History Black History Month
posted by on February 8 at 11:45 AM
I’m not a football fan, so I missed the whole first-black-coach-to-win-the-Super Bowl buzz.
All I can say is, what is up with the NFL?
The first black coach to win an NBA title (and at $125,000, definitely one of the top-paid people in the NBA at the time) was Bill Russell in the 1967/68 season. That’s nearly 40 years ago. 40 years ago!
Oh, and Russell wasn’t a supa Christian. He’d taken to calling himself Felton X, and was actually a bit of a black power freak.
Today, Russell lives on Mercer Island, I think.
Bill Russell is a national treasure.
yeah he is. my dad used to regale me with tales of russell as player/coach, and havlicek, cousy. true definition of dynasty.
Bill Russell: great player, even better raconteur. The kind of guy you could just sit and watch talk for hours.
I suspect the NFL is last because coaching in that league is, by far, the most intellectually demanding of all the major leagues.
As a result, the prejudiced would be least likely to give an NFL coaching job to an African-American.
I wish I had been alive to watch Russell play Chamberlain.
somehow the words "NFL," "coaching," and "intellectually demanding" seem oddly out of place in the same sentence.
Thanks Josh. This is cool.
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