The Position Switch: The Quarterbacks Football Wouldn't Let Play

The Position Switch: The Quarterbacks Football Wouldn't Let Play

CULTURETECHLENS · "Culture, Clearly Seen." · Black Cultural Intelligence

The position they said we couldn't think. For most of football's modern history, Black college quarterbacks were drafted and told: switch to wide receiver, switch to defensive back, switch or sit. The "thinking position" was reserved by custom, not by rule. Marlin Briscoe became the AFL's first Black starting quarterback in 1968 — then was moved to receiver the next season anyway. James Harris started for the Rams in the 1970s and still heard the same doubt. It took until Doug Williams' Super Bowl XXII MVP in 1988 — 42 years after the color line fell — for the lie to die on national television.

What it cost: generations of quarterbacks who never got the snap count, the film room, the second chance. The pipeline wasn't broken. It was filtered.

Source: CultureTechLens. "Culture, Clearly Seen." culturetechlens.com

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