In Black America; HBCU'S and The NFL with Little, Turner, McCafee and White

From the University of Texas at Austin, KUT Radio, this is in Black America. Here at the African American Research Library and Cultural Center, we recognize Black history every day, but it's not often that the Super Bowl comes to town. So with the nation's greatest sporting event happening in your backyard, you figure out a way to merge Black history and sports. Today's event was created with you, especially in mind, where we hope to educate local student athletes about the contributions Black athletes gave to the professional sports history. You will be engaged around the topic about the impact of HBCU football with a book talked by Dr. Deer White, which will lead into a lively panel conversation with HBCU alum, former and current players and leaders within the NFL.

The keeper falls to managing with the African American Research Library and Cultural Center located in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. During Super Bowl 54, we can solve Florida, the African American Research Library and Cultural Center, and the Urban League, but Brock County hosted student athletes from area high schools for a panel on the impact of HBCU's on football. The community event was supported by the NFL Inspired Change Campaign and the Miami Dolphins Football Unites Program. Miami Dolphins HBCU alum and former player Larry Little, running back the last tournament Dr. Derek E. White, Associate Professor of History in African American and African Studies at the University of Kentucky, and HBCU alum, Arthur McAfee, NFL Senior Vice President and a player engaged with panelists on the program. I'm John L. Hansen Jr. and welcome to another edition of In Black America. On this week's program, celebrate the legacy and impact of HBCU football in Black America. We'll go all together, dear friend.

I figure that we'll get to you. Graduating from HBCU so much different than going to a PWF because you get to know more people on campus, the campus is not as large, the classrooms are not as large, you have the instructor that know you personally and you're not just an image, you are a person at an HBCU, for instance, coming out of high school, I only had two scholarships that was to a one school, same Augustine College in Raleigh, North Carolina, and Bethune Cookman University, it was a college back when I came out. No training table, I mean, you go to a predominantly white school, I mean they have personal shifts, but though we had two people that cooked for us.

We didn't have, we only had two meals on Sunday. We had a breakfast, we had a lunch, and they gave me a greasy bag for dinner that night. It was all together different, and when I coached that with them, it was a little different because of that. You had grown some, my experience, I still would change it for anything in the world. The history of HBCU football began in 1892 from the cotton fields in the south to the slums of major American cities. Young African-American boys dreamed of glory in this newfound gang with only problem being that they couldn't play whatever they wanted. For more than 70 years, young African-American college found football players flocked to Black colleges and universities. While the major state institutions allowed only a few African-American players into their programs, the vast majority of African-American football players prior to 1965 played a historically Black colleges and universities.

Ten percent of the pro football hall of fame is comprised of NFL legends who attended HBCUs, that's 32 HBCU lumps in the football hall of fame. During Super Bowl 54, we can south-floor the area high school athletes had an opportunity to hear firsthand how HBCU football established itself as a prime location for NFL Challenge. The following is an excerpt of a panel discussion celebrating the legacy and impact of HBCU football. The discussion was moderated by Dr. Derek E. White's Associate Professor at the University of Kentucky. Today in our panel discussion, and these are our current panelists. Our first panelist is Larry Little, a former member of the Miami Doffins and a graduate of a Thoom Cookman. He's also a member of the pro football hall of fame. Larry Little played guard for both the Doffins and the San Diego Chargers. He was unselected to the 1967 draft, signing as a free agent with the Chargers. He was traded to the Doffins before the 1969 season when he was named an AFL All-Star.

He was a key contributor to the success of the Doffins punishing running attack of the mid-1970s, including their 1972 perfect season. Little was named the NFL Players Association, AFC Lament of the Year, three times in a row, 1971 and 72, and was selected to play in five pro bowls. He played in three super bowls, winning two, super bowl, seven, and super bowl, eight. A South Florida native, little attended Booker T. Washington in Miami before playing collegially at Bethoom Cookman. Since retiring, Mr. Little has served as head football coach at his alma mater from 1983 to 1991, and his head coach of North Carolina Central University from 1993 to 1998. He was inducted into the pro football hall of fame in 1993. Second is Delance Turner, is a current running back for the Miami Doffins. After going undrafted in the 2018 draft, he signed with the Baltimore Ravens as a free agent.

Originally signed to the practice squad, Turner was promoted to the active roster at the beginning of the 2018 season. He made his NFL debut against the Cincinnati to be in goals later that season. In November 2019, the Miami Doffin signed Turner. He played collegially at Alcorn State in Mississippi. As a senior, he rushed for a school record 1357 yards, the second most in FCS that year. He scored 10 touchdowns and earned first team all SWAC and third team all FCS, all American honors. He finishes career with 2100 rushing yards, fifth highest in schools history and 15 touchdowns. Our third panelist is Arthur McAfee. McAfee oversees the NFL player engagement staff which assists players in reaching their highest potential on and off the field by providing guidance, support, and resources before during and after their NFL experiences. McAfee is a founding partner of the McAfee group, a consulting firm that advises sports leagues and organizations including U.S. women's national soccer team, player association,

and the U.S. track and field athletes advisory councils, agents, athletes, and others on sports related business and legal affairs. Prior to that, McAfee was a staff council for the NFL players association and an enforcement representative for the NC2A. He is a graduate of Morehouse College and Howard University School of Law. He's also taught sports law contracts and negotiation at Georgetown University and the University of Pennsylvania. All right. I'm going to open up with a simple question to think about. Most students, if they follow sports or if they're interested in colleges, they know that schools like the University of Florida or Florida state and this state get tremendous amount of publicity and media. So how do you think the student-athlete experience differs at a HBCU from a PWI? In fact, what in particular, what are the positives of the Black College experience?

My experience personally, going to Alcorn State and Mississippi, we just had to make the best of each other. You know, you got all these black intelligence people coming from nowhere. You know, I had teammates from right here in Florida, Californian, Texas, you know. We just all used to come together and we just used to make the best of everything we had. You know, we didn't have that much to do off-campus and stuff, but we're just going to the parking lot and just have fun with each other, you know. We had all that, that band used to come in the parking lot and just play for us, yeah, all Gigi, just your dance and all the guys, just to just bond with each other and stuff like that. We'll go all together, different. I figured that would get to you. Graduating from a HBCU so much different than going to a PWI because you get to know more people on campus, the campus is not as large, the classrooms are not as large.

You have the instructor that know you personally and you're not just an image, you are a person at an HBCU. For instance, coming out of high school, I only had two scholarships. That was to a one school, same Augustine College in Raleigh, North Carolina and Bethune Cookman University, it was a college back when I came out. No training table, I mean, you go to a predominantly white school, I mean, they have personal chefs, but though we had two people that cook for us, we didn't have, we only had two meals on Sunday. We had a breakfast, we had a lunch and they gave me a greasy bag for dinner that night. It was all together, different, when I coached that with Thune, it was a little different because that school had grown some, but my experience, I still wouldn't change it for anything in the world.

I'm proud to say I'm an HBCU alum, and if you decide to go to an HBCU, you'll be proud when you graduate also. So I would have to give both of you the experience is, but I consider it to be a diverse experience that you have the ability to connect directly with your professors because of the size of your classes and the size of your university, the ability to connect with your teammates, your close proximity, and you have the ability to connect with other athletes, your coaches, I think coach Little will refer to this, the recruitment process is a little different that there is a real personal touch to the coaching that takes place. So I would say that the experience overall is one is a holistic and inclusive. I have alumni networks are strong, much like they are at PWIs, but the lifelong friends

learning that you'd have with, I think, is on par with any other institutions that you would attend. One of the challenges facing historically black colleges in this Martin Marketplace is the lack of exposure. So what are the things that HBCUs could do to improve the exposure for their schools, for their student athletes, and for their coaches? And I put the, let me give a little context behind my thinking on this. Last season, Florida A&M had a pro day in which nose professional NFL scout showed up, which was terribly disappointing. And it's also disappointing when the fact that they have their pro day on the same day as Florida State. Now, anybody knows the geography of Tallahassee knows that the space between Florida State University and Florida A&M is about a mile and a half at most. And so the fact that no scout decided to come over is a disappointment.

The second point is, and thinking about coaches, and this may be for you, Mr. Little, is that in the history of college football, only one black coach from an HBCU, Willie Jeffries had ever gotten a job at a predominantly white institution as a head coach. Is that something that coaches desire? Because I think that the legacy and the quality of the football has shown that not many black coaches are getting chances not so ever, but it has not been a stepping stone to no one goes from Bethune Cookman going undefeated three years in a row to the University of Florida job. And so, thinking about that as a context for this question. Well, I tell you, a good coach is a good coach. If you can be a good coach at an HBCU, I know Willie Jeffries personally, and he was a great coach at a soccer Atlanta, stayed in that hour when I coached against him. And he was a good coach at Riches Park State. All we need is an opportunity for someone just like in the polls right now, for some

of these general managers to say, okay, it's a man of the good coach, for instance, but the Kansas City Chiefs right now, every being in me, he's the offensive coordinator. But it's true for not hiring him for what they say that he doesn't call the place. He doesn't buy any read call the place for the Chiefs. But a good coach, you can coach anywhere on any leave. And I see with a dolphin just hired a high school coach to come coach with him. Now, what makes you think he's not a good coach because he's a high school coach. So, you know, all we need as a blacks is opportunities. Everything that we've given an opportunity to do, we resell that. That's the bottom line. Okay. Thank you. The other two panels. And all right. The same thing happened in my school. You know, we had pro day, my senior year, and no scout showed up.

Luckily enough, I was able to do my pro day at another school, but it was a few guys on my team that had a talent, you know, playing the NFL, but they just didn't have the opportunity, you know. Luckily enough, I was able to get that opportunity and I took advantage of, you know, that people just try their best, you know, to get me out of the league. I felt like my rookie year, they were trying their best to, you know, get me out of there, but every time I had an opportunity, I just took advantage and stepped on it even harder. Okay. And so, I think this is a good question for you as the third member is thinking about like the big picture as the NFL executive put you on the spot here. But thinking about how do we enhance these opportunities for both players and coaches? So, one of the things I would say is, in that specific instance, right, it's really about the university's media department, sports information directors, group, right, and being able to understand the timing of when to schedule the events and so, you know, it's, I wouldn't say that it's difficult to schedule two for the, for the, for the scouts to skip, to attend two of the pro days at the same time.

That was something that fell on our radar at the league office. What we've done and what we're trying to do in terms of advancing coaches from historical black colleges is that there are several programs that we have where the coaches are visit with the teams during their off-season workouts where they've learned, they have the opportunity to work alongside the professional coaches. And I do really, it's not so much that they can't coach, but what we know works is having relationships with people so that when they're ready to hire someone, they're in a position to have, to know you, and so we try to put coaches in a position where they're affiliated with professional clubs, they've gone through and work with people that they most often times will not have the opportunity to work with, so hopefully that is one of the ways in which we try to address that particular issue. But I will say that, you know, the, the, there is great coaching at the historical black college level, my father was the athletic director and basketball coach for more house from

1965 to 2000. I got a chance to know coach Lidl during that time, I was a little kid as he was playing in the, at the film Coopman, you know, and there's some great innovative things that had occurred in terms of historical black colleges, right? There were, at one point, the film Coopman was part of the S I A C. It was the largest conference in the country, it was certainly covered the full north against this, all of the south towards the southwest and close up to Mid Atlantic State, it's including schools like Cat South Carolina State, so we had schools from South Carolina State all the way over to Alabama, Alabama and M, Tuskegee, Alabama State, we had Tennessee State, Lamor and Owen, out of Memphis, Tennessee, and so those comp, those institutions made up this huge conference, right? And now what you see, the advent of the super conferences, the murders of the ACC schools with some big 10 schools now, PAC-12 taking schools over to make this large conference.

We were already on the forefront of that a long time ago, so there's a lot that happens, a lot of innovation that comes out of the, out of historical black colleges. Let me add on to that, I know you don't know this, but there are 32 HBCU former players in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, 32, and I mean, they had to be seen and found somewhere, and I did my research on that before I came, we had 29, and three more would be going to the Pro Football Hall of Fame this year, Harold Carmichael from Southern University, Winston Hill from Texas Southern University, and Donnie Schell from South Carolina State University. So they had to be found, like from instance, I wasn't drafted, I was a free agent coming out of college. My first salary was $12,500, my bonus was $750, and that was going into, we've had to buy some clothes, because I didn't have any clothes I'd leave when I was in college.

So I did get an opportunity, I did have scouts to come look at me, but when they came look at me, I was a defensive lineman. I'd installed my career with the Miami Dolphins. My career started with the San Diego Charges, I was in San Diego for two years, and I was traded from San Diego to Miami, my hometown, for my high school teammate, the first time in history, maybe the only time in history, to high school teammate, they've been traded for each other. And when my coach at San Diego traded me to Miami, he called it a nothing for nothing deal. I mean, I read that really. And when I came to Miami, I became a starter right away. I started some game in San Diego, but we did not have a great relationship. I didn't have a great relationship with my coach in San Diego. So he tried to make me look as bad as he possibly could. And one more thing, you heard of the world league.

I was first African American coach, head coach in the world league. When I left Bethone in 1991, I became the head coach of the Ohio glory. And the reason I didn't continue in the world league, because they shut the league down for two years to move all the teams to Europe, that's when I decided to go back into the college of ranks at North Carolina Central University. Now, the things that I'm proud of most right now, being a former head coach, I have four former players that play for me at North Carolina Central that are now head coaches in HBCU. The head coach at Southern University plays for me at North Carolina Central. The head coach at North Carolina Central University, the head coach at North Carolina Central now.

The head coach at Shaw University, the head coach at Shaw University, head coach at Shaw, my former player at North Carolina Central University. This is what I'm most proud of. I must have done something right, but these guys want to get in this field and to become coaches. And they still contact me when I say that. That's what we call the coaching tree, I have a mini tree. I'm proud of who I did that. As we get closer to the end, I want us to think a little bit about the future. And so what are the largest or the biggest challenges facing HBCU football and HBCU sports more broadly as we think about the next decade, as we move into a new decade into 2020? What are the things, what are the biggest hurdles and obstacles that you use to see coming down the pipeline? And also, what kind of suggestions can we have to overcome them? Basically, I feel like we don't have that many resources and basically, you know, guys want to get paid, you know, guys don't, you know, we don't have that much money in college.

I know I didn't, you know, I was in the dorm with $20 in my pocket making that last all week. So, guys need to get paid, basically, so whatever we got to do to find out to get guys, some type of stipend or something throughout the week or month, we got to get on that. Okay. Well, I think the alumni has to step up and do a better job as far as sports go. You know, they'll go to games, oh, yeah, I'm going to the game, they'll raise hell with the coach, they don't think he's doing the right thing. But are they putting any money into the program to help the program get better? No. I know for his hands. And right now, my school, my school, but the one is in trouble. I've read something the other day or someone told me the other day, they might be cutting some sports because some transgressions that happen in the previous administration at Bethuncuttland. And I do my part as far as supporting the school. And I get the whole more alumni would try to do their part in supporting the school.

We have a large alumni base. And I mean, we don't have, we have a college degree from an institution. Now I give back to that institution. And when I was in college, there were only 750 students, and I graduated now, but don't have 35 other students. That means you have more alumni coming out that's in position to help their schools. This is what we need to do a better job of and recruiting budgets. That's another thing that can help a school get better. You need a larger recruiting, better to compete with these other schools, predominantly white institution. I know when I was in North Carolina Central, I did one hell of a job and recruiting my telephone. The new athletic guy, my recruiting budget was $8,000, when he came, he cut my recruiting budget to $3,000. To me, he said, me up to fail.

And I mean, he couldn't go out. And right now, at Bethun, one of the coaches told me that we were together last week, one of the coaches that called to that, but don't know that, play for me at Bethun. He came down there to recruit. He said, he told me he had to use his own money to come down there to recruit. And that shouldn't happen. And this day and age, it shouldn't happen. And I called him loud. And he said, he didn't know he was going to know something Monday. And I called him last night to find out if he didn't give him a check and recruit with me. He hadn't called me back yet. But, you know, we have to do a better job in supporting our institutions and the schools need to do a better job in supporting the athletic program. I'm not just saying football because I've been in football all the sports. I have a grandson that we're on his track at, but don't either of them on scholarship. And my grandson told my daughter that he heard that they were going to be cutting scholarship money yesterday. They got in work yesterday.

Now, you know, I'm going to make some phone calls about that. You know, so, you know, we have to do a better job as alumni to help our institutions. Well, I certainly think one one thing is fundraising and the resources will have to improve going forward to be competitive with other institutions. The second thing is that many of the institutions will begin to make the decision whether to stay in alliance with the historic black conferences that have established. There have been a few that institutions that have stepped out of the traditional black conferences, black college conferences, the MEAC, the SWAG, the SISC, the CIAA. And so the institutions have to make those choices based on their finances as how they want to compete nationally. And then the third thing is, I think we'll see a resurgence of players deciding to attend historical black colleges for a number of reasons that we discussed early on.

The family environment, camaraderie, long-time trim base, and one thing that history has shown that athletes come from everywhere with 32 athletes, football players in the Hall of Fame, the same as possible from an historical standpoint, and other sports, track and fill the athletes when they go medals from smaller schools. So those are the three key areas, I think, for the future of the historic black colleges. Just for a little bit of context, right, for those who may or may not know, Hampton University most notably left the MEAC after being a founding member of the Institute, not a founding member, but a long-time member of the MEAC to go into the big South Conference, Tennessee State has been in the OVC to Ohio Valley Conference for quite a while for a number of years since the 70s. And so this is their handful of schools that are talking about recruiting budgets. I've worked as a faculty liaison to the athletic department at Dartmouth College and worked for the football, and their football recruiting budget was probably just short of a million

dollars a year, right? And they don't even offer scholarships, so give me a think about the landscape and the playing field in which other schools are currently competing. Dr. Derricky White is Associate Professor of History in African American and African Studies at the University of Kentucky. If you have questions, comments, or suggestions ask your future in black America programs, email us at inblackamerica at kut.org. And also let us know what radio station you heard us over. Remember to like us on Facebook and to follow us on Twitter. The views and opinions expressed on this program are not necessary, those of this station or of the University of Texas at Austin. You can hear previous programs online at kut.org. Until we have the opportunity again for Technical Producer David Alvarez, I'm John L. Hansen Jr. Thank you for joining us today, please join us again next week. CD copies of this program are available and may be purchased by writing in black America

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