{"id":6030,"date":"2011-08-13T06:13:47","date_gmt":"2011-08-13T10:13:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/morningseditionists.com\/msblog\/?p=6030"},"modified":"2011-08-13T07:02:50","modified_gmt":"2011-08-13T11:02:50","slug":"saturday-72","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.morningseditionists.com\/msblog2\/2011\/08\/13\/saturday-72\/","title":{"rendered":"Saturday"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s Saturday, so let’s talk sports. Football, to be exact. And not just football, but Canadian<\/em><\/strong> football. But first, we of course have to visit that legendary stop on the Underground Railroad known as (you guessed it) Syracuse. Back before Ernie Davis, before Jim Brown, before Avatus Stone<\/a> (but after Wilmeth Sadat-Singh<\/a>), there was Bernie Custis.<\/a> In the late 1940s, Bernie was the quarterback at SU<\/a> (interesting bit of trivia: his roommate was everybody’s favorite NFL owner, Al Davis). That would be no big deal, except Bernie Custis was (and still is) a black guy. Southern teams refused to schedule Syracuse because of that. <\/p>\n

…no \u00e2\u20ac\u0153major\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201d meaning white \u00e2\u20ac\u201d college had an African-American pivot until Custis started for The Orange.<\/p>\n

But he played halfback and defence for his first two years until there was a coaching change and the legendary Ben Schwartzwalder brought the wing-T formation to Syracuse. He took one look at Custis\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 magic arm and legs (he was Pennsylvania State high school sprinting champion) and saw neither black nor white. He saw \u00e2\u20ac\u0153quarterback.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n[…]
\nCustis was Syracuse\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s MVP and in his college final game scored four touchdowns, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153but there were some southern schools that wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t put Syracuse on their schedule because of me,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he says, without a hint of bitterness.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Fortunately for Custis, he lived and played in the United States of America, where everybody is given the same opportunity, no matter how white they are, and he was drafted by the NFL’s Cleveland Browns<\/a> (they had an SU pipeline back then, I guess).<\/p>\n

…it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s difficult to imagine a time where a man could be told he couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t play a certain position because of the colour of his skin.<\/p>\n

However unimaginable to us, that was the reality that Bernie Custis faced when he first arrived with the Cleveland Browns…in 1951.<\/p>\n

A star quarterback for the Syracuse Orangemen in the late 40\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, Custis was never given a chance to play the position he grew up playing when he reached the professional ranks.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Imagine being told, as a world-class athlete that you can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t play that position in your own country, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll have to go somewhere else to do it,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said William Armstrong, the producer and driving force behind a documentary that is slated for release in the new year, chronicling Custis\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 journey through the pros.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Not only was he able to persevere, and in fact flourish, but he did so without a chip on his shoulder.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153He was able to take all that negativity and turn it into something positive, which is really the inspirational part of this story, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what makes him a hero,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Armstrong.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So Custis did what countless black people had done before – he got the hell out of the US and went to Canada – to Hamilton, Ontario and the rather redundantly named Tiger-Cats.<\/p>\n

Sixty years ago this month, on Aug. 29th, 1951, Bernie Custis became the first African-American quarterback to earn the job of regular starter for a professional football team. Not just in Canada, but anywhere on the continent.<\/p>\n

Custis broke the quarterbacking colour bar just four years after Jackie Robinson became an international hero as the first African-American to play major league baseball.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Custis had an immediate impact on the CFL.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153From day one…Bernie was head and shoulders above the other players at the quarterback position,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Armstrong.<\/p>\n

He started every game for Hamilton that season and was named an All-Star for his efforts, leading the team to a 7-5 record before falling to Ottawa in the Eastern Final.<\/p>\n

Custis would go on to play for both the Tiger-Cats and the Ottawa Rough Riders, winning a Grey Cup with Hamilton in 1951. After his career ended in 1959, Bernie decided to stay in Canada, settling in the Burlington area and earning a degree in teaching. Custis enjoyed a long career as a teacher and principal, before becoming the head coach at McMaster University in 1981.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sadly, Custis’ career was cut short by both injury and, apparently, racism (yes, even up there in the Great White North).<\/p>\n

Custis was voted the all-star quarterback in the four-team Big Four, as the CFL East was then called. But the very next year, [Hamilton coach] Voyles made him a halfback \u00e2\u20ac\u201d essentially a demotion. Many who were around at the time suggested that Voyles, a southerner, couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t deal with the concept of an African-American star pivot, but Custis shies away from that discussion.<\/p>\n

From the start, Custis was the Cats\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 biggest attraction, winning the fans\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 nod as the most popular player in both his rookie year and in 1954. But in early 1955, when Custis suffered a severe charley horse, which was medically mishandled, Voyles traded him to Ottawa after first asking him to take a 66 per cent pay cut.<\/p>\n

The following year, at the age of 26, Custis\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 playing career was through.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Tiger-Cats are honoring Custis today, so if you’re in Hamilton, ON, feel free to attend. Especially if you live in the the Southwest US; I’m sure you’ll appreciate the cooler weather up there, eh?<\/p>\n

As for me, I’m gonna try and forget that I broke the rear lift link on my tractor. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s Saturday, so let’s talk sports. Football, to be exact. And not just football, but Canadian football. But first, we of course have to visit that legendary stop on the Underground Railroad known as (you guessed it) Syracuse. Back before Ernie Davis, before Jim Brown, before Avatus Stone (but after Wilmeth Sadat-Singh), there was Bernie […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.morningseditionists.com\/msblog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.morningseditionists.com\/msblog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.morningseditionists.com\/msblog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.morningseditionists.com\/msblog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.morningseditionists.com\/msblog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6030"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.morningseditionists.com\/msblog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6030\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6032,"href":"https:\/\/www.morningseditionists.com\/msblog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6030\/revisions\/6032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.morningseditionists.com\/msblog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.morningseditionists.com\/msblog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.morningseditionists.com\/msblog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}