Anyone of Goodwill is Pulling For Black Quarterbacks

Anyone of Goodwill is Pulling For Black Quarterbacks

From the movie, “Batman.”
Vicki Vale to the Joker: “What do you want?”
The Joker: “A little song, a little dance, Batman’s head on a lance.”

Substitute Rush Limbaugh for Batman and you’d have the attitude of the left-wing and left-intimidated lynch mob that finally got to hang Rush Limbaugh’s head on the wall of its trophy room. His crime? He suggested that sports journalists were rooting for black quarterbacks in the NFL and that their desire to see black quarterbacks succeed was influencing their judgment.

The quarterback in question was Donovan McNabb, of the Philadelphia Eagles. The jockocracy on ESPN’s Sunday morning pre-game show was pondering what was wrong with Donovan McNabb, who had played dreadfully so far this season.
Limbaugh opined that, just possibly, McNabb wasn’t as good as popular opinion believed, and that a sympathetic press was exaggerating McNabb’s talents. This is a reasonable thesis that reasonable people could discuss. But reasonable people do not control the conversation on race.

Personally, I would doubt the goodwill of anyone who could convince me that he was not rooting for black quarterbacks to succeed in the NFL. The NFL does not have a particularly stellar record when it comes to trusting blacks in positions of responsibility, authority and intellect. Both black coaches and black quarterbacks are very recent developments in the league’s history.

Rooting for black quarterbacks is not something to be ashamed of. I do it. I do it for the same reason that sports writers do. We all want to see the prejudices and clichés that hold all black people back demolished. And, our eagerness for that outcome colors our perception. Far too long I waited for quarterback Cordell Stewart, now of the Chicago Bears, to develop into the next Joe Montana. When he did something Montana-like, I believed that he was finally emerging. When he flubbed, I assumed that it was something he would grow out of.

As regards McNabb, even after his first good game of the season last Sunday, he is ranked as the 21st. best quarterback in the NFC. Okay, so he’s off to a slow start this year. But for his career, he has completed just 56% of his passes and has a quarterback rating of only 77. Both of those numbers strike me as pretty ordinary, and certainly not what one would predict after listening to hyperventilating sports journalists lavish praise upon him.
Is there a reason why hype contrasts so sharply with the statistics? Might Rush Limbaugh have proposed a reasonable explanation? Nobody at ESPN had the stones to find out.

Last year, an absolute Niagara of joy poured forth from the sports journalism community after each Notre Dame win. Most abandoned any pretense of objectivity. When the Irish won, their elation was palpable.

The Fighting Irish are a bit like the Dallas Cowboys, people either love them, or love to hate them. The sports journalism community probably breaks on the side of the haters. But last year, a good many Notre Dame haters (including me) were suddenly transformed into fans because they were desperate to see the new head coach, Tyrone Willingham, succeed.
Willingham is the first black coach of any sport in the school’s history, and one of only a very few head coaches in all of NCAA Division I football. If Willingham returns Notre Dame to its former glory, he’ll assist every potential black coach who follows. And I can go back to hating Notre Dame.

There can be no doubt that black quarterbacks were once unwelcome in the NFL. Warren Moon had to prove himself for years in the Canadian Football League before getting an opportunity in the NFL. Former Oklahoma congressman J.C. Watts was an accomplished college quarterback who was told upon reporting to training camp that he was going to be a defensive back. The Jets assumed that he lacked the necessities to play quarterback. Watts took his game to Canada too.

Sports journalism is rife with racial assumptions. A white basketball player’s success is always credited to his high intellect. He has a good head for the game, or he’s a coach’s son. The huffy-puffy sports community needs to examine itself.
The problem is not what Rush Limbaugh said. Rather, it is that he spoke a blasphemy in the church of political correctness.