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The Last Bastion of NFL Discrimination
08/22/06
by Clay

In ancient times (the '50s, '60s, '70s and '80s), black quarterbacks were the hot-button cultural issue when it came to football. Maybe it's because the first quarterback I remember consciously rooting for was black -- the University of Tennessee's Tony Robinson. I've always found the black quarterback debate to have left behind most people of my generation. This debate always seems like something old white people like to rehash to prove how liberal and equality-driven they used to be. Okay, we get it. But your generation's battles aren't our own.

Most people in this generation couldn't be offended in the least by anything Rush Limbaugh could ever say because we don't even know who he is. It wasn't until I was eight years old and watched Doug Williams in Super Bowl XXII that I even became aware some people cared about their quarterback's race. I remember asking my dad why anyone cared about Williams' race and he said, "Because some people are idiots." This succinctly summed up the issue for me.

Then, about 10 years later, Tee Martin won a national championship for UT and Steve McNair took the Tennessee Titans to the Super Bowl. This pretty much sealed the deal even for the idiots. In Tennessee, as in most states, if a quarterback were magenta or saffron (think Sergio's British Open outfit) and could win games, he'd play.

I think it's safe to say, that at least for this generation, black quarterbacks are no longer the most discriminated players on the football field. That's because according to a Web site, this honor now belongs to white wide receivers.

As a kid, one of my favorite receivers was UT's Craig Faulkner. Faulkner was a tiny white guy with a flat-top and an ability to get open against any defense. Playing against Boston College in a 1993 bowl game, Faulkner made an actual behind-the-back catch on third and a mile to keep a drive alive. Faulkner was among a group of early '90s Tennessee receivers that were so talented they were able to disguise the fact that then quarterback Heath Shuler had an IQ of approximately 43.

This was a fact the Washington Redskins overlooked when they took Shuler third overall. To this day, Redskins fans are still angry at Shuler. But that's another story entirely. Today at Deadly Hippos, we're focused on oppression, not overcompensation.

Faulkner's nickname on the Tennessee team was Vanilla Ice. Allegedly, Faulkner earned it because like the Iceman rapper (remember, this was before Vanilla's second album collapsed and his ensuing fit of insanity on MTV where he destroyed the set with a baseball bat), he also was a successful white man in a black man's business. At least that was the rationale of Tennessee's talented receiving corps who christened Faulkner with his nickname. Predictably, upon his graduation from Tennessee, Faulkner disappeared into white wide receiver purgatory -- another victim of the NFL's longest running discrimination.

Thankfully for young, aspiring white wide receivers who would like to emulate Matt Jones of the Jacksonville Jaguars or Drew Bennett of the Tennessee Titans, they now have their own champion, Mike Sembler, who will fight for them by any means necessary. That ... or by forming a blog entitled, " Caucasian Wide Receivers of America".

The CWRAA (perhaps the extra A is designed to throw off angry assassins) is beginning the campaign by assaulting "hate language" like, "possession receiver," "deceptively fast" and "gritty, team player." To this list I would also add, "great hands," "solid route runner," "excellent recognizer of coverage schemes" and "no one's baby daddy." All of this is just plain wrong and discriminatory, especially when the CWRAA rallies the masses with this enlightening and eternal maxim of football: "Fight on, and remember: When you go across the middle, everyone's the same color!"

What color is that exactly? Regardless, I predict this campaign will be a rousing success. Until third and 12, when your team consistently gains three yards and punts because they are attempting to make completions to white guys with sub 7.0 forty times or hands the ball off out of the draw formation (I call this play the Tennessee Draw because the Vols are masters of running draws on third and long) and watches as your running back is swarmed within five yards.

Either that or the NFL will be stampeded by similar interest groups. Surely, Samoan running backs need an advocate. (Incidentally, my friend Justin recently sent me an article that claimed Samoan males born in the U.S. or American Samoa have 40 times the likelihood of playing in the NFL than other Americans.) And who can rest their head at night without midget Hispanic defensive tackles or North Korean right guards having someone to sing their praises as well? I know I can't. Bring on the football interest groups until we've made sure everyone in the world has a rooting interest. Maybe the NFL can even schedule an exhibition game in Pyongyang. Hooray! A touchdown! Everyone cheer! Free UN food from T-shirt cannons!

But I don't mean to make light of the horrible situation facing white wide receivers in this day and age. Allow me to dry my eyes and say that somehow, someway, maybe we can all join hands and lift every voice in the hope that white wide receivers shall overcome someday.

Adrian got run over by a T-Rac

My friend Kevin went to the Titans-Saints preseason game on Saturday. About an hour after the game, I ran into him at the bar. Did he want to talk about Reggie Bush or Vince Young? Well, yes, but not until after he pulled me aside and said, "T-Rac ran over a New Orleans Saints player just after half-time on his cart."

T-Rac is the five-time Titans Pro Bowl mascot whose name is, of course, short for Tennessee Raccoon. T-Rac slammed into the player and then kept going. Kevin said at first he thought the Saints player was an actor taking part in a skit, but then the Saints' training staff rushed onto the field and treated the player, who appeared to be rolling around in pain.

Even after I heard the story, I had no idea whether it was rooted in truth or not. It turns out Kevin was right. The next morning's paper identified the injured player, Adrian McPherson, a back-up quarterback for the Saints. And he truly had been struck by the mascot. Man, just when you thought wacky things only happened to current Florida State quarterbacks.

When asked about this incident, according to the article, "T-Rac declined comment." Well, of course he did. Everyone knows the first rule for mascots accused of malfeasance is to decline comment. I only wish there was video footage of T-Rac still in his mascot costume angrily storming through a maze of cameras and microphones. One can only assume this makes T-Rac a decided underdog in his efforts to garner a sixth Pro Bowl nomination.

Churchtastic skeptics

Several people e-mailed me about the Churchtastic column I wrote on Aug. 5. These people wrote in to say they loved the column but thought bits of it had to be exaggerated. Everything was 100 percent true. I only wish I was that inventive. As further proof, here was the bulletin advertising Sunday's "Back to School Illustrated Sermon" at Cornerstone which, unfortunately, I did not attend. Included in the service were to be live pigs, chickens, all-star cheerleaders tumbling down the aisles, a ram, wild cats, a horse and a wolf. And the services' message: "The world says you're insignificant if you're not the quarterback, but God uses the 'insignificant' in significant ways."

Deadly Hippos wonders what God says if you are the quarterback but a raccoon mascot on a golf cart runs you over.

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