The journey of the Black quarterback in the NFL has been well documented through interviews, features, books and documentaries, and it continues to be a point of interest for sports fans and academics.
I have covered it consistently over my long career in media, and it’s a subject always worth paying attention to because of the many storylines, reactions and moments it entails.
From reading the new book The Great Black Hope, it’s clear that the journey of the Black quarterback is essential to continue to cover.
Professor Louis Moore, a First and Pen contributor, has given us a book unlike others we’ve read for it’s both narrow in scope and broad in coverage, which is not an easy task.
Moore’s latest work focuses on the parallel paths of Doug Williams and Vince Evans, college football stars who rose to become NFL players whose legacies are cemented in NFL history.
Most sports fans know about their accomplishments, but Moore has successfully given us more than the obvious through a story that is fluid, infuriating, educational, frustrating, informative, surprising and uplifting.
Williams’ story is the more well-known of the two. A star at Grambling, a player for the creamsicle-colored Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and an inspirational, barrier-breaking figure who, by winning the Super Bowl in 1988, proved that Black people could succeed in a position they were historically deemed unqualified to handle.
Evans, on the other hand, isn’t as well known or recognized, particularly by younger generations of NFL fans. But his journey from the South to the West Coast for college and to Chicago and LA in the NFL is equally as important for he too broke barriers and opened doors for others like Williams.
And while they traveled different paths, their journeys were similar and connected.
Both men grew up in the South; Doug in rural Louisiana, Vince in middle-class North Carolina.
Both men had legendary, athletic talents that separated them from others at a young age yet neither garnered immediate success in college or the pros despite their talent.
And both men, despite where they played, how they looked and the success they had, faced the same deterrent challenges posed by racism that attempted to bar them from the role that they were both highly qualified for.
But this isn’t just a story about overcoming racism to become a starting quarterback in the NFL, nor is it one complaining about the hardships these men faced to accomplish tasks others hadn’t.
Instead, The Great Black Hope is a multitude of stories focusing on the stories of two men who, on September 30th, 1979 on Soldier Field in Chicago, finally experienced the intersection of the two parallel lines they traveled along separately for decades.
“It allows me to tell a narrative, it allows me to tell a story in a way that I’d like to do it,” Moore told me regarding what other projects on Black QBs accomplished and enabled him to do. “There’s the two guys, both born in the South, and they’re both taking this route to the NFL, to this job that many see as impossible for them to get. So it allows me to really focus in a lot more on journeys and two different types of quarterbacks and different stories versus trying to fit everyone’s story in there.”
There was no way not to touch on what others had discussed and the individuals involved. That includes legendary Grambling coach Eddie Robinson, former Grambling star and NFL history-making QB James “Shack” Harris, former Washington head coach Joe Gibbs and former USC and Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach John McKay.
And while Moore could have written a book on each of these men, he focused on their impacts on Williams and Evans and how they connected the two.
“I knew, but I didn’t know [about the connections Williams and Evans shared] in the sense that I didn’t know how everything fit perfectly together,” said Moore. “When I started this, I was like ‘I got two quarterbacks, one that everybody knows, but I have two all-time great coaches that everybody knows and how do they approach this differently, how do they approach this the same?’
“And the one connection to everybody was James Harris.”
Harris’ importance to both men cannot be underscored for he helped mentor them through tough periods that he too had to endure to play the most important position on the field.
The Great Black Hope also explains the evolution of football offenses, which will please diehard football fans. But its inclusion is really to educate readers about how the evolution of offenses both helped and hurt Black quarterbacks, whose athletic talents caused many coaches to wrongly switch them to other positions instead of molding an offense around their talents. This was a problem plaguing Black quarterbacks for decades until coaches began to adopt the RPO more, which has transformed today’s game.
Another theme that runs parallel to these stories is the events transpiring in America and how they shaped the lives of Williams and Evans.
From World War II and Brown vs Board of Ed to the Civil Rights Movement, these years impacted the opportunities, careers and perceptions of both men.
“I wanted to let the readers know how hard these guys were willing to work because the knock on the Black athlete was he wasn’t going to work that hard,” said Moore.
When you read about how hard their coaches forced them to work to earn their positions, and how close they both came to quitting football, you will have more of an appreciation for both them and Moore’s approach.
While the book reached its moment of celebration when Williams and Evans faced off in that historic 1979 game, marking the first time two Black NFL starting quarterbacks played against each other, the events off the field years prior brought us to that important day.
And that’s the story Moore really wanted to tell.
“This is not just a sports book. It’s a book about American society,” said Moore. “The way I write books is I’m telling a story about America through the window of the Black athlete. This is a story post-Civil Rights America and what the hope is for a lot of Black Americans moving up that economic and social ladder. And the quarterback becomes the vehicle to tell that story.”
When reading the book, you will be glad that Moore not only told this story but that you received a history lesson that you sadly won’t get in school today, especially if you live in the states where Williams and Evans were born and raised over 60 years ago.
That’s even more reason to buy The Great Black Hope.
