Great read from Wilbon in today's Post

Excellent take on the difference between being a black QB in the 60s to being one today, with local boy Byron Leftwich as the local peg. Fantastic stuff:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/28/AR2006092802005.html

 

I liked this:
Leftwich never wanted to be anything but a quarterback. Some years ago, I visited H.D. Woodson High and at the end of a talk a big kid with a wonderful smile approached me very politely and said, "You're going to be writing about me someday, so you'd better get to know me."

I asked his name and he said, "Byron Leftwich . . . I play quarterback and you're going to have to write about me one day."

 

???

 

HOLY SHIT!!!!!

 

Yeah, I noticed that too. Not sure who wrote that cutline, but it ought to be cleaned up.

 

Hey, you know better . . . the WP is busy blowing W . . . details, details.

 

Typical Wilbon ... a typical worthwhile read. Burying stereotypes can be fun.

I knew I liked Byron Leftwich.

 

I'm impressed that Wilbon can knock out fine columns like that while being on TV.

 

I scoured this column twice, looking for the revelation.

Atthe risk of heresy, I think the premise (black starting QBs have been de rigeuer for the past dozen years, but DAMN it, they haven't been BACKUPS!) is flimsy.

This graph below sets something up that is left to whither and not backed up:

But that's only the beginning of a cultural study of the Jacksonville Jaguars. Pro football has always operated in a tiny little comfort zone, racially. Only in the last dozen years have black quarterbacks stopped being an oddity . . . at about the time fast white receivers virtually disappeared. And even as black quarterbacks became accepted, they were embraced only as starters, hardly ever allowed the luxury of making it as a backup.

Fast white receivers? When the hell did they play?

And the last line is an obvious round peg into the square slot just so he can talk about the cool oddity of the Jags having three black QBs and a GM who was one of the pioneer black QBs. But I don't see any analysis of a "why" there.

BTW, James Harris started for the Chargers in the first game I ever saw in 1977.

 

He is one of the most underated QBs in the league.

 

Good column, good subject ..
But, please - this was not a comparison with 60s black QBs and nowadays.
There were no black QBs in the 60s, save for two or three at the end of the decade.
Harris was a black QB in the 70s
(Like Peter Fonda said in "The Limey" - the 60s were really only 66-68. Thats what people are talking about when they mention "The 60s". Just those few years.