"We got a black quarterback, so step back."
– Seminal rap group Public Enemy, "She Watch Channel Zero", 1988.
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The pain shot from his left leg, up his back, ricocheted off his brain and into the consciousness of black America.
Doug Williams, the first African American quarterback to start a Super Bowl, had just hyperflexed his knee slipping on the sod of San Diego's Jack Murphy Stadium late in the first quarter of Super Bowl XXII. His team, the Washington Redskins, already trailed John Elway and the Denver Broncos 10-0, and it appeared Williams' thus far unimpressive day was done with his team on the verge of collapse. Seemingly, the fears of an entire race were about to be realized.
"Ain't no question," Williams said in a recent telephone interview with The Bee. "A lot of people would have said, Told you so."
They would never get that chance, though, never have the opportunity to say a black quarterback was not resourceful enough, not smart enough, did not have the mental faculties to lead a team to a title.
Not after Williams, who missed two plays, hobbled back on the field and engineered the most explosive offensive quarter in Super Bowl history. The Redskins scored five touchdowns in less than six minutes of the second quarter en route to a 42-10 blowout of the favored Broncos. Williams was named the game's MVP, throwing for a then-Super Bowl record 340 yards and four touchdowns on 18-of-29 passing.
As such, the NFL is honoring Williams after Sunday's Super Bowl by having him help present the Lombardi Trophy to the winner.
"Doug's spectacular performance in Super Bowl XXII was historic not only because he smashed Super Bowl records," NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said in an e-mail, "but because he helped smash stereotypes."
Not a bad day's work for the cannon-armed quarterback from Grambling State who, the day before, had undergone root-canal surgery and spent the previous night devouring a bag of Hershey's Kisses.
But when the game was over and prying cameras wondered if Williams was going to Disneyland, his college coach, the legendary Eddie Robinson, joined him on the field.
"What you just did is as big as Joe Louis beating Max Schmeling," Robinson told Williams, harkening the landmark and racially charged 1938 heavyweight title fight, a rematch in which the Brown Bomber lifted the spirits of his people by avenging an earlier loss to the former Nazi champ with a first-round knockout.
"You'll fully realize it in 20 or 30 years."
Thursday marks the 20th anniversary of Williams' breakout game. He understands his place in history – even if it took awhile for Williams' Super Bowl success to create a groundswell of African American quarterbacks in the NFL.
"It breached the psychological wall that was so deeply imbedded in American society that blacks could not play quarterback at a championship level," said sports sociologist Dr. Harry Edwards. "It breached the wall; it did not break it down."
The 20-year trickle, though, has warmed Williams' heart. All he has to do is scan today's rosters to see that black quarterbacks, while still a minority on depth charts, no longer are an anomaly.
Consider: Thirteen African American quarterbacks started a combined 95 games for 10 NFL teams this season (in 2001, a then-record 12 started 112 games). Plus, there were five other black signal callers on rosters who appeared in a combined 13 games, including former Cordova High School standout and current Seattle Seahawks backup Seneca Wallace.
And that's not counting the shamed Michael Vick, a three-time Pro Bowl player jailed for his role in a dogfighting ring.
In all, 14 of the NFL's 32 franchises had a black quarterback on their roster this season, with the Raiders, Baltimore, Jacksonville and Atlanta boasting two apiece.
It's was an unthinkable percentage when Williams first came into the league with Tampa Bay in 1978.
And while Raiders rookie quarterback JaMarcus Russell, the second black quarterback to be chosen No. 1 overall in the draft – Vick being the first in 2001 – was only 2 when Williams dominated the Super Bowl, Russell understands how the performance helped open the door for him.
Bee staff writer Jason Jones contributed to this report. Call The Bee's Paul Gutierrez, (916) 326-5556.
