John Yang:
Tomorrow's Super Bowl will mark the first time in NFL history that both teams starting quarterbacks are black. Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles Jalen Hurts. It was 35 years ago that Doug Williams became the first black quarterback to start and win a Super Bowl. He threw a record setting four touchdowns in a single quarter and was the game's MVP as Washington beat the Denver Broncos 42 to 10. But since then, only seven Super Bowl Quarterbacks have been black.
I recently spoke with Doug Williams. I asked him about the moment when Kansas City kicked a game winning field goal to set up this weekend's historic matchup.
Doug Williams, former NFL Quarterback: I'm sitting there wondering, this ball go up through the uprights. And when it did, you know, I can honestly say that I got chills. I mean, I got chills, I got emotional, I got tears in my eyes. No water was running down, but it was dead. And I couldn't move for a few minutes. I just kept saying to myself, yes, yes. It wasn't about the fact that at that moment were going to have two young black quarterbacks going to the Super Bowl. It was really about the guys who were denied opportunity before me to get a chance to play in quarterback in the National Football League. You look at it from the standpoint. If they hadn't gotten that chance, would Doug Williams be the first with these two guys been the first two black quarterbacks? And you just can't help but to take yourself back and just wonder why and feel for those guys who didn't get a chance.
Doug Williams:
It's not only significant, it's historical, because this is the first time we've had two black coaches. We had one black quarterback to be the first. We've had other guys like Russell Wilson who's won, but it took him 25 years after I had won mine for us to get another black quarterback to win one.
You talk about black quarterback, historically, you know, the myth has always been you can't lead a team to the championship, you can't think you're not good leaders and things like that. But I think these two guys have proven not only to themselves, but to the fans that they play for, but to the America who watched football. If you're an NFL fan, you got to look at this as a historical moment and you got to take it as that and say that, what? We don't have to talk about this no more. We got two black quarterbacks who play the Super Bowl now.
Let's just let everybody get a chance to play. If you black, white, green or whoever, if they're good enough at that position, let them play. I hope we reached that plateau, which I know we probably hadn't. And you got some people out there would never accept this, but it is what it is, and you just got to go forward and not worry about the ones who want you.
