In the aftermath of Super Bowl XXII, this excessive media focus on race came to be symbolized by an absurd (or, at best, poorly-worded) question purportedly put to Doug Williams by a naive journalist: "How long have you been a black quarterback?" This query now gets trotted out every year as the paramount example of really dumb things reporters ask during the build-up to the Super Bowl.īeing of a skeptical bent, we started wondering whether anyone had actually asked this of Doug Williams, and if so, who. ![]() To his credit, Williams handled the interrogation with aplomb, providing full, thoughtful answers to every question put to him, never snapping at reporters whose queries bordered on the ridiculous, and without expressing impatience or irritation with journalists who asked him the same questions over and over. "Doug, are you upset about all the questions about your being the first black quarterback in the Super Bowl?"Īctually, the craziest question of could have been put to Mark May, a Redskins offensive lineman, who was asked, "How does it feel to block for the first black quarterback in the Super Bowl?" And that was followed closely by a newspaper person from Colorado asking me, "How does it feel to be a black writer covering the first black quarterback in the Super Bowl?" Jesse Jackson or any other black civil rights leaders?" "Doug, have you been contacted by the Rev. "Doug, what were your reactions to what Jimmy the Greek said?" "Doug, will America be pulling for the Redskins, or rooting against them because of you?" "Doug, why haven't you used being the first black quarterback as a personal forum for yourself?" "Doug, would it be easier if you were the second black quarterback to play in the Super Bowl?" "Doug, do you feel because of the black quarterback issue, that the whole country is looking at you and saying, 'Well, what are you going to do?'" ![]() "Doug, has there been much progress in this country since 1970, when the schools you grew up in were finally integrated?" ![]() "Doug, would you have been able to handle all of this, especially the black thing, if you had made the Super Bowl a few years back, say, when you were 25?" "Doug, do you feel like Jackie Robinson?" That year the media fed the public an endless stream of "first black quarterback" stories, as journalist after journalist plied Doug Williams with every conceivable "black quarterback"-related question they could dream up.Īmong the queries put to Williams, as recorded by Washington Post reporter Michael Wilbon, were: Never was this phenomenon more evident than just before Super Bowl XXII in 1988, when the Denver Broncos squared off against the Washington Redskins: the contest was somewhat more notable than usual because the latter team was helmed by Doug Williams, the first black quarterback to play in a Super Bowl. Every January, the two-week break (which now extends into February) between the NFL Conference Finals (the two contests that determine which teams will face off in the Super Bowl) and the Super Bowl itself provides thousands of sports reporters from all over the world plenty of time to whip their audiences into a football frenzy, as they all seek some angle to distinguish that year's game from every previous Super Bowl.
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