HBCU (Football) Legends: Players Play

[EB]

HBCU Legends: Players Play

Date: Wednesday, October 20, 2004
By: Jason "Jake" McDonald, Special to BlackAmericaWeb.com

Somewhere a rumor was started that playing college football at a HBCU meant you had no shot at playing in the National Football League. Eighteen NFL Hall of Famers starred on HBCU campuses before going to the league. In direct opposition to implied recruiting propaganda the cupboard is not bare.

Ever since Marion Motley a fullback out of South Carolina State enjoyed great success in 1946 the numbers of African Americans has increased. Motley became the first African-American to win all-league honors with the All-American Football League. His success signaled an increase in the arrival of black college football players

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[JROCK]

Thanks for sharing this article.

 

[Journalist]

Thanks for sharing this article.

With success like this when and how did the rumor get started? It all boiled down to winning and money. As television sets made their way into more and more households sports broadcasts garnered more viewers. Between 1952 and 1978 fees for televising college football rose from $1 million to $7.8 million. Coincidentally, the National Collegiate Athletic Association* (NCAA) voted in 1976 against distributing that revenue to all football playing members2.

By 1982, broadcast television and new cable companies spent upwards of $31 million to televise college football. The broadcast agreements allowed schools selected to participate in the NCAAs revenue sharing, to build top-notch facilities and increase scholarship reserves.

this here sounds like some good ol' fashioned disenfranchisement and anti-trust type stuff..Where's Robber at when you need him?