Reply #35: How rare are black football players? black quarterbacks?

[0rganism]

Do white male republican football fans feel vindicated for their grotesque physical incompetence by the presence of a white qb?

There's something here I'm not getting, obviously.

I remember about 20 years ago I was kind of surprised by the Houston Oilers' qb (I think his last name was Moon?) being black. He definitely broke the mold for the NFL at the time. But not so for high school: growing up in a predominantly white part of New Mexico, we had approximately one black guy in our graduating class of 300, and he was the only reason our football team scored any points at all that year. He was the kicker, the punt returner, the starting qb, the cornerback, the starting wide receiver, the starting tight end, whatever. No one else could keep up. Most of us were white pansy-ass scientists' kids who could barely run a lap, but we had Harlo, dammit! He transferred in from some southern state late in his junior year, IIRC, and singlehandedly redeemed our school from the perennial shame of football failures. Even when the team lost, it was fun watching the game just because he was pulling the whole team along, and we'd have keg parties afterwards. "Yeah, mom, we're going to watch Harlo, I mean the football game, and we'll be back around 2am."

We wanted him to succeed in football, not because he was black, but because he was the only one in our school qualified to do so. He could have been purple with orange spots, for all we knew about race, but he was a hero on the gridiron battlefield.

There may have been a point to all this, but I'm not quite sure what it was.