The integration of black quarterbacks into the NFL represents a significant milestone in American sports history, reflecting broader civil rights progress. The position of quarterback evolved from a running-oriented role in the single-wing formation to a cerebral, strategic position with the T-formation in the 1940s, creating tension with racial stereotypes that associated black athletes with physicality rather than intelligence. Early black quarterbacks like Doug Williams and Vince Evans faced systematic resistance, being switched to defensive positions or benched despite talent. The 1999 NFL draft marked a turning point with three black quarterbacks selected in the first round, signaling fundamental change. This evolution demonstrates how sports can serve as a mirror and catalyst for social change, with the black quarterback becoming a powerful symbol of racial progress in America.
Any Given Sunday 25th Anniversary Sports History Discussion
Added:real quick before you starts the historyi at the movies guys James earol Jones just passed away like that was just announced maybe like 30 minutes yeah so I don't know if that that you know yeah he's 93 yeah man I am literally drinking out of my Star Wars cup blue oh wow wow okay oh thank you for telling me I okay I'm G have to I'm going to have to do emergency pot on him tonight right right right wow okay um oh wow okay wow all right that that that's a dude who's all over our childhood so we just we just did a movie he was in the other night on the watch party what movie was that we did uh Doctor Strange Love was one of his early movies he's like yeah someone had just posted that yeah he was like he was like a young dude he in his early 20s oh my gosh wow all right well okay then all right well we'll talk about him today too then because like how do you not talk about I mean what so all right are you ready you ready to kick it yeah let's roll all right all right Lou Moore what's up man how are you I'm doing fine thank you for having me dude I have okay so I wrote I wrote about this last night I was like I was talking about the week that was to come and stuff like that I was like I got Lum more coming on the Pod I've been trying to get you on the Pod for the longest time and trying to figure out way like because I know you're super busy I see you posting I see you writing you're teaching stuff like that and I've I hav wanted to talk to you this is our first convers like actual conversation like right ever and I I'm I'm I was so excited about this I was like saying we like I got this guy coming on he's a friend of mine never had a chance out so I'm excited man thank you so much for for being here um and you've got like you've got a book to talk about today we got we got a we got a book to talk about look at it we talk about all your books actually man like like because you got three of them yes and then I did do the guest um hisor at the moovie when you guys were still on Twitter for for Harlem kns and I think Rockies um so like yeah yeah and that was super fun the Harlem Knights one was super fun we got a lot of people on that dude yeah that was a that was gosh that was that movie was a lot of we need to do that one on the Pod at some point in time you know it's part of the reason why like I like the pod cuz we're not beholden to like what's available on like social on like the and I was saying this over the weekend like sometimes I get frustrated because the diversity of films that I want to show were not always available because the reason why we start we started on Netflix and then it went to go go to Prime and then Disney plus just so we could show more stuff you know right right like yeah Any Given Sunday is not on anything um but luckily it was like a $4 purchase so I was like all right cool yeah yeah should make the investment on this one and like when when I saw your book was coming of course I saw you you were you were talking about writing this book for a while so I get to kind of see this book in progression and stuff uh and I kept thinking I like man I thinking like okay this might be a good thing to get on so uh and there I guess there are a couple movies we could have done but this one felt right to talk about and it kind of feels like it lined up really well with the book so yeah know it does like when I was watching it the other day I was like oh yeah this is this this is I mean it's not my characters get into that later aren't Willie Bean uh they're not as like out there as Willie Bean but the stuff he had to go through the stuff he was talking about I was like oh yeah this is spot on this is the oh my gosh I haven't read my book no I'm like this is like the first early chapters are like kind of explain what these guys went through it's it's Willie Bean explaining his life but I'm really but it's me explaining it with like actual like facts and like kind of primary sources and and the guys who had to go through it so yeah absolutely all right but before we jump into the before we jump into the book before we jump into this movie I want to jump into to you Lou you want to introduce yourself and talk about like you know what you do and and so forth yeah um it's l more uh oh my gosh I'm at Grand Valley State I've been here since 2008 and I'm I'm I will call myself a sports historian and um so one of the questions always get asked like how do you get into that um and so I'm sure you get a lot of like younger um Scholars or college students that watch this this and I was an undergrad uh senior at Cal State Sacramento University and we were doing a California history project and I was trying to find a project right we had to write you know back then students had to write so we had to write like 20 page paper what yeah that's crazy now I did the reading too yeah there was a lot of reading and it wasn't like um study guides and there's no AI to help you had to do everything yourself um and I wanted to do something Sports and because that's what I liked and that's like if I'm going to do it for 16 weeks or however long a semester is I want to be engaged in it and I wound up writing on the Jack Johnson Jim Jeff fight now it doesn't wind up happening in California it's in Reno Nevada but the majority of it takes place like the signing um the buildup is California because it's supposed to be in enville which is like right by San Francisco and then California bans boxing right before like a month before the fight and so that was like the senior thesis I parlayed that into like the master's program there and then I eventually worked on that and got into the PHD program at UC Davis and just really fought to always do Sports history um when I was doing classes like if I could get away with it sometimes you just can't get away with it because you know you know people don't do Sports and people don't see it as real and then I got lucky to get this job here where there's you know Sports history classes and so I've just kind of made it my home yeah okay so I mean I was thinking about that as I was kind of doing the prep work and so so forth like there you know we'll talk about this about you know the guys in your book and also Willie bean and so forth in this movie but there's so much of this is being shaped by like outside perceptions about who these people are right and what they're capable of and stuff like that and I wonder if like you had like as you were coming up as a scholar people were like it's like you can't do Sports history because it's not important or it's like it's it's not like these like it's not intellectual history it's not labor history it's not gender history whatever right of course Sports history incorporates all that kind of stuff right right but did you did were you finding yourself as a scholar as you were coming up really trying to justify like what it was you did inside the field and say wait wait Sports history matters right that's because Sports matters to people no I think you're exactly right and and and the way I like to see it is like I tell the story of of black history via the black athlete and I tell the story of American History via the black athlete so if we go the progression of my books uh Sheamus I fight for a living is is a boxing book but it's really about like working class if you want to call them working class black manhood late 1800s early 1900s and and if you think about it we don't hear from these the black working class at that time right they're not writing they're not in the newspapers it's really the middle class and so this is a way to understand what some of these men were doing as like betting wise or just why would you even fight and and then what that meant to them the money they could make and stuff like that that and in the next book we will win the day is about the Civil Rights Movement but it's through the story of the black athlete you know how how they saw themselves how the black press saw them how white America saw them and so that's what I want to do and and and to be able to do that you have to battle right you have to sell this idea that this is important what you realize though is that when you get in the classroom it's important because you get butts in the seat right um and and numbers count in in the college World numbers count right so a class about maybe politics like 19th century politics they're not going to make but a class about sports history will always make U especially now when we're just kind of serving uh General EDS I don't want to go too much on higher ed no but it makes and it's allowed me to really kind of be myself and car carve out a little niche and then you know when you add social media to it I know Twitter has changed over the you know last you know Dozen Years but when I got on you know early on there's not a lot of academics and so me being at a little kind of regional teaching school was able to carve a space out where you know I'm not at a R1 institution I don't have R1 funding I don't have R1 time but I'm able to kind of be seen as like one I wouldn't say I'm the top sports historian but I'm known uh just because of of my activity as you said on on social media and that's helped a lot right because now all of a sudden there are like journalists who want to speak to you right and May recognize what you do um has worth and value yeah you know and I found I found you I guess I see to recall like I remember coming across you on social media you know years ago whatever it was back when we were young because I think we're about the same age um and I was like this guy's doing something cool and different and like you know you really I don't know that I ever T talked to you about this but like when I was teaching high school as I was writing my dissertation you know you were so infuential in the ways that I approached my students I started with the lecture every single every single year the first lecture I gave First first day of class was an image of college was an image of Colin Kaepernick oh wow you know kneeling and so much that L I never talked to you about this was like pushed by stuff that I saw you talking about right I'm like why here's a guy doing this thing we'll I'm sure we'll talk about Colin little bit later on right but I was like and that's what social media could be right like the great emphasis it's like hey look at this you know and I I wonder I wonder do do you find that your students who come to your sports history courses are are are athletes more relatable than say a George Washington or JFK or uh you know is it easier to to find some level of like commonality with students like are students remarking on why they're interested like like in sports histories themselves yeah that's a tough qu you know so the majority of my students are actually Sports management majors and one of my classes is kind of in their not in their requirements but you could take it as an elective and I think they're like yeah I'd rather take this than like sport business class or or whatever right sure and but the way you get them is just to be like look we're gonna have these real conversations and and you could do that like I could talk about mustard Christianity and Tim TBO and although it's been a long time since he was relevant the students still remember it but you could also use Sports in your general history class kind of like you were suggesting with your high school students right so my uh survey you know second half which now we should probably have three not halves obviously but oh absolutely three thirds of a survey it's just too much history to to to be able to get through um but it's like okay I could include like John Alan who's you know Irish American heavyweight champion from I want to say 1882 to 1890 and talk about working class Irish and then also Americanization and manhood or I could have a conversation about Barney Ross who was a Jewish American fighter in the 1930s as a way to introduce uh some stuff that Jewish Americans were going through right or Joe deio or Joe Lewis and World War II or Jackie Robinson and so you can't you know in a general history class you can't do all sports but you could like kind of fit that in and the students who understand Sports get it but you can also do that with music and stuff so a lot of Pop Pop history um but also I don't want to talk too much but the other thing is the beauty what you said about like social media is that we're able to curate what we wanted to do and one of the things I was doing early on was a lot of primary sources right like we have access as historians always tell people like you know the social media is like an extended classroom right I know I I I tweet a lot of like live sports takes because that's where it's at now like I I think it's just it's just easier and fun to do that because you've created a community and I like that aspect of it but then I really like you know sharing those those primary sources when I was doing that so A lot of times when I was researching I was getting editorial Pages front pages just randomly right because it doesn't take much to PDF that and then the whole Sports Page you know making notes of it and then sometimes I I'll post stuff like that I don't do it as much um but it's always fun because I and then you learn that people really like history they really like uh primary sources right uh because it cuts through a lot of the BS that they yeah well there's also I think Lou there's a way you present stuff which is like I'm going to throw one of your one of my favorite things that you do is there's you often will will show a picture of Babe Ruth and like you can really see it I was like see what Lou you know it's like but it's you know it's like here it's right in front of you if you look at it right if you see if you open yourself so um no I dig it um real quick can I say what's amazing about that is that people understand that right so it's like I don't have to say much I don't have to explain it and that's there's these weird way that we understand race in America and people understand like oh Babe Ruth might have been black and very few people push back like this is not true I think it's just kind of given at this point that you know he might he might he might have been black or he might have been Dominic whatever um was going on there um it hasn't got to the point where people really want to have a real deep conversation on like baseball or something in 1920s but just that's what I like to do with primary sources on on you know on social media it's just short and sweet like and that's what we do with our students right I'm not saying people are my students here but this idea that I I could put it out there and then you make the interpretation right um or as since we're historians at the movie as Snoop Dog said and Stark Star Ski and Hutch is I lay it out so you could play it out right uh right like that and that's and that's how I operate with primary sources no um I want to ask you about this this film we ISU early on it's like hey you want to do Any Given Sunday you're like absolutely and this is we we scheduled this a while back and then I June July yeah well I it's you're I want to get well I want I knew the book was coming out right and I wanted to time this this is going to come out the week that your book drops uh I think your book drops on the 24th if I recall correctly um and we'll drop on the 26th I think and you know we had to go back back and rewatch this movie and I'd seen this movie before once some other time so forth earlier and I went back and rewatched it again a couple days ago so I was kind of wondering what were your general impressions of Any Given Sunday you you were obviously familiar with the film I'm guessing you've seen it before you went back and did a rewatch what are your thoughts when you go back and look at this movie you know this Oliver Stone film you know you got alucino you got a really young Jamie Fox who is really pre Jamie Fox Jamie Fox like what are you thoughts of this movie yeah so Jamie was still like I don't think he had made it big big yet right where Ray hadn't hit or anything like that and he was still probably known for I think the Jamie Fox show might have been out um and then a Living Color like that Wanda character and stuff like that but you know it's almost I think it's 25th year anniversary this year of that movie and one of the things I was think the first thing I was think is like I'm glad my kids aren't around when I watch CU When I Was what Young when I came out what Young 20s 21 21 right um I wasn't thinking about none of that and then all a sudden I'm watching this like you know you know let me stop this right here because this part's not going to be appropriate um but but I think uh I like it um just because you know it talks about a subject I'm familiar with but then all the other little stuff that doesn't get played out like Cameron Diaz trying to Parlay uh moving a stadium and this is what we see all of times constantly with Pro Sports is trying to act like you're going to move so you get a brand new stadium from the public right and so you now you talk about public financing you got issues with uh drugs not just drugs like recreational drug I wouldn't you know consider cocaine or recreational truck but but uh like painkillers and and CTE before CTE like you know like Lawrence Taylor's character is is about to be done right um and then you have the whole racial Dynamics at quarterback and the sports and and then you have like the silly side stuff like to me one of the things I think about is LL Cool J's character right he plays a running back and I'm like the game has changed so much people really don't care about the personality of the running back but at that time like it plays into this kind of very hip-hop racial stereotypes of this running back who only cares the black running back who only cares about himself right and I was like we don't even see running backs like that anymore because the game the Any Given Sunday part the game has really got got rid of them because so there's this idea in sports that you don't pay a running back after a certain age and and because you don't get a return on your investment anymore and so the game is just like oh we'll just you know we'll use them for four or five years unless they're super duper Elite and then after that we're just bringing in the new one bringing in the new one whereas when that movie came out that position is still relevant right and and and I I think that's one of the major changes I saw it's like you couldn't make a movie nowadays right um it's the same thing when we watch here we go historians at the movie Friday Night Lights like that booby miles character makes sense to a lot of people because that's how we saw like these kind of black running backs and now we don't really see that anymore yeah I mean it just this movie for me watching back I was like it's incredibly preci it's it's feels like maybe a bit too long in the teeth as far as runtime goes a little bit um Oliver Stone is is is definitely having some fun with this movie but like this thing hits so much stuff on the head Lou where we talking about the race stuff the CTE uh the Dr like you're saying not not the cocaine and party stuff because that's just Miami we could do a story We we've done we know we've done enough potties pods on Miami by now um but like you know the the whole storyline between you know Matthew Modine and James Woods playing that icky doctor you know just nailing all this stuff and there there there's a bit of like did you ever see the program oh of right you know there's some of that I think some of the guys are from the program are in this film too uh the linebacker yeah the vlir was in it I think right the guy who gets up and like crashes everything yeah yeah exactly yeah uh yeah and now he said he's he's the guy in the motorcycle with the hat you know and so forth right I I recognize him but so much of this I was like holy cow there's no wonder why the NFL wanted nothing to do with this movie right right right and and to me the main aspect for them on that it's not necessarily the race though because the NFL had been dealing with that and they actually had a pretty good draft that year we can get into the 1999 draft uh as far as black quarterbacks but a lot of it is the drug stuff right and I think uh another historians at the movies uh North Dallas I want to say North Dallas 40 is the movie with Nick no playing football player I hope you get it right um but that's dealing with drugs too it's late 1970s lot of lot of drugs a lot of painkillers and this one they're dealing with that and and the fact that the doctors are the ones like pushing it right like and this doctor spoiler if you haven't seen this movie 25 years later right is is messing up the x-rays just so they can get a guy to play and it's like life or death situation and he's like this whole point of like I'm not going to keep him away from the money and I think that's what the NFL doesn't want us to see and there's no way you can make it now because I think they probably even had a problem with that Will Smith who probably shouldn't have been in that that movie where he plays the oh the concussion film yeah the concussion film right um that's what they don't want us to see it's it's how drugs were part of football and that's the only way some of these guys can actually play right and and and I think the NFL I don't know if they've made strides but what they've done is is try to make the game seem um safer and so like for instance you have people wearing different caps now different type of helmets in the game that to to protect them from concussions they've suspended folks um over drugs I think New Orleans saats um I want to say they got suspended over like kind of their their drug like they had them like just out there like it was candy um so they could pop those painkillers and stuff like that and so the NFL has had to deal with these and they did the same thing ESPN had a show um about football and the NFL wasn't very supportive of of it either so they really try to protect their brand even though their brand is very violent right this is we watch a lot of football in this country because we like the violence in it um and so they're just trying to protect the fact that these guys have to go through a lot of stuff that's going to impact them later um like the drugs or acting like you don't have a concussion did you ever uh did you ever play football at any uh I was uh the best way let's let's do a movie reference uh necessary refence did you see that one yeah I was it's major league for football yeah I was the receiver for necess necessary rough this right like so you know senior year in high school I played it's not like I couldn't c i I just beat him deeper we didn't throw actually and so was it was like the worst theyve promised a lot oh we're going to throw and this and that and I had no clue and then we ran 98% of the time and I'm just sitting there blocking and like this is just as awful I want to get back to basketball um but you know the good part about it is you know you really make friends lifetime friends the two a day stuff and and the same stuff we teach about sports and sports history um just the idea about discipline and toughness and just kind of going putting your body through it now back it was the mid 90s so you know water makes you weak uh you know it's 100 100 degree days probably wasn't safe um like my kid Cross Country Practice got canceled last week because it was like high 80s um and we're sitting there practicing in the hundreds you know what I mean like it's just a different just a different era uh but I did yeah I did play yeah I get people ask me a lot you know fairly often like what position did you play and I'm like trombone so you know W yeah you're a big guy you're a big guy now did you lift weights in high school or did you start lifting afterwards no man I started lifting after my divorce actually I didn't I didn't pick up a weight until until I found out that I was going to be you know on my own for a little while and then that was like quite literally like I found like Sport and all that kind of stuff actually to be that you know that version of like escape and you you know as an older guys going through graduate school stuff like that you know you don't siphons don't pay a lot you don't have a lot of money to do stuff so I could go go to the gym at the University of Minnesota and that's what I would do for like two hours a day every day because I didn't have to think about history or relationships or anything else like that for two hours a day I could Escape in the gym and that's just you know and you know that's what I was did for I was fortunate that the University of Minnesota was in a pissing match with the University of Michigan over who could have like the nicer student facilities um so we had really you know we had like really good stuff there but no no I I have no athleticism L I'm like I'm awful I am no I can I can just get in the way um but no um all right I want to ask you I want to kind of jump into this thing uh so much of this revolves you know I guess bino is kind of carrying this film in a lot of ways but you know I guess the one B story it's Willie Bean in this in this idea you know there's so much of this um talking about how you know beaman's on the rise he's actually the third string quarterback coming into this into this film and you know into replacing uh Dennis Quaid and so forth um and he's really good right and it's like kind of comes out of nowhere and the argument is like no I've always been good but you guys wouldn't allow me to be good so I guess what I want to talk about now is like this film comes out in 99 seems like it's it's kind of ahead of time we've obviously already had big quarterbacks in the league by that point time you talk about Doug Williams Warren Moon is the guy Randle Cunningham obviously is a guy like as as we as you and I kind of got older and stuff like that can we talk about you know this evolution of the black quarterback and like the resistance to having a black quarterback like you know the whole point of your book here like like where does this come from um so so like like you said we can get into Bean's character in a bit because I think it like speaks to a lot of it but but so the resistance to the black quarterback chapter one everybody uh um so so what I try to do with this book is like um so it's it's a narrative right of two like two guys lives as you said Doug Williams and Vince Evans both born in 1955 both born in the South right so this is 1955 the South this is post brown right and so the south is trying to figure out and and the way I want people to think about this book is like this is a book about civil rights right post civil rights like what happens if Meritt is truly goingon to matter and the quarterback for a lot of people becomes the measuring stick for that because it's the most visible visible position right you are he is the most important athlete in America right the the quarter the Prof professional quarterback so to have a black one means a lot because it's it's about it means you're smart you're a leader people look up to you you're a hard worker all these great qualities we celebrate and so by denying that you're saying black folks don't fit into that box and so when did it become that um when I talk about it in the book like right off the bat chapter one it's it's 1940 when the position changed um and so for those for folks who don't know up until 1940 the majority of the offense is what you call single wing you're not going to see a single wing offense in high school anymore if you do that coach is very very old uh he's probably under siiz and he's just like we're just gon to run it every time because we're a small school but it's a running offense the best way to think about is like when when the NFL went Wildcat and you're snapping it back to your best athlete and they're going and then in 1940 um the T formation becomes popular again um I don't I don't I won't go into the history of the T formation but just know that what happens is they start to send a guy in motion on offense and that way you could read the defense a little bit better and now they're going to start to pass and once they start to pass more uh precis becomes important learning A A playbook becomes important right you got to know the 400 plays you have the quarterback has to know what every receiver is going to do so you're going from one receiver in a tight end and a running back to two receivers in a tight end and to three receivers right you got to know blocking schemes and that happens in the 1940s and that the T formation goes from like a few teams running it like Chicago Bears and Stanford Cardinals they weren't the Cardinals at that time uh in 1940 running it to 90% of teams College Pros running it by the mid1 1940s every pro team is running a system like that by the early 1950s and that's when the quarterback becomes important and this is at the same time where Americans are like if you follow stuff about like World War II or even Athletics Athletics with Jesse Owens saying that you know black people are all Brawn and no brain and and now this position is become the most position important position in America and the question becomes well is a black person going to be able to play it U because there are certainly black quarterbacks at the college level especially at the black college level and so this book is is really by looking at Doug and Vince but also taking a glimpse at how that position changes how people fight for that is really talking about that stuff about racism one of the lines I say is like look the NFL before you have the you know the black quarterback it's like up until late 1960s it looks as if bull Conor was forced to pick a team right and and that is to say every position down the middle of the field was white because those are thinking positions and the people who were thought to have speed uh black athletes running back wide receiver defensive back were black and so Willie Bean's talking about that right he if I get it right you know he went to the University of Houston and he was like I've been at five teams and this coach wanted me to be a DB because I was quick feet I had quick feet every black guy who played from 1955 so 55 was the year that Charlie Chuchu brackens played like a couple snaps with the Green Bay Packers until 1968 when Marlon Brisco who was a college quarterback and then switched to DB and then got to be a quarterback for nine games they all got switched and the majority of them were switched to DBS just for the fact because they thought well they're fast like there's no such thing as a third string black quarterback they're not even wasting that time on you at that at that time um and so ban being able to be there at third string was kind of important right this idea that he hangs around so you know he has talent it's just that nobody's willing to tap into that talent because what happens is NFL coaches are so stuck in their way um and and and they don't want to to accept anything like so to me it means something that beaming comes from Houston Houston as a college like in real life starting with in the late 1960s early 1970s a starting black quarterbacks um so they have a guy like in the early 1970s DC Nobles who is one of the top quarterbacks in the nation regardless of race doesn't even get a sniff at the league um and but what's happening with a lot of colleges I I don't explain this enough in the in the book that you receive before the edits I spent a lot of time on this but colleges uh once integration starts to come it's a weird thing it doesn't happen on purpose but it just happens at the same time is that college football changes and they have these variations of offense so instead of like having like pass heavy offense they start to say you know you know what here's the ve here's the wishbone here's the triple option here are these option these offenses where we need an athletic quarterback who doesn't have to throw but can throw deep and and kind of mirror what they would do with the single wing and so they're going to start to who's the athlete it's the black guy right and so even in 1974 Tennessee has a starting black quarterback con Holloway Florida has a starting black quarterback there's like eight starting black quarterbacks in the big what we call the Big 10 right there's to you know Vince Evans will be part of the big pack eight but they're all over they're just not getting a shot in the NFL because every coach is like Al Pacino's character stuck in their ways and so what's important about what Oliver Stone's doing with that character is that he has to change because the game is changing people want to see that and I make that point I think within the first two or three pages like this I I use this um this Ford commercial from 1979 so I explain that it's like the first second paragraph right where I'm at literally watching this game on YouTube and then once it gets to this part they switch to this Ford commercial and Ford is pumping like um like hybrid cars which I didn't know existed back there all this stuff and I'm like this is this is what H is happening with NFL but they don't know it right the game is changing the changes the black quarterback um and so that's what they're trying to do with Any Given Sunday this is what I'm trying trying to explain the history of with the book like Vince Evans and Doug Williams so Vince is like very will beam Min s minus all the other stuff that that Willie Beaman represents Vince is 6'2 he's a 4540 guy and he's third string for for about a year and a half they want to switch him to receiver like he's the sixth round pick but if he was if he told the NFL that he'd play a different position it was thought that he's either first or second round pick um so he's but he sticks to his guns just like Willie bean and those characters are so important because those guys get cut like oh you you won't play DB you're out or you're going to Canada so to me like Willie Bean's character like perfectly syns with what's going on in the book I know that was longwinded sorry listeners no no you kidding me like that's that that's exactly what I was hoping Lou I have so many questions coming off of that actually um so if you will C can you talk a little bit about the concept of stacking because you talk about this early in the book and I think it helps helps to explain uh the the the way that the people are kind of positioning men in their heads yeah so so stacking in sports is this idea that you're putting people in positions based on race and based on these kind of racial stereotypes so black athletes would get stacked in like as a DBS or wide receivers and today like if we want to even talk about not not Reverse Racism but the kind of reverse stacking is you barely see like a white running back right Chris mcaffry who uh plays for San Francisco was the first white running back drafted in the first round in like 40 years right and usually what happens with white guys is they're told you're not playing DB so this year is a big deal because I think there's three for the first time in a long time playing defensive backs uh one was drafted I want to say the Eagles drafted him in the first or second round which is very rare so like for example when 1968 eldris dicki who played for Tennessee State uh uh he's the first black quarterback drafted in the first round Raiders by the Raiders they'll promptly switch him to receiver but Al Davis makes the point that like look I only have one there's only one white DB in the AFL right and I got them on my te right so there's only one white DB because they're like already early on they not playing this right um but you can play middle linebacker you're just not playing these other positions here so that's kind of how stacking works if you're a baseball fan it's black guys don't really get a chance to play cat I don't think there's an African-American catcher maybe like there might be afro like Dominican or something like that but africanamerican catcher generally you're put into the Outfield where you can use your speed uh rather early in their careers uh very few pitchers there's probably a handful probably less than 10 Black starting pitchers I'd have to I'd have to check African-American starting pitchers it's just and that's just how it works in all of these Sports we see Dennis Quaid as not the prime picture of mobility in in this in in this film right and then that got me thinking about you know growing up you know growing up in the ' 80s you know I'm 47 so like I remember the first quarterback I think I ever really recall was you know was actually with the Bears right uh it was you know it was in that 80 you know it was in that 85 season and it seems to me Lou like there was almost this this idea that white quarterbacks were not supposed to there's almost like this odd Pride aspect it's like white quarterback can't run they're slow and then they have to throw the ball right and they're their leaders have men and all this kind of stuff right um then you had guys like you know Randle Cunningham who could who could run right and then later on you got Mike Vic and these these other guys I wonder did did you're when you're looking back and seeing this stuff where was there actual were there negative um stereotypes towards like white guys who who were athletic at times and like that like white guys who played you know like these like these really you know hyper athletic guys like Evans and so forth do we like you're not playing like like the white guys should play you're not slow you're not you know so forth did you see that too yeah so the great the the quarterback in the late 70s who retires with as leading passor in the NFL history is Fran tarkon right and Fran is a scramble he's so he's not a Scrambler like Scrambler like like I talk about this one of those chapters when when I'm dealing with Vince Evans getting drafted uh because he's really the first black quarterback who could run that gets drafted um and and so the idea is that you know you stand in the pocket and and the thought is that the black guy is gonna run out the pocket and it messes up the timing of everything and and he runs out because he doesn't have the courage like you have to stand there because these guys are coming and this is like free like we're going to protect you Era of football and they're going to slam you to the ground and I think a lot of the belief was they're just not gonna run and and so I mean they're not gonna stand up parking so Fran who's a white quarterback he gets the Vikings I want to say he gets some to like four Super Bowls they never win but he's like the leading passer and he rarely gets hurt uh and so one of the things that like black commentators make newspaper writers is like you celebrate Fred Taron now he has his like people you know shoot him down just like we do any other athlete but it's not like the black athlete right like like you could have like the way they thought about like wait a minute this guy is one of the best players in the league and we have guys who are faster than him who could throw farther than him and we're not getting a chance like there's something wrong here so like so Fran becomes for me this important figure I wish I would have I could have wrote about more but just the way editing Works um so I put him in this chapter originally it's like this chapter with all Marlin Brisco but it just didn't work for the narrative and so that stuff is slid to a chapter about when Vince Evans drafted like what do you do with speed and one of the things we talk about is is kind of the Scrambler and the Scrambler is somebody who's just running around whereas you know just running just running to running and what these black athletes would say like I'm not running to running I'm I'm moving to create opportunities right to like Marlin Brisco if if listeners don't know was the first black quarterback to start and this is 1968 and he's small he's about 5 foot T which is small for a quarterback and he's like this gives me better pass Lanes now we're we're into this point where we understand that a little bit but to the day if you watch football like someone like Bryce young who plays for the Carolina Panthers is small and the talk is always about those kind of passing lanes that quarterbacks has whereas the athletic quarterback the athletic black quarterback is moving around to create passing Lanes to buy himself time to to like well why would I take a 10 yard sack right the the white immobile guy takes the 10 yard sack right that's what happens to Dennis Quaid's character Willie Beaman gets out of that sack and maybe make something happy and the NFL for the longest like we don't like that like this is this is this is not this is not what we want to do here um so that's that's when we talk about running and we talk about scrambling it's in there and and the guys like I said it before Vince is the first one with speed to actually get a chance that's why he's so important to this book because he's he's pre Randall now Randall's 6 foot4 running a 4540 so it's a little bit different but he's pre Randall he's pre Vic all these other guys the people before him uh I'm not we're not going to count Marlin because Marlin I don't want to be rude but he gets he's a college quarterback gets switched to DB gets to play quarterback for nine games and then they switch them to receiver but the other guys uh James Harris 6'4 Grambling didn't run even though he could Joe Gillum uh played at Tennessee State didn't run um and some of these other guys didn't they didn't Doug Williams who was second fastest in the league doesn't really run unless he has to he'll pick up running touchdowns um and in fact Doug what I try to explain in the book is Doug goes to Grambling James Harris goes to Grambling their coach Eddie Robinson one of the greatest college coaches ever in the mid 1960 makes this point that says look I'm going to get me a professional black quarterback and one of the things he emphasizes don't run because the moment they see you run they're GNA have visions of another position and one of his guys one of his best guys this guy's named Matthew Reid uh talk about him a little bit like a paragra I had again had a lot more but you had to cut that stuff down and he's a 64 four 4440 guy great arm the problem is he runs the 40 his best he runs a 44 and the moment that happens team's like oh yeah you're not playing quarterback you're tight end we'll use this speed somewhere else so some guys just ran slow on purpose or or wouldn't run at all so so the NFL wouldn't uh switch them wow um I want to ask you this about about Bean uh we see we see this in the film early on uh talking about like you can't control him he's making up his own plays he won't listen to people things like that you know his inventiveness on the field is seen as a absolute negative I think now maybe it's a little bit different we look at a guy like Pat Mahomes where it's like this guy's a j you talk about creating passing Lanes I don't even know that you could create call what he does as a lane where he can the the sorcery that that man can put on a Ball but I'm wondering was there a push back this idea of these like super cerebral guys who could create stuff and this idea like we can't control the black quarterback I mean I wonder is is because one of the things we talk about over and over again is like where are the black coaches yeah all the people all the people who are saying do this play do this play this play are white they're all white men whether they're owners or coaches or whatever so I'm wondering was there a sense Lou like these guys are out of control we can't control them kind of thing because of this like people afraid of this I mean am I reading too deeply into this idea yeah so so I would say this so the one thing about the quarterback that moves the idea was like once he moves everything gets thrown out of whack right because the offensive lineman gota know where they're going to be the receivers got to know where they're goingon to be but at the same time what when you read it the receivers like yeah I get it like this makes it B like I can know like right and nowadays we passed that and now we just call off platform right like you the platform is like you take your five step drop your seven step drop you get the ball out off platform is the Patrick mahom stuff you roll out and so like if you watch if our listen if your listeners watch like someone like Caleb Williams they said well he's great off platform U so he's the number one pick for for the Bears this year and that means he so the pockets here he could throw over there and that's the evolution of the position of the black quarterback but instead of saying that we just call it off platform right so if you watch Any Given Sunday ban was at his best when he was off platform or what they would call it then instead of saying scrambling roll out right and so what we know is that you can design a roll out play where the quarterback leaves the pocket the offense lineman will continue to block for that pocket and that's what a lot of people say like well why don't you just have them roll out more and so at the college ranks they would at the pro ranks they're just stuck in their ways right so it's not like you know I mean and then all of a sudden you become undisciplined I can't coach you you're not going to follow these plays and you're not going to follow these plays you're not going to know these plays so even Willie's going through that that kind of dumb black quarterback where he doesn't know the plays you know and his defense is like I just haven't had the opportunity right um and so Vince is for me again Vince Evans is so important to this because Vince was that guy like alucino was talking to Willie Bean again we spoiling the movie like first when he gets in the game he's like go watch the movie if you haven't seen this already watch the movie pay the four uh but he's like imagine you're on the streets playing and but that's just how like that's how he talks to him right you're a street quarterback and and so he has this kind of Street mentality but it wants him being brilliant right because when that quarterback leaves the Pocky the defense has to react and I think nowadays they're teams the innovated people this is what I kind of get at in the book see that as a plus like oh I can also have my guy run or I could create chaos in the defense by moving him a little bit but the coach and the quarterback has have to be in sync when you do that right you just can't plug somebody in there into a traditional offense like that if the court if the coach isn't willing to build around that and so part of the stuff I try to talk about with Vince is the Bears trying to figure that out can they actually do that right can they actually build a run around what we call nowadays a dual threat quarterback and that's where a lot of the league is going dual threat even someone like momes who we don't see him fast he's not fast but when he runs you better be ready because he'll take off and he'll get you 20 30 yards um or the key do a threat today is like a Lamar Jackson right who's fright 63 runs a 4440 and just can take off and you know as a fantasy manager got me like 200 yards throwing 100 yards running uh yes so um I want to ask you about say Vince Evans and I want to ask like like Bean is loved by the fans like we see this once he once he erupts right the fans immediately Embrace him do guys like Evans these early these other early guys do do they are they embraced by the fans or or or are they having to overcome an you know or is there an anti fan backlash for them because they're the black quarterback or H how are they being related to so the most interesting thing to me and and happens to this day the fa look in general the favorite player in a city of sports team is the backup quarterback right because you're never sa unless you have a great quarterback you're never satisfied with it right so so regardless great but I think what you see with Evans and and other black quarterbacks like Willie Bean right is the fans when they're on the bench and the the white gu is struggling the fans want them because they are exciting right and and I think Any Given Sunday does a good job of pointing to like Cameron Diaz characters like this puts people in the seats so they want them like people wanted Vince Evans to play so his rookie year 7 1977 his second year he first gets in the game in 1978 because he's like they want to see what newness is like they want to see what 44 five is like and no one has it it's exciting and and when they do well there's nothing more exciting in NFL when you have this young hot black quarterback just tearing up the league so if you think about when Lamar is like has this MVP year his second year that was fun or when Cam Newton was doing his thing when what 2015 or something I think they go like 15 to one that's fun or seeing Michael Vic the flip side is when you start missing when you not winning and then it's like oh this is a problem so if we watch the Chicago Bears last year it's it's Justin Fields right now they replace him with a black quarterback but it's there's this white guy on the bench and I want that right this is he's going to stay in the pocket he's going to make all the throws he's going to read the defense I'm tired of the runner get them out of here and that happens like all the time right so unless you have nothing but black quarterbacks on your roster right so if you're not if you have a black and a white guy on your roster you're gonna deal with that and and early on the the NFL teams as a point out I want to say like chapter 3 make these conscious decisions in the 1960s 70s to not deal with that right they're like look there's a civil rights move there's a black power movement going on we're not having any of this black quarterback on the bench stuff and then dealing with black fans and so I go through some of these cases Case by case bases but I also know that once the black guy does bad or there's a white guy waiting in their wings it's you know it's like oh get him out of here it's hate Mill it's death threats and so guys like James Harris um Joe Gillum who was the starting quarterback for Pittsburgh uh in the 74 season for the first six six games he goes 4-1 and one and they just put Terry Bradshaw back in like he beats Terry Bradshaw out legit legitimately goes on his feet in the preas preseason goes 41 and one in in the uh four six games and he's gone and he gets over even while he's starting 41 and one he gets over 100 pieces of hate mail just in that span and and eventually like he turns to drug like to cope I think part of it is to cope with the stress cope with the the body P punishment he goes through he's a slight guy at 63 he's a Stream ring and and he'll die later on of a drug overdose like you know 25 years later but I don't think Joe Gillum ever gets over what happened to him the racism that he faced what his families had to face simply because there's a white backup you brought up the 99 draft earlier this film takes place in comes out in 99 25 years ago go what's going on on the draft you talked a little bit about about the quarterbacks coming out that year was something different in the air at this time I mean this movie comes out at this point in time so what's happening yeah so for the 99 and I don't know if that they do it like they don't make note of it right because the movie comes out in December they probably worked on it but the black quarterback's coming and and so we to see that we've already had like the star Randall and and I think if I would to point to any quarterback before that movie coming out who would will it be probably be most likely would be like a version of Randall Cunningham who who was a star and was a mega mega Superstar um and and that does take over for a white quarterback a veteran and Rod uh jawaski who who call Jaws right um Philadelphia in the mid1 1980s uh but the 99 draft just is a signal that there's changes right and so if you watch like the evolution of the draft of the black quarterback you have you know eldis dicki is a first round pick in 68 I think it's like 25th pick by the Raiders he's switched to receiver and then you wait for a Whole Decade for Doug Williams to be the first round pick and then you have to wait 89 I think 90 for Andre wear uh he's gonna win the Heisman he gonna be an early round pick you'll go toam Detroit Detroit Lions um he go to Detroit like Miami the black quarterbacks that Miami have had are like handful like CH uh oh I didn't say C I was about to say CAD lion but he played for the Tigers uh like very like three or four like Ray Lucas I think Chad something Dante Co pepper and uh they did pick up uh Pat White in the second round that didn't work out um but very very few but anyway and then you have Steve McNair who's a first round pick so he's the highest pick for a black quarterback he's the third pick then you had the 99 draft and that draft is three black quarterbacks in the first round five total so it's uh McNab will go two Achilles Smith will go three and then Dante Co pepper I want to say goes 11 to the Minnesota Vikings and this just feels different like you have like you know Outlets like eony writing about it and other folks writing about it like oh my gosh racism is dead the NFL has certainly changed because three black quarterbacks the other black quarterback the other black quarterback is sha King not that sha King but there is actually a black quarterback named sha King he goes to Tampa Bay and I think Michael Bishop who's a electrifying college quarterback gets drafted but he's he's he switched pretty early on um but it felt different and then like I want to say two years later Vic is the number one overall pick and now since then we've um become comfortable with number one overalls um the last two years each straft black quarterbacks have gone first and second so last year was Bryce young CJ strout and then uh Richardson went Anthony Richardson went fourth this year it was cayb Williams Jaylen was going one two and then pinx was in the top 10 so we're getting to that point where it's normal to have black quarterbacks picked early in in the in the draft did this movie forecast names of inches and likeness like because beam is talking about that right so he's C if you I read Rex Chapman's book recently you know Rex obviously from Kentucky one one of my guys right and he's talking like everybody everybody in Kentucky was getting paid like everybody was getting paid College you know at at the big programs you know Willie talks about this he's in Houston so forth and he doesn't take much he's like I think get some clothes or something like that I can't I can't recall yeah but they're talking about this you know is are they forecasting you know uh inil at some point in time or no no you know I think the everybody knew these guys were getting paid and and it was just a sham right like is the Sham is that these guys can't get money and I think ban a lot of these guys don't really make the case that's the power of like Edon who who um sues the NCA change a game and and the fat five in real time kind of talking about it like someone like a Johnny Manzel who should have like like when he was in college now he didn't pan out in the pros but he was making a lot of money in the I think the next Netflix special that he had just talked about it where they just lied and said well you know his dad comes his family comes from oil money and I think because they were white people like you know what this makes sense like they out line that says and he was getting paid like thousands of thousands but he if you think about it he could have stopped and say you know what we're gonna fight this we're gonna fight for this mean you know happens whatever CA player went through is that he got paid and and somehow they found out and and then he lost eligibility but now you're right like there wasn't in that movie a push it was just like ah bad like albertino's character didn't say ah this is messed up these guys should be getting paid um I think the same thing happens a little bit in uh Blue Chips you know with Shaq and Nick no and um penny hardways in it where where the reason why he gets them is because uh I think Shaq gets a Lambo he doesn't want it PNY Hardway his mom gets a house uh Ryan Evans who's the white basketball player that gets a tractor that's where we're at now right that's where we're we're at there now but everything's above board um and it's just like you said earlier about Michigan Minnesota building up gymnasiums it's just the arms race like who you know how much money we could pump in over the top right um where everybody knows where you're signing these kind of car dealerships something Raising Canes or just straight up cash does the NFL want to talk about CTE in 1999 no no CTE no drug use right because I would admit that there's something wrong and they still struggle today so they're probably going to be upset atud that you that you asked that question they can buite me off Lou like that's fine I will shut this whole thing down all they have to do is write a check I am absolutely corruptible so yeah I know uh no but but you know and I don't even think if they knew what it was they weren't willing to minute back then like we knew it existed we just call it punch drunk right like we as boxers and I think that Jim Brown's character actually mentions it in that movie to Lawrence Taylor like you don't want to be walking around the punch drunk and fix and forgetting who you are now we just again we just thought of as boxers and the other problem is I think Society was perfectly willing for the longest time to accept it that this happens to these workingclass guys who risk their body right and I don't think there are people like oh this this is so sad poor boxers who who've been hitting the hit you know what I mean like like let's let's change this these rules around that let's change football around like I think a lot of people think you risked your body you made the money and this this is what happens and I think also there's not like major conversations out there like in real time about about the risk of football like we see it like maybe this guy hurt it hurts his knees to walk his backs to walk but very rarely do we talk about that brain I think that I I want to say was Jim Brown talking to Lawrence Taylor or something like that trying to make the point like it's not worth it to go out there play at the end of the day spoiler learns Taylor plays and gets his bonus but he's jacked up for life right you just figure he's going to be jacked up yeah yeah I just feel like you know I I saw I saw JJ Watt talking today that you know the new hats are out there now with the padding and stuff like that and I'm wondering it's the hats I guess are supposed to be shown to be even better towards uh protecting against concussions and stuff like that the guys just is this a masculinity thing where there's a there's a hesitancy like a to to to embrace you know these new big I mean those hats are huge like yeah yeah I think it's going to take you know so one of the best running backs I think James Taylor Jonathan Taylor wore it or said he was gonna wear it it's gonna take a superstar to to wear it but you're right like I think a lot of the guys who get in it say this I know the risk right now you say that when you're 22 you're not GNA say that when you're 39 right 40 because even as somebody who who who barely plays Sports my body hurts like I play basketball all summer and my knees like and I was like convinced myself like it's just for the summer semester starts and and young people don't understand that that their bodies change and and young we call them Gladiators and that's a a reference to that movie too because they do show some Like Gladiator scenes not like Russell Crow gladiators but some other stuff um they don't understand that either because you do think you're invincible so like the old guys are the ones who are broke down but they still play and they're not telling the young guys you never want see Dennis Quaid's character or Lawrence Taylor's character both who I think have like 15 plus years in the league at that time in the movie bodies are broken down ready to die at any time if they get hit they never tell the young player hey don't risk it it's not worth it yeah they just keep playing shoot up and they keep playing because that's the risk and I think the whole title Any Given Sunday is part of that like anything can happen right and I think the other thing is the problem is too that you're you're not in the league very long so the majority of guys what two three years and so you have this short time to play a game you love and to make 400 500,000 a year and I think people are like I'm gonna risk that for that shot of Glory to follow my dreams I worked so hard and very very few people would ever turn something like that down do we get a sense that Matthew Bin's doctor is going to go down the dark path like James Wood towards the end of the film because you know CU he's got LT like it's like hey give me what I need just hook me up and I kind of felt like he did did he not I mean I was yeah they all do and that's why you have to have uh they do right because they work for the and at the end of the day they work for the team and so that's you have like independent uh neurologists I think there's like independent doctors now I know how you air quote independent but so when someone gets DED up it's not someone employee of the team who watches it but I you know so you just hope that they're they're um in the right State of Mind no no pun intend and where they're gonna when they evaluate these guys because there's a lot of pressure right because if I don't allow this guy to go back then I get in trouble then I'm not working for you so and I think that he makes that decision right there so you're right like the moment he shoots up LT it's over like there's no going back what are your favorite parts of this movie okay so it's a very small seed and only because it relates to my book um the the black mayor who has an interesting role and and I think you know it's 90s it's the time when um sports franchises are being built and black Mayors have decisions to make in all these cities but we won't get into public financing and what black Mayors have to go through um Detroit but anyway um he tells Willie Bean like after his first day that he's like a hero and to me like that's my book like okay this is this is Doug Williams this is the meaning of the black quarterback like here's the mayor right and and the May so he's one of the most important political figures he's black mayor of a major city one of the most important figures in you know in this fictional story in America and he's like you're a hero to the community because you made it and you're the quarterback right you're not telling lt's character that who's the linebacker you're not telling um you know uh Bill Bellamy who's a comedian receiver in the movie or L Cool J's character that they're their Heroes it's the black quarterback and so to me I like that's the that's the point of the book right that's why this didn't mean something um other than that it's you know I wouldn't say like you know what's that say by the Bell see see you know that was my favorite show and so you're like wait a minute this a girl from Saved by the Bell um oh yeah yeah yeah um just went the wrong direction with her characters um sa Bell was like the perfect show uh sorry sorry listeners um but but I like that point uh I thought some of the the dance scenes were pretty cool like the celebrations and I think you would see that later on in in the NFL the grenade the grenade was awesome um it really was grenade you know but but yeah it was like you said it was long it was kind of long they didn't have to do a lot of the the I would say Jesse Spanos not name the Jesse Spanos alpacino scenes they didn't have to do a lot of that they didn't need that some of the party scenes that like the mansion and stuff like that they they could have really cut this movie out um but it's pretty good for what it what it needed to do yeah is this film almost focuses on Pacino too much because the I I feel like there's actually a better movie that's focused more on Beaman right than Pacino right right well Chino is the old white guy and but he's also I think it's a you have to kind of know I'm not saying you don't know anything but but I think there's like there's something going on and Oliver Stone doesn't want to let us in on it but you so you have to kind of know a little bit but because he's Italian-American right in real life and in that movie right and so there is like I think there's a point being made without making it that Italian Americans were treated differently and then his dad's like you have to watch the flashback like the owners owners of the team are an Italian are an Italian family they're Italian and they've assimilated and and so they're the new white people and I think the flashbacks are important right his dad dies in World War II and if we you know we talk World War II history like that's like the time where where you know italian-americans that white the hyphen nation momentarily uh goes away and for for you know until comes back and he's the Italian Stallion right but but and then there's that that celebration of Vince Lombardi like the pictures I think there's a lardi quote but the pitches all the time you see albertino's office is leardi now on the one hand he's the greatest coach ever but it's important to people that he's Italian American and I think the flashbacks that bean has of when he's playing he's struggling and it's these old like white crowd and so Bean represents the newness alucino represents old old white even though he was old his generation before was old discriminated white white ethnic now he's the old white guy and I think he's wrestling with that he probably understands that my people were treated a little bit differently too and he comes to see that this is the right thing to do like not only because Willie be helps me win spoiler he goes to a new team and he signs him and it's a way to get back Albuquerque Lou is is that it's going from Miami to Albuquerque is that is that really a I've been to Albuquerque I I I wouldn't mind being in the high desert but not not not not not for for for forever like I wouldn't mind visiting you know what I mean I don't mind the high desert and stuff like that if if Albert per is high desert uh but there's first of all there's no way that a team would ever go to New Mexico like that's I'm like how does this even happen like you know what I me like this the Vegas is sitting there in 1999 you could put them there in 1999 right and there's just no way just because the population won't support it but it's like one of those things in the movie that they don't talk about at some point someone leveraged that off right you couldn't get two teams in La now you have two teams in La fan base is not really there which is really weird um but yeah like like I think Pino's character realizes that that playing ban is the right thing to do not only Victory wise but makes him feel good um and and like no more flashbacks and stuff like that and you know get your life together type deal I wanna I want to go on the record and say that I do not recognize the Chargers as being a Los Angeles based team I I in my head every time I see them they're still in San Diego San Diego Chargers too yeah it's it's like the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim right um if you make this movie now 25 years later and it feels amazing to me because 1999 does not feel like 25 I remember what I look like in my mind's eye it's still 1999 what happens D yeah we're old what happens if we make this movie now 2024 what kind of issues are they deal are we dealing with now say versus nothing nothing changes like I okay so the one issue that changes you can't have those parties because everyone's got a camera uh yeah social media right social media TMZ everything we know we know literally everything about you when you go out somebody will post it um so that doesn't exist uh you you snoring all that cocaine I'm not saying these guys don't do it you doing in a a public party like that yeah we're we're going to know about everything right um but I I you know the painkillers the drugs I think still exists but I think legalizing weed has changed a lot of things I um I can't call what the NFL stance is on that because it's not like you're in Colorado and it's perfectly legal but I I'm not sure if they follow the federal mandate right whereas I'm not sure if Denver Broncos players can smoke weed to deal with their pain and stuff like that um but there's a lot more um conversations about mental health right it's not just like man up type stuff right let me let me tell you a story right about run through a wall stuff like that now it's like oh there's a place for you to talk every team has a a health professional there uh every you know these guys know the risk that they're going through now they might not have known about CT and stuff like that but that's all out in the open there are these independent doctors there so I think you know that's there um the issue of the black quarterback taking over for the white guy you can still you can still deal with that right or or just the the star celebrity black quarterback and just trying to deal just change the change the game for that is is still I think part of part of the the conversation have even though I think 15 or 16 started on opening weekend right none none start today um but still um today the listeners don't know when we're recording this we're recording this uh first week of NFL Monday Night Football so whatever the date is that the we were recording this two weeks ago is what we're doing because because you're coming out in two weeks I just ruined it everybody thought that until this moment happened that these things were live U no editing no no retakes um but yeah but I think that to me and and I had this interesting conversation with my class today we were talking about gender and one of the guys like we don't think like that anymore like this generation and I didn't I want to you know this generation is not perfect they got to go through a lot of things and they've had to go through a lot of things um but they're a little bit open-minded about certain things I'm not saying there's no bullying because obviously there's bullying and stuff they understand other things but they understand mental health way better than we did right um they have services on colleges you often get emails um from students about go you know I'm dealing with mental health and stuff and and more society's open-minded to it but football and football fans struggle with it and one great way we talk about the black quarterback here is we look at Chicago Bears Caleb Williams and number one pick and he paints his fingernails and he is carrying people call it's a purse it's a bag you know what I mean a very expensive bag um he cries he cried last year when he he lost the game and his mom's arms and he's very open about mental health about having these conversations about painting stuff on his fingernails about mental health and there are some people just think that is not going to work in the NFL right uh you can't be that type of there's if you're not an alpha male you can't make it in the NFL and any G Sunday was all alpha males like all and now we have this kind of push back to that and I think someone like Jaylen Herz I'm not saying he's not alpha male but he's very quiet and there's a lot of push back even watching him play even myself like you know I was his fantasy manager last year so I really cared about how well he did it's like when he threw a pick like I want you to break a clipboard but he's like oh and and some people say well he doesn't care but that's just how he is that's just how he process things whereas we grew up thinking like you got to slam stuff you got to yell I don't know again you I think you right you didn't play high school sports but we got yelled at every day I was a very competitive trombone player L yeah yeah I know I don't know we get yell at every day and I don't think you can get away with that as much whereas we just like well this is just part of it this this is just what happens you get making men out of them right right and it's like this this 40y old man yelling at like 16 year old kids because you know they got beat back door or something like that you're just like man I'm trying to like finish these classes talk to people don't have fun and you're yelling at me for not denying hard enough right um so yeah no in fact now I'm the 47 year old man yelling at the kids at the gym because they won't get out Off the Bench so I can get my set in so yeah yeah I know I seen you you're the type you're the you you you know I honestly like when I'm at the gym like I you know I don't work out as much lift as much as you but I I realized that if you don't then everything goes to crap like I you'll put on weight right like so you'll have a beer or two and then you'll just have this kind of very sedentary lifestyle if you don't stay active the order you get and then your pant it just changes every your pants don't fit you got to go buy a new set of pants so I'm at the gym more often one thing I can't stand is like dude get off your phone like yeah get in get your sets in get your playlist you know like I'm good if you get a minute if you don't if you don't you get a minute between reps that's I'm I'm good with that and no conversations nothing like that um and I like machines like I don't like doing free weights but you know and most gyms don't have like open benches like I think the why I go to has five now we're talking sorry listeners don't cut this out you no don't apolog I want to hear lose numbers here we're gonna go we have like five benches like open benches and stuff like that and they're generally full like if I were to go to the gym right now I get no chance of doing anything so I'm Monday dude you're not you're not doing chest on Monday yeah you're not doing chest because it's like you know nothing I like using the machines and stuff too on the chest now I don't do it for the bench but just so the little Contraptions and stuff like that if that's taken up like my gosh so someone's talking and not getting in and out I don't I don't want to work in with you right I have my own set schedule and stuff I get in and out like 20 minutes I don't take any breaks um I do opposite I know this is not get you big this doesn't get you big and strong but let's say if I do chest so I'll do something chest and right away I'm doing shoulders or back right and that's my rest and I just get in out like 20 minutes and then I'll do some cardio sorry I only really get grumpy if people don't rack the weights oh because that's a that's a common courtesy like you might have somebody coming in behind you who's not as strong or something like that you know or some older like rack your weights rack your weights man all of them like not even like the 45s you like gotta take them all off all of them they all come off they all come off because I don't I don't know who's coming behind me so I just want to make sure you know do so much weight whatever you do you wipe down are you uh always do you wipe down before or are you just going before and after I mean but usually I always after because I don't care what happens to me you know the trip now I'm getting you off subject the trip about uh Co when you went back is like for the first time you really started to care about your hands like I was like I'm getting dirty I'm not g I'm not a little kid I'm not gonna start licking my fingers and stuff I do the thing with the fingernails with you know I like getting in the cracks of the hands I'm never I'm never going to the same gym as you cuz but but you know just wiping down before and after just kind of thinking about these days yeah sorry to get you guys off topic yeah are you Kidd me listen to this pod we're off topic 97% of the time on this pod this is the most on topic pod we've ever done right um I want to ask you though actually because you brought this up I wonder L what the the thing that's in my head though that hasn't been addressed though is like sexuality in football I'm talking I'm talking about homosexuality like gay men playing football is this a thing that that we have yet I mean we haven't seen this on film to my knowledge um you know there's a scene I guess in the dentel Washington movie where where one of the guys uh kisses the other guy a big deal right but like these are the yeah these are really are these conversations are still waiting to be had or you know I wonder about this so I think like we're doing movies what's the movie um Aden Sandler prison one they have a character long yard Longest Yard I think I don't think I think the guy winds up being like a cheer or something like that but right um and I there's one open player play for the Raiders I don't think he's in the league anymore and then Michael came out after right right and then Michael that was like two years ago but Michael Sam who played that's right at Missouri and this is where you're like okay this is the problem because he was like SC SEC player of the defensive player of the year that's in any given year that's first round second round pick and I don't think he they don't pick him till the seventh round and just people like yeah it's not going to work out he's gone but I you know I honestly think like I said this generation is different and I think teammates know like at Grand Valley there was an open um a want to say on the football team uh player and I think this generation receives it a lot better I think social media is awful and makes it worse and so there's always like people like joke around like someone like Odell Beckham Jr so you can see like well there's this rumor look at him in the hot tub with this other guy is his teammate right and and I don't I don't think a lot of people who are who are fans fans are just nasty and and I know social media is a hard place to read things but I think the generation are playing now are are are better than the generation before and I think would definitely be o okay with that right right um and I think you you could do a movie around that um but I I don't think obviously just just the way stats are when people come out after their playing careers I don't know if a player gonna risk that right like it's the same thing as players making decision to play her right it's like I get two three years to play this game I'm not going to I'm not going to risk that maybe later on and maybe they don't feel comfortable dealing with the pain now in other sports there it's changed right and so like like let's say the WNBA is like nobody came out for a long time um and this is the WNBA where people assumed it and and nobody would now it's it's open right and people understand that and now embraced it's embrac now I don't know like fandom has changed and that's a whole different conversation we can have around why people might like Caitlyn Clark or or Angel ree or college basketball in general more than like the pros because it's embraced um but but there's room there I think there's room for it in basketball I think part of it too is that like I said before it's is just a different generation and so even if you watch basketball there's this player from duke who got drafted by the 76ers I forget his name might be jarem M I don't know I might be making up his name but he does all the little ticktock dances he paints his nails to I think he got an nil for like nail plot and stuff like that um and so there's there's people I'm not saying anything about sexuality and people obiously they question that and stuff like that and it's a man's game there's no way you're gonna have that in the locker room but if you're good you're good and if you're a good person you're a good person and I think this generation understands that a lot better than Generations before them I have to ask you about cap yeah um because the other thing I kept thinking about is what about politically socially active men on the field or any other sport right you know cap has been uh K Kaepernick has been uh he's been part of our conversation now for a decade now uh it's it's almost yeah and you talked earlier today about reason why Sports history is so important and things like that and you started listing some of the some of the people that you talk about things like that I I see on Facebook and stuff like that uh oh why SP have to be political now well it's always been political right could you could we make a film about a guy like Colin Kaepernick who I is there a fear of is there do you think after what happened to him yeah clearly there was a push back by by the league to kick this guy out to keep him out is there it was that a signal to other black athletes other athletes in general keep your social activism at home keep your political activism at home uh keep your conscience at home like yeah and it always is right um this what happened with John Carlos and Tommy Smith at 68 Olympics it happened to mm Abdul Ru with the Denver Nuggets Craig hoders with Chicago Bulls and and they do that for a very important reason so people don't do it why you do it to cap right like because if you don't do it to cap uh then everybody all these black athletes are going to Pro in their mind they're going to protest we won't have control of them anymore and so that's why early on 2017 season when more and more athletes are are kneeling here come the owners like Jerry Jones oh we're going to link arens with you we're going to do these things we'll start these programs with you 2020 George Floyd uh post George FL George Floyd moment when black players were talking about black lives matter and even like a quarterback like Patrick Mahomes is doing that that's when League like Roger goodal is like okay we hear you we made a mistake and now you're living and again uh Tyreek Hill gets arrested yes not gets arrested but puts in handcuffs before the game and now he's asking the question so on September 8th right he's asked the question what would happen if I wasn't Tyreek Hill right and and it's like well the league just kicked this guy out right and so now in the 2017 they kicked Kaepernick out and now the league has to have this conversation because it's it's a mile away from the stadium and it wasn't just tyreo was kalas Campell who gets put in handcuffs and it doesn't matter if he was they said he was speeding or whatever so you don't treat a human you don't treat them as like the suspect and it's on video of him like being like I don't know if he's being pushed or he's being kicked and stuff like that and so now they're dealing with it in real time it's like like can you make a movie out of it and so this is you know historians at the movies and I think what the closest we got to this was I say Higher Learning the Ice Cube character uh dying to talk about the film now he wasn't an athlete but trying to get Omar UPS to see how like these college athletes are treated it's very 1990s kind of like talk where it's just you know we're just g off the cff like this is how you treated this this very 199s they don't talk like this anymore in 2024 It's Like Rappers don't do this movies aren't made like this like yeah what's his name who made that was single John Singleton made that John Singleton but the the idea of this kind of conscious black athlete and and you know Omar ABS having to deal with that and and who also plays a running back by the way in your favorite movie The Program uh so not bad he gets to play I want to say a basketball player in Love and Basketball he's uh and he's running back in the program and I've seen too many movies in a program and uh what will we talk about just there um H careful you're gonna talk yourself into getting invited back man because there's there's there's so many movies look and I hate to spoil it for listen was like before we came on on air um James roal Jones passed right we got the news about that and one of the tweets I had so this is real time one of the tweets I had was that um he played Jack Johnson in the Great White Hope movie uh early 1970s he played like a Josh Gibson type if you know baseball Negro League Baseball and bingol Ling Bingo Long and the traveling all stars and and one of the interesting thing about that movie is like it's the only movie made about the Negro Leagues that I think went to the theaters and so that was mid 70s we haven't had a Negro League movie in about 50 years made for the movies now uh HBO had one that was uh made for HBO with Blair Underwood and Daryl or Lindo which is really good it's about kind of when Jackie gets signed uh right bingol bingol long has Star Wars characters James R Jones and Billy D Williams in it and there's Richard Pryor who wasn't in Star Wars but uh what is he Superman I believe and then James Ry Jones in milons huh brers that's a yeah Richard Pryor was a is a piter a black pcture of Brewsters Millions what a fantastic with John Candy as his catch and J Jones played a uh just a average negro leager in um The Sandlot um where he was like I play with George and it's like oh George oh yeah go ahead do it oh no no no I'm no no but God God man no the whole time you know you were the one who broke the news to me and he's been the back of my mind the whole time we've had this conversation um Lou nobody's work stands on their own yeah who influences you as a scholar like who's put you on this path to this conversation we've had today what works have blown your mind the stuff that's influenced you as you've as you've developed as a as a historian and a sports fan and frankly as a man like who's you yeah so I would say like I'll just go to like the historians in my life who who really shaped me and first I'll say um my my major advisor recently passed a few weeks ago uh so Clarence Walker at UC Davis and and Clarence was you know o older this black historian um very like critical thinking reading wise was there's nobody better and so we used to have like just great conversations and and he was kind of in Sportsman didn't do Sports history but just he knew he followed and just the way he was just very sharp but the the idea that you know in I'm dating myself here but in 2003 when I applied to the PHD program at UC Davis uh with that Jack Johnson uh you know boxing paper he saw something in me right and something in the fact that that that you could do something about race and sports now he wanted me to do a more Mike Tyson thing and that probably looking back probably would have been more lucrative um but I wasn't ready for that like writing is just you have to like write and write and write and you wouldn't want to I wouldn't want to Mike Tyson book is my first book right because I just coming off a dissertation you're not ready to write anything like that um so was Clarence who who saw that just believed in me and never never gave up when he he could have given up and and and as I struggled through like the first couple years of grad school and just just writing and stuff like that and then Joe pity who was at Zach State um who was one of my professors there who the same thing just saw something in me and allowed me to do Sports and then Shirley Moore who was like my only black professor ever um historian um did California history uh great book great great book on Richmond um if you ever read the book I think it's color of Law and that's the book about redlining I all his stuff is just her stuff like when you start reading about Richmond like oh that's her stuff um and so it's these these historians that I've been in my life at these small institutions that's just really believed in me and and and so I always try to pay it for like when I see a student who has like just just great potential or or if they don't like if this is what you want to do and you think you continue to work hard um then I'll support you no matter what um you know I'll write the letter we'll just you know chop it up in my office we'll talk sports or whatever so that when it comes to writing uh for the book I won't I won't I won't name anybody because I don't want to leave people out but but I just I realized for this book like I had to read a lot more I had to read about writing I had to read different types of books and then you have to do a lot of like reading from real time reading from the 1960s 70s and 80s and just to get a feel of how people wrote um at that time about sports and stuff like that and so like as a writer and a reader that's where I was at but when it comes to influences it's really those those torians that just just saw something in me and they didn't have to right um and there's very few people and and with this book right like and this is where it's got right this is what a trade press and there's very few Scholars we're getting more opportunities to do trade press but if you look at all the sports books ever that are trade press by like black males about sports it's a handful of people like ever like there's one on Jackie Robinson there's Howard Bryant there's a guy ESPN wrote a black quarterback book two years ago um like if we're talking about just writing a books not like you know interviews and stuff like that and so very very very Frank uh Frank Geri at Columbia has a book on stadiums that just came out like a month or two weeks ago and I don't want to say that's the list but there's very few who who get this opportunity and it's because of these historians in my life right uh Joe py Mexican-American CL Walker black Sher sh more black that the few people of color who said you know what this kid it's good grades um like when I would go no no knock on sack state but when you go to tell your major Professor they had no clue not your major Professor the adviser you know or whatever the head of the department like I'm a straight A student you have no you have no clue because you didn't take time to care about that but these other people like you know this guy you know Charles Robert who who did Native American history right these guys who who are especially the sack State people I know I'm long-winded but who are at teaching schools who are at r2s who who who you know what I mean like busy you could be in those classes they're like 90 students and took the time out uh for me no and that's who we gotta be yeah we gotta be that right um I got one last question for you l is Any Given Sunday a history movie um where yeah yeah yeah yeah um hold hold on like I'm like this I'm so bad at live cuz my daughter is like texting me in the middle of like I'm going to my friend's house before practice I'm like wait a minute you have basketball practice are you missing basketball practice like this is this is about to be a problem uh you know what in the sense that that you could use the movie to talk about certain things like this is like at this moment in 1999 like I think they could have done more on the city of Miami and just how public stadiums are finance and politics and stuff like that but but American football is the number one I know we see baseball as America's pastime but American football is it right it's the game um it is it is truly a multi multi multi-billion Dollar business and to have a story that gives you the kind of the inside of what the workers go through the Gladiators go through and how we really don't care about them and we don't because look when you play do you play Fantasy Football oh yeah all right when your guy gets hurt not saying you but when someone's guy gets hurt the first thing they do is oh my gosh like what am I gonna because you imagine like the Jordan love Fant fantasy managers who who watch their quarterback go out and your first thought is like who's my backup who am I gonna get right like like if cmc's calf is hurt tonight your first thought is not to cmc's wellbeing it's like oh my it's my number one pick do to me I will L I will lose this week yeah yeah and and I yeah and I think that's you know that's kind of where we're at with with how we see some of this stuff man um L I can't tell you I was so looking forward to talking to you today and this has been awesome and amazing and you've got three books out now so um everyone go byy all three I'm gonna post links to all three when we do this all three of them yeah yeah especially this one I want another shot like I want another shot at doing the trade books too but like yeah are are you kidding me you're listen as fast as you put stuff out you've probably written half of one a book like during this conversation so yeah right well listen we'll talking about we'll write the James R Jones and sports books what we'll do yeah yeah yeah no I'm tweeting my way through that that's a lot of EAS thank you so much for being here no thank you for having me I I really appreciate it awesome
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