Super Black

A strong month for Black men in football culminates this weekend with the Super Bowl. Amidst the hirings in both the NFL and major college football, two young brothers were making history of their own.  Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson is the focal point of the Pacific Northwest's second entry into the Big Game.  He and his San Francisco counterpart, Colin Kaepernick, had a memorable NFC Conference Championship game two weeks ago where it looked like the 49ers had a shot at returning to the title game, only to be thwarted by a well-timed tip by Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman that resulted in a game-ending interception and the now-infamous rant by Sherman immediately following the title clinch.  "Thug" inferences aside, the tilt featured two interesting athletic moments for Black men.

That conference championship featured two Black quarterbacks for the first time since the NFL-AFL merger.  It also guaranteed that the Super Bowl would witness just its fifth Black starting quarterback since Doug WIlliams' memorable performance for the Washington Redskins in SB XXII against the same Denver Broncos that Wilson will face (the others making the title game include the late Steve McNair for Tennessee in SB 34 and Philadelphia's Donovan McNabb in SB 39).  Had Kaepernick been able to complete the pass to Michael Crabtree, it would have been the first time that a Black quarterback made the Super Bowl in consecutive trips.  That's not to say that Blacks in the so-called "thinking man's positions" haven't held their own as of late.

Dating back to SB XLI, the only time in league history that Black coaches have opposed each other (Chicago's Lovie Smith and winner Tony Dungy of Indianapolis), there has been either a Black coach or starting quarterback in six of the last eight battles for the Lombardi Trophy.  Among the highlights in this stretch is Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin, who may have put himself one step closer to Canton and the Pro Football Hall of Fame by being the only one in this select group to have made the Super Bowl twice, winning a topsy-turvy Super Bowl 43 over Arizona before falling late two years later against Green Bay.

What was notable about SB XLV is that Tomlin and Co. had to endure a rather unseasonably-chilly Cowboys Stadium in Dallas.  Wilson is about to do the same thing in NYC at MetLife Stadium, where a foot of snow dumped on the Big Apple last week.  It will be interesting to see if the Cincinnati native can weather the elements and bring Black quarterbacks just their second-ever win in the NFL Championship.  Win or lose, however, just the mere presence of Wilson in the title tilt caps of an outstanding month for Black men on the gridiron.