Just two years ago, only one playoff team started a black quarterback. When Doug Williams became the first black quarterback to start a Super Bowl in 1988, race dominated every interview. I'm not going to say it was racism, but coaches and people in general didn't see blacks as quarterbacks,'' he said the other day from his home. Some say that the embracing of blacks as quarterbacks could signal a shift in some of white America's assumptions about race. How significant this is in the big picture, I have no idea,'' says David Meggessey, the NFL Players Union west coast director.
Banks agrees, but with a caveat.
The good news of this playoff season is that African-Americans are getting to play the glamorous and admired role of steely nerved, heady leading man on the football field. The bad news is that, in 2001, it is news at all. Joan Ryan is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle.