Friday, September 10, 1999Blake, Smith opening doors for black QBs
BY GEOFF HOBSON
The Cincinnati EnquirerBengals receiver Willie Jackson is watching four-year-old Sir throw the ball and there's no doubt in his mind his son can become an NFL quarterback.
Just like there's no doubt in Willie Jackson's mind he could be a quarterback in the league right now if things had been different 10 years ago when he arrived at the University of Florida as an all-state quarterback from Gainesville.
But he knows first hand it can happen now in this watershed NFL season of 1999. He's catching passes from Jeff Blake and Akili Smith, a rare moment in NFL history when a team's top two quarterbacks are both black.
It happened briefly in the late 1980s when Rodney Peete and Don McPherson had a cup of coffee in Philadelphia behind Randall Cunningham.
But it will happen after here again. It will no longer happen as often as a solar eclipse, thanks to the ”99 NFL draft.
“I guess you'd have to say it's about time,” Jackson said. “For years there had been that stereotype of the black quarterback that he could move and throw, but he couldn't think. I knew I could play. But I set my goals the highest coming out of high school and I wanted to play in the NFL.
“Why would you fight a battle you'd most likely lose?” Jackson asked. “ If I went out for the position and a guy was better than me, that would be something different. But when you go out and throw as well, read a defense as well, and you can do other things. . .It's almost one of these things you can look and say, "That's not going to happen.' ”
So Jackson switched to receiver in order to reach the NFL after being born about a decade early.
It will happen now after three black quarterbacks — Smith, Daunte Culpepper and Donovan McNabb — got drafted in the top 11 picks. As the trend goes, it's stunning considering in the previous 30 drafts only three black quarterbacks had been taken in the first round, Doug Williams (1978), Andre Ware (1990) and Steve McNair (1995).
Consider when Blake was born in 1970. That was a year after James Harris, the NFL's first long-running black quarterback, came out of Grambling as a two-time league MVP and was told he would be drafted higher if he played defensive back or tight end.
Harris said he would stay a quarterback. It had been virtually mandated by his coach and legend, Eddie Robinson.
The way Harris tells it, Robinson went to New York for an interview with the equally legendary broadcaster Howard Cosell. Cosell noted how Robinson had produced all kinds of NFL players at the nation's most famous black college, but he was still waiting for a pro quarterback.
Robinson's next stop was reportedly to Harris' living room in Monroe, La., to make the Grambling pitch.
But the scouts were right. Harris didn't switch positions, and he had to wait. He ended up waiting until the second day and eighth round to get drafted by Buffalo.
Consider in the year Smith was born — 1975 — Harris was the MVP of the Pro Bowl and went on to lead the NFL in passing the next season and he still couldn't nail down a regular job with the Rams before finishing his career in San Diego.
“I was always a play away from getting replaced,” said Harris, now the director of pro personnel for the Baltimore Ravens. “You always had to play under the pressure of playing the perfect game because you knew what would happen if you made a mistake.”
Consider when Blake started playing quarterback in 1978 in the youth leagues of Sanford, Fla. Warren Moon, who will no doubt become the first black quarterback in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, began his exile in Canada and didn't get his chance in the NFL for six more years.
Moon's agent, Leigh Steinberg, represented Akili Smith 22 years later, “when he came minutes away from becoming the first pick in the NFL draft,” Steinberg said. “A hugely significant event given that an NFL quarterback from a profile standpoint is the most visible and well-known position in all sports.
“Sure, you can look at it as Akili is Warren 20 years later and he was a the third pick in the draft this time.”
Consider when Smith was 12. Doug Williams came to town, fell behind, 10-0, and then buried the blacks-can't-win-the-big-one slur by throwing four touchdown passes in the second quarter of the Super Bowl.
But that was also the year Akili's father pulled him out of a youth league that wanted him to play tight end.
It was nice Blake and Smith had Williams to watch. After all, Blake grew up 60 miles from Tampa Bay, the team that drafted Williams, and Smith was thrilled Williams shattered the myth for good in his hometown.
But the men that pushed them and supported them not to succumb to the whispers of switching positions were their fathers.
Emory Blake and Ray Smith are both gregarious and passionate men who have the title of “reverend,' in their respective churches.
When Jeff Blake decided in second grade he wanted to play quarterback, Emory Blake, a high school coach and former college running back at Bethune-Cookman, made sure his son had the prettiest throwing motion in the state of Florida.
“The referees would fight to work his games,” Emory Blake said. “People knew of him, so when he showed up for a team, they wouldn't dare switch him.”
Over on the West Coast, Ray Smith, an excellent schoolboy athlete in San Diego who later worked with troubled youth, had to fight the battle almost yearly. That was probably because of Akili's size on his way to 6-foot-2, 220 pounds.
When Akili started out at 7 years old the day his helmet didn't fit, they put him at defensive end.
Even when he was in high school at the UCLA camp, the coaches wanted him to play receiver, cornerback or free safety.
“We're leaving,” Ray said.
When it came time to play in high school, they opted for the team that needed a quarterback for the next two seasons.
“When he was four, five years old, I used to watch him play "kill the kid with the ball.' It was like rugby and I was so impressed with the way he would hand the ball off on double reverses,” Ray Smith said. “Just watching him led me to believe he was a natural quarterback and I figured if I didn't stay on top of it, he'd end up just being another guy on the line.”
Emory Blake didn't have to fight the fight until the college recruiters came into his living room. Sure, Miami, Florida, and Florida State wanted him. But they were thinking running back or cornerback.
“It was just unfair,” Emory Blake said. “They were willing to take a chance on him playing a position he never played before rather than quarterback, where he played all his life.”
When the man from East Carolina came, the Blakes made sure it was part of the deal. If Jeff was switched from quarterback, he'd still be on scholarship even if he didn't play.
Black quarterbacks is a subject on which Emory Blake has been far more loquacious than his son. Jeff Blake doesn't want to say much for fear of it being taken the wrong way. But Emory Blake, like a good preacher, can say things we often think about.
“When a white quarterback does what a black quarterback can do, like a (Mark) Brunell, or (John) Elway or (Steve) Young, he's a superstar,” Emory said. '"When a black quarterback runs around and throws on the run, he doesn't fit the prototype of an NFL quarterback.”
But that's changed in the last five years or so. A Cunningham or Moon that was the exception in the '80s is now the rule of the 21st century.
With free agency ripping apart the cohesiveness of offensive lines, defensive players becoming bigger and faster all the time, and defensive coordinators unleashing quarterback pressure just about every play, the pure pocket passer is going the way of the dodo bird and the Edsal.
“You have to be an athlete to play the game. You just can't sit there,” Jeff Blake said. “These guys are coming around the corner so fast, you're moving up (in the pocket) before you get set. You have to throw on the run.”
One of the myths Williams crushed on Jan. 31, 1988 in Jack Murphy Stadium was the black quarterback is merely run-happy and option-oriented. He did it by sitting back in the pocket and picking apart the Denver Broncos.
Harris, a big, strong presence in the pocket himself until forced to run, said more and more black quarterbacks are now studying pro offenses in college.
“For a long time the quarterback was just another back, an extension of the running game,” Harris said. “Now you've got guys playing pro offenses so when they come out of college they can read defenses and throw all sorts of passes and they're better prepared. Especially guys like Akili and Culpepper.
“It's the same reason why there haven't been many black governors, mayors and presidents,” Harris said. “There has been some unfairness to it and there hasn't been the opportunity. But it's changing.”
The unfairness is still fresh. Willie Jackson shakes his head when he thinks about one of his old quarterbacks at Florida, Charlie Ward. Ward won the Heisman Trophy, but not a spot in the NFL Draft.
“Best quarterback I was ever around down there and I was with some good ones like Danny Wuerffel, Eric Kresser, Shane Matthews, a lot of guys,” Jackson said.
But less than a decade later, Akili Smith is the new breed.
His father told him the story of how San Diego's own Marcus Allen was switched from quarterback to running back when he went from Lincoln High School to USC. So Akili introduced himself to his guidance counselor at Lincoln by predicting he would become the school's first NFL quarterback.
And he was the only one of the black quarterbacks at this past year's scouting combine to put the draft into historical perspective.
But he did it with color-blindness.
“My favorite guys growing up were Randall Cunningham and John Elway,” Akili Smith said. “I liked the way they could run and throw, always keeping their teams in the game.”
The other day before opening a season that will change the NFL forever with Smith, McNabb and Culpepper in the wings, Smith said, “I hope we can do well for the next generation.”
They already have.
Jeff Blake has a half-brother who is 17 years old. He's 6-foot-2, 215 pounds and has an arm to die for. A decade later, Florida, Florida State and Miami are back in Emory Blake's living room and, funny, but wide receiver or cornerback hasn't come up.
Meet Brandon Blake, soon-to-be college quarterback.
“I guess they reckon they were bit once,” Emory Blake said. “They don't want to be bit twice.”
“It's a different time,” Jeff Blake said. “He's a big kid. He can throw. He can move. There's no questions. I feel like I've helped my brother a little bit. Because of my name, who I am, what I've done. It makes it easier for him ... ”
And for others.
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