, no matter if they're fast or not, they weren't running.
And part of that is not just about knowing the X's and O's, but also being prepared to handle criticism from white media, from white teammates, from white fans. And so they're really working on Doug Williams and these other guys to be prepared for that moment.
Doug Williams and his teammates scored 35 points in the second quarter during Washington's 42-10 Super Bowl win over Denver in 1988. He was selected as the game's MVP.
DT: Doug Williams got more than 80 starts in nine NFL seasons with Tampa Bay and Washington. But Vince Evans played for 15 seasons with the Bears and the Raiders in the NFL and got just 39 starts. Evans was — in a number of ways — ahead of his time. How was his style of play different than Williams’ and why did that hold him back in some cases?
LM: Yeah, so Vince is about a 4.5 [seconds] 40[-yard dash] guy. That's fast, right? And so he really had no skills coming up as a quarterback, although he played that position. But he outworked everybody. But at that time, they didn't want you running out, causing chaos. The offensive linemen wouldn't know where you were, the receivers wouldn't know you were. Just in general, the NFL wasn't really prepared for his style of play.
DT: For a variety of reasons during the 1987 season — not related to his race — Doug Williams almost didn’t get a chance to play in the 1988 Super Bowl. What happened and how did he eventually get the start?
LM: For one, he's a backup. He's just there to be a backup to Jay Schroeder. Jay Schroeder just got a new contract, too, so [Williams] actually wanted to be traded. There was a trade in place with the Raiders and then at the last minute, Washington didn't pull the trigger.
And then Schroeder gets hurt early on in the season. Doug Williams comes into the game, does awesome. Fans, and especially the black fans of Washington, D.C., are going crazy.
Doug starts a game, gets hurt. Now Schroeder's the starting quarterback and then it looks like — as we come into December — that Doug's done. Schroeder is going to be the starter. But then the last game of the season — it's pretty much a meaningless game, but Jay Schroeder doesn't look good — and the coach inserts Doug Williams. He wins the game and the coach makes this decision. He says, you know what? We're rolling with Doug Williams.
He makes it all the way to the Super Bowl, and then the day before he has to have a root canal. So it's like, my gosh, he's not going to get to play.
And then the game starts and it looks like he blows out his knee, he slips on the grass, he's hurt. He has to come out for a few plays. You know, everything he's worked for, it's almost gone the day before. It's almost gone in the first quarter.
And then the second quarter is history.
DT: And to say that Williams rose to meet the moment is a vast understatement.
LM: It might be the greatest game ever, but definitely the greatest quarter in Super Bowl history. I believe it's five touchdowns. And it's just the perfect game. I've never seen somebody throw such beautiful balls. It's like watching Patrick Mahomes when the game is on the line. You know you're going to see greatness.
Editor's note: Quotes in this article have been edited for length and clarity. You can listen to the full interview near the top of this page.
