This upcoming season is an historic one for several reasons relating to at least three of our most treasured alumni brothers.
Tank Younger signed as an undrafted rookie with the Rams 75 years ago in 1949. It was a significant contract signing in that Tank, who starred at Grambling State, became the first player from a Historically Black College or University (HBCU) to join an NFL team. He had a 10-year pro career and was named to the Pro Bowl four times (1951, 1952, 1953, and 1955) as a Rams running back/fullback. After his playing career, he joined the Chargers as the league’s first Black Assistant General Manager and enjoyed a 13-year front office career in San Diego. Although he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2000, Tank, who died in 2001 at age 73, is NOT in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
One Alumni member who IS enshrined in Canton is former Raiders tackle Art Shell, who played 15 outstanding seasons for Al Davis’ team alongside his Hall of Fame teammate, the late Gene Upshaw. The historic significance of 2024 for Shell is that it is the 35th anniversary of him becoming the first Black head coach in the NFL’s modern era. Davis named him head coach on an interim basis midway through the 1989 season. The interim tag later was removed, and Art was the team’s head coach from 1990-94. He was named NFL Coach of the Year during his first full season in 1990.
Finally, another NFL standout who is NOT in the Pro Football Hall of Fame is Doug Williams. This season marks 46 years since Williams’ unprecedented Super Bowl XXII performance in San Diego against the Broncos. As the first Black QB to start in a Super Bowl, he threw four touchdown passes in the second period on his way to 340 passing yards and the game’s MVP Award. It was a historic win not just for the Redskins (now Commanders) but also for a generation of athletes who later used Williams as their quarterback role model. Hall of Famer Mel Blount, a big supporter of Williams’ candidacy for Canton, says: “Doug that day in San Diego showed thousands of young Black high school and college quarterbacks that success was possible in the NFL regardless of their skin color. Doug has many other qualifications but that one historic performance alone should put him at the top of the Hall of Fame’s Senior Players candidates for many of the Hall’s media voters.”
The 2024 NFL season will be a historic one but also one that will add its own many twists & turns right down to Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans on February 9, 2025.
