A statue of Willie Thrower, the first Black quarterback to take a snap in the NFL, can be seen entering the Valley Viking Stadium at Valley High School in New Kensington. (Louis B. Ruediger | Tribune-Review)
Story by CHUCK CURTI
Oct. 15, 2023
Willie Thrower didn’t talk much about his place in NFL history. Not even with his family.
His son, Melvin, was in junior high before he learned about his father’s watershed moment. On Super Bowl Sunday in 1988, Melvin Thrower sat with his father in their New Kensington home and watched as Washington’s Doug Williams became the first Black quarterback to start — and win — the NFL’s biggest game.
Melvin Thrower remembers his father uttering one word.
“Finally.”
The declaration gave the younger Thrower pause. Then his father said something even more striking.
“One day they’ll know who I am.”
That’s when Melvin Thrower started asking questions. And what he found out remains little known even after 70 years.
On Oct. 18, 1953, Willie Thrower became the first Black quarterback to take a snap in the modern NFL. A rookie with the Chicago Bears, Thrower was summoned into the game by legendary coach George Halas when his regular quarterback, Youngwood native George Blanda, was struggling against the San Francisco 49ers.
Thrower had driven the Bears into scoring position when Halas — perhaps concerned that a touchdown march by Thrower would ignite a quarterback controversy of biblical proportions — reinserted Blanda.
Blanda and Thrower were great friends, Melvin Thrower said, and often sat together on the bus for road trips. One of the tidbits Melvin Thrower learned when inquiring about his father’s playing days was something Blanda said.
“He said to my dad, ‘You know, Willie, if I had your arm and I had your athletic ability, I’d be playing in this league the next 20 years,’ ” Melvin Thrower said.
Blanda did go on to play for another 20 years. Thrower, who died in 2002, appeared in only one more NFL game.
The NFL wasn’t ready for a Black quarterback in the 1950s. In fact, it would be decades before the NFL warmed up to the idea of a Black man leading the offense.
In February, two Black starting quarterbacks, Patrick Mahomes of Kansas City and Jalen Hurts of Philadelphia, opposed each other in a Super Bowl for the first time. Two months later, three of the top four NFL Draft picks were Black quarterbacks: Bryce Young (No. 1), C.J. Stroud (No. 2) and Anthony Richardson (No. 4).
Willie Thrower took the first step in the Black quarterback’s 1,000-mile journey. That journey has led to a seismic shift not only in the number of Black quarterbacks in the NFL but in how their abilities — how Thrower’s abilities — changed the way the position is played.
Robert Griffin III has done his homework. He can rattle off Thrower’s height, weight, even nickname: “Mitts,” because of his large hands.
What the former NFL QB and current ESPN analyst said he can’t grasp is what Thrower and other Black players must have gone through to break into the quarterback position.
Vince Evans has an idea. A Rose Bowl-winning quarterback at USC in 1977, Evans said he received death threats.
“There was a lot of negativity that went into playing the position, i.e., hate mail and threats and things of that nature,” Evans, who played for Chicago and the Raiders over 15 NFL seasons, told the Trib. “That was just part of the program.”
J.C. Watts, who took over as the starting quarterback at Oklahoma and went on to lead the team to Orange Bowl wins in 1980 and ’81, was told local newspapers received letters that said the fan base wanted a white quarterback.
“I had a couple of guys on my team who, I understand, quit because they didn’t feel right playing behind a Black quarterback,” Watts said.
The prevailing attitude through the NFL’s early years was that Black quarterbacks were incapable of running NFL offenses. Excuses abounded: They weren’t smart enough. They ran around too much and wouldn’t stay in the pocket.
In Griffin’s mind, those labels were just that: excuses. He said he believes much of the reluctance to give Black quarterbacks a fair shake — particularly in Thrower’s era — was a product of the racial climate in the country.
“The quarterback in the NFL is the face of your franchise,” Griffin III said. “Yeah, I could ignore the history of everything that was going on at that time and just say, ‘Yeah, coaches didn’t know how to handle these guys.’ … But I’d be wrong.
“There was a reason African-American quarterbacks were not put in a position to be the face of the franchise for a very, very long time, and it dates back to our own American history.”
So for many years, Blacks who played quarterback in college were made to switch positions in the NFL. There were a few exceptions: Evans, Williams, James Harris. But they were more in the mold of the standard pocket passer.
A player such as Watts, for example, was chased to the CFL, having been told he was drafted to be a third-down back.
“Although I thought there was a bias, a systematic and institutional bias about Black quarterbacks, in my case I think (the NFL) could camouflage it much better because I was a wishbone quarterback,” said Watts, an eighth-round pick by the New York Jets in 1981. “My senior year at Oklahoma, I threw the ball 81 times.”
It was one of Watts’ foes in the CFL who became emblematic of the bias against Black quarterbacks: Warren Moon. Moon had all the attributes: size, arm strength and enough mobility to keep plays alive. But he was told during the pre-draft process that he was being looked at as a defensive back.
“You couldn’t call it ‘racism’ because there were a number of African-Americans playing in the league,” Moon told the Trib. “A lot of times, we were ‘punished’ because of our athletic ability, believe it or not. Yeah, you can throw a football, but you can run a 4.4 (40-yard dash), so why don’t we put you at corner or put you at wide receiver where we can take advantage of those abilities better.
“That was kind of the excuses that they used. But you know what the real reasoning was.”
After winning five Grey Cups in Canada, Moon finally was signed by the Houston Oilers. He threw for nearly 50,000 yards and 291 touchdowns in his 17-year Hall of Fame career.
“The ability has always been there,” Griffin III told the Trib. “It’s been about opportunity.”
Black quarterbacks finally did get more opportunities, and many of them brought a new dimension to the position: the ability to run.
Not that quarterbacks from previous eras were inert. But running was seen as a way to get out of trouble or gain yardage when all other options had been exhausted. “Scrambling,” they called it.
Running ability wasn’t seen as an integral part of a QB’s arsenal. Then, more Black quarterbacks started unveiling the possibilities: Randall Cunningham, Kordell Stewart, Michael Vick, Donovan McNabb.
But NFL coaches needed to be convinced.
Stewart, who famously started as “Slash” with the Pittsburgh Steelers before becoming the full-time quarterback, recalled an incident during a game against Jacksonville in 2000 when offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride called for a pass. When Stewart saw the play wasn’t developing as planned, he took off and didn’t stop running until he crossed the goal line 45 yards later.
When he returned to the sideline, a call came down from the coaches’ booth.
“I go to the headphone set, and he asks, ‘Why the (expletive) did you run?’ ” Stewart told the Trib. “Even though I just got a touchdown, I have a coach cursing me out saying why the (expletive) are you running. I hung up the phone. I just scored a touchdown.”
Having coaches adapt to the unique skills of Black quarterbacks has been a crucial part of the acceptance process. Seneca Wallace began his eight-year NFL career in Seattle backing up Matt Hasselbeck in coach Mike Holmgren’s West Coast offense.
Wallace and Hasselbeck couldn’t have been more different, even beyond their skin color. Hasselbeck was the archetypal NFL quarterback: 6-foot-4, 235 pounds, stand in the pocket. Wallace, on the other hand, was 5-11, 205 and much more adept at making plays outside the pocket.
But, Wallace said, he was expected to be Matt Hasselbeck.
“For seven years, it was like, hey, I’m handcuffing you,” Wallace told the Trib. “Now I wasn’t told that, but that’s how I felt when I was playing the the West Coast system under Mike Holmgren where he didn’t want you to improvise.”
Wallace then pointed to the success coach Pete Carroll had in Seattle just a short time later with Russell Wilson. Similar size. Similar skill set.
The difference?
“They allowed him to be free and play free and be him and express himself on the football field,” Wallace said. “Whereas when I was playing, if you don’t get to your second progression, you better check the ball down.”
Evans gives coaches at least some benefit of the doubt.
“I don’t know that there had been a whole lot of quarterbacks that had run a lot,” he said. “And so that’s all that the coaches were really groomed to do was coach from a conventional standpoint. I think that they were evolving as well as the quarterbacks were.”
As Wallace pointed out, now there are more designed runs for quarterbacks, such as what Carolina did with Cam Newton or what the current Bills have done in running counters with Josh Allen.
A newer breed of coaches has expanded possibilities of what quarterbacks can do. Stewart credited Andy Reid as being the linchpin in that movement.
With McNabb, Reid’s Eagles teams went to five NFC championship games and a Super Bowl. Later, when Vick returned to the NFL after being imprisoned for dog fighting, Reid won the NFC East title with him.
And, of course, Reid has won two Super Bowls with Mahomes.
“(Reid) has the ability to understand the mobility of the quarterback and thinks outside the box,” Stewart said. “As I said back in 1995, I don’t need to be a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, 6-4 guy to identify when it’s time to get moving. … Coordinators just didn’t trust the mobility of quarterbacks, and it just happened to be the Black quarterback because the white counterparts weren’t mobile then.
“The Black quarterback has always been mobile and always been athletic and always been intelligent and smart and always kept the chains moving. … Now you have to use what was used against us in the narrative of today, which is, to me, will we have more Josh Allens come into the game?”
This is where the conversation changes, Stewart said. No longer is it about Black quarterbacks. It’s about mobile quarterbacks, regardless of color.
Mahomes, Hurts, Lamar Jackson, Deshaun Watson and other Black quarterbacks aren’t the only ones making plays with their legs. It’s also Allen, Daniel Jones and Trevor Lawrence.
The next NFL draft class will include dual-threat Black quarterbacks Caleb Williams (USC) and Travis Jordan (Florida State) but also white counterparts Drake Maye (North Carolina), Bo Nix (Oregon) and Riley Leonard (Duke).
Because not only have NFL offenses changed, defenses have, too. Athleticism on defense has begun to catch up with the offense, making a traditional pocket passer less ideal.
Stewart pointed to current Eagles edge rusher Nolan Smith, who, at the 2023 NFL Combine, ran a 4.39 40.
“The same way that it’s evolving on offense, it’s evolving on defense,” Evans said. “It requires everyone to be — particularly at the quarterback position — to have at least some mobility about them.”
This is why Griffin III said he believes the new prototypical NFL quarterback is in the image of what the Black quarterback always has been. What Willie Thrower was.
“It’s not to say that the new prototypical quarterback is a Black quarterback. That’s not what I’m saying,” Griffin said. “Willie Thrower was 5-11, (180) pounds with big hands, could throw the ball a country mile and was a mobile guy. In today’s game, you look for guys with big hands who can throw the ball really far and are mobile.
“All these guys that came before the Jalen Hurts and Patrick Mahomeses, they faced scrutiny for the same things that the new prototypical NFL quarterback gets praised for. That’s a monumental shift in the way NFL evaluators look at these players and the public views these players.”
That point was driven home for Stewart as he watched the 2023 NFL Draft. Kentucky quarterback and Penn State transfer Will Levis, who is white, sat sullen as he kept getting passed over. When he didn’t hear his name called in the first round, he left.
Stewart was struck by how the situation was flipped: a white quarterback passed over while Black quarterbacks went with three of the top four picks. (Levis eventually was taken in the second round.)
“I’m like, ‘Welcome. Congratulations,’” Stewart said. “Now you see what it is. You’ve got big muscles. You can run fast. You’re throwing the ball across the yard, and you’re disgruntled. Congratulations. Welcome to the party.”
The success of Black quarterbacks and their impact on the game is not lost on Moon. In the late 1970s, when he was coming out of college, Moon said he would have gone to Siberia to play quarterback.
Now, his successors, such as the Ravens’ Jackson, don’t have to.
“(Jackson) would have been a great candidate for either switching positions or going to another league if he had come out when I came out or maybe a few years after,” Moon said. “But I think because of the way the game is being played and the way that teams are playing their offenses, he’s somebody everybody would like to have one of.”
Wallace works as a private quarterbacks coach in his home state of Texas. He is seeing more dual-threat quarterbacks — Black and white — come through the ranks.
And while he encourages his proteges to make plays with their legs, he cautions them, “You’re a quarterback first, and you’re an athlete second.” The ability to play from the pocket, he said, remains critical.
“That (running first) is not going to win you Super Bowls,” he said. “It can extend games. It can extend plays. But … defense gets paid a lot of money, so they are going to find ways to take away your strong suit. So you have to learn how to play in the pocket as well.”
Watts has a more practical reason why quarterbacks should run judiciously: Exposure to too many hits could shorten their shelf life.
Still, the mobile quarterback seems as if he will be the rule rather than the exception going forward.
Melvin Thrower said his dad would have been proud. Sadly, he said, many people still don’t know about Willie Thrower’s groundbreaking place in NFL history. Or college football history, for that matter. He also was the first Black quarterback to play in the Big Ten while at Michigan State.
Even more hurtful, Melvin Thrower said, was many people — even in his hometown of New Kensington — didn’t believe his father when he would tell them about his importance to the NFL.
“A lot of people still don’t know my dad,” he said. “And I’m sure there’s people in a lot of other cities, they never heard of him.”
Moon has. In fact, he mentioned Thrower in his 2006 Pro Football Hall of Fame induction speech.
“He was the first one to play this position, that was allowed to play this position,” Moon told the Trib. “I owe a lot to him for the trails that he blazed during the time he came up, which was much more difficult than the times we live in now and even the time I came up. So he was a hero to me.”
Moon also used the word “innovator” when discussing Thrower. That’s how Griffin III sees it, too. The size. The mobility. The cannon arm.
Willie Thrower was the modern NFL quarterback 70 years ago.
“The things that were frowned upon before, everybody wants,” Griffin said. “The league could have had this back in 1953 if it would have just got out of its own way.”
• Marlin Briscoe (1968, Denver) is credited with being the first Black starting quarterback in the modern NFL. But Briscoe and James Harris, who came after him (1969, Buffalo), were playing in the AFL at the time. The first original NFL franchise to start a Black quarterback in the modern era was the Pittsburgh Steelers (Joe Gilliam, 1973).
• Between Willie Thrower (1953) and Gilliam (1973), only four Black quarterbacks appeared in NFL games, and two of them, Charlie Brackens (Green Bay, 1955) and Dave Lewis (Cincinnati, 1970-71), threw a combined 15 passes. Briscoe and Harris were the other two.
• Harris was the first Black starting quarterback for three franchises: Buffalo, L.A. Rams (1974) and San Diego Chargers (1977).
• Warren Moon was the first Black starting quarterback for four franchises: Houston Oilers/Tennessee Titans (1984), Minnesota Vikings (1994), Seattle Seahawks (1997) and Kansas City Chiefs (2000).
• Moon was the first Black quarterback elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame (2006) and, to date, remains the only one. He also is a member of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame.
• The New York Giants were the last team to start a Black quarterback: Geno Smith in 2017.
• According to Footballperspective.com, 21 Black quarterbacks threw at least one pass during the 2022 season, most in league history.
• In the NFL’s opening weekend for 2023, a record 14 teams started Black quarterbacks: six in the AFC and eight in the NFC.
• Entering the 2023 season, former Steelers quarterback Kordell Stewart was tied for fourth — with Steve McNair — for the most playoff victories by a Black quarterback in NFL history (five). The top three were Patrick Mahomes (11), Russell Wilson (nine) and Donovan McNabb (nine).
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Chuck Curti is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Chuck by email at ccurti@triblive.com or via Twitter @ChuckCurtiTRIB.