Pitarresi: Willis, Motley got there first

Very knowledgeable sports fan Billy Richards wrote recently to say that Bill Willis of the Cleveland Browns of the All-American Football Conference, and not Woody Strode and Kenny Washington of the Los Angeles Rams of the National Football League, was the guy who broke pro football color line in 1946.

 

I wrote about Strode and Washington earlier this month after reading Alexander Wolff’s story on them in Sports Illustrated.

 

It looks as if Richards is right, at least about Willis. According to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Washington and Strode signed with the Rams in the spring of 1946. Willis and then Marion Motley signed with the Browns that summer. However, the Browns played their first game Sept. 6, 1946 and had three games under their belts by the time the Rams opened their season Sept. 29, 1946. Willis and Motley both played 13 of the 14 games, so one or the other or both played in one of the first two games. That means one or the other or both were the first blacks to play an official game after World War II. I’d credit all four – Washington, Strode, Willis, and Motley – with being pioneers, for sure.

 

The next year, by the way, Jackie Robinson became the first black man to play major league baseball since the 1890s. He might not have been able to if those guys hadn’t paved the way.

 

And if you don’t think the All-America Football Conference was big league, well, maybe not, but Paul Brown’s innovative team won the AAFC championship all four years of the league’s existence, then joined the NFL in 1950, reached the championship game six straight years and won the title three times. They were perhaps the most dominant team in pro football history.

 

The history of blacks in pro football goes back to the early days of the 20th century. According to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the first documented black pro was Charles W. Follis, a former College of Wooster player who played for the Shelbyville (Ohio) Athletic Club from 1902 through 1906. There were others through the years as the NFL developed, the most famous being Fritz Pollard, who played for and coached the Akron Pros, and Paul Robeson, the entertainer, social activist and former Rutgers All-American.

 

There were no blacks in the NFL after 1933, however. It took Willis and Motley and Strode and Washington to change that in 1946.