Are white RBs not given a fair shake or are they simply not good enough?
Monday, May 1, 2006
By ADAM ZAGORIA
HERALD NEWS
Editor's Note: This is the fourth in a five-part series on high school football combines, the NCAA-mandated changes about to affect them and their impact on high school athletes.
Wayne Hills running back Ray Van Peenen was named first-team All-State last winter after leading New Jersey in rushing touchdowns and total points scored. Displaying tremendous toughness and an ability to run over defenders, the 5-foot-10, 180-pound Van Peenen led the Patriots to the second of back-to-back North 1, Group 3 championships and is on pace to become the leading scorer in the program's storied history.
"Ray's the best back in the state," Patriots coach Chris Olsen said unequivocally.
Yet as Van Peenen prepares to compete in today's Elite College Combine at the Indoor Sports Pavilion in Randolph, he has just one firm college scholarship offer: from Minnesota. Rutgers, Boston College, Louisville, Temple, Connecticut and others have also expressed interest.
Why is that? Is it because he's too slow? Not tough enough? Not big enough? Or does it have something to do with the fact that Van Peenen is white?
Some experts say yes.
"I really believe that if this Van Peenen kid, for instance, was a different color, he would have 20 offers right now," said Nick Lubischer of EliteRecruits.com, who has been working in the recruiting business for close to a decade and is white. "I really believe that. And I don't blame anybody except the way things have happened over the years.
"If I was a Division I college coach, I would offer him a scholarship. I wouldn't have seen color, but I think a lot of these guys do."
This isn't news to Van Peenen, the 2005 Herald News Offensive Player of the Year. He's heard it before.
"I get it a lot, actually," he said. "It doesn't really bother me. I don't let that stuff bother me because I know how I can play. If they don't recruit me because of that I guess it would be hurting them."
Eric Dickerson, the NFL's all-time single-season rushing leader, dominated with the Los Angeles Rams during the 1980s. Dickerson is on record as saying that white running backs simply can't play on the same level as blacks.
"They can't compete with us," Dickerson told the Orlando Sun Sentinel two years ago. "The black athlete, especially at that position, is faster, more elusive. That's just a position made for agility.
"That's kind of like our chosen position."
Numbers don't lie
As brash as that may sound, statistics are on his side.
Since Craig James ran for 1,227 yards and was voted to the Pro Bowl in 1985, more than 100 NFL running backs have combined for 269 1,000-yard rushing performances over those 20 years. None has been white.
While minorities make up more than 70 percent of the NFL, running back is even more exclusive. In 2003, 98 percent of the NFL's running backs were minorities. When the 2005 NFL season began, none of the 32 teams had a white tailback as a first- or second-teamer.
A white running back hasn't led the NFL in rushing since Green Bay's Jim Taylor ran for 1,474 yards in 1962 or been drafted in the first round since Penn State's John Cappelletti was chosen 11th overall by the Rams in 1974.
SuperPrep recruiting service ranks high school prospects at each position, and as of two years ago, there had been just one white tailback among the nation's elite in the past five seasons. That was Tre Smith, from Venice, Fla., just south of Sarasota, in 2000.
Allen Wallace, the publisher of SuperPrep magazine, acknowledges that this subject is just too taboo for most coaches or recruiting experts to touch.
"I think it's something that a lot of us are just afraid to think about," he said. "In today's overly sensitive world, you can't really bring it up.
"It's just generally understood that most of your running backs are black. And most of them are faster."
While Van Peenen has just the one firm scholarship offer, Malcolm Harris, an accomplished and talented All-Area running back from Paterson Catholic, who is black, already has offers from Maryland, Pittsburgh and Rutgers.
Paterson Catholic coach Benjie Wimberly said Harris will have close to 20 offers by the time he signs, but he thinks Van Peenen is just as talented.
"Regardless of race, he has the skills," Wimberly said. "He has the vision. He's elusive. He's everything you would like in a running back and he looks the role. He has the skills."
If Van Peenen were black, Olsen and others close to the situation feel that he would have many more offers than he currently has.
"Without a doubt," Olsen said.
For further anecdotal evidence, Lubischer and colleague Chris Melvin point to the experience of Anthony Ferla of St. Joseph in Montvale, a running back/defensive back who last season led his team to its seventh straight Non-Public Group 3 championship.
The 5-9, 190-pound Ferla helped his stock tremendously at last year's Elite College Combine, winning the Defensive Back Most Valuable Player award and running impressive times in the 40-yard-dash and the shuttle.
Yet Ferla only received offers from Kansas and Temple, where he will play next season.
"Chris (Melvin) and I can't tell you why," Lubischer said. "If he was an African-American player, would he have gotten more offers? In my opinion, yes."
Added Melvin, who is black: "I have kids who came to our combine last year, Vidal Hazleton who is going to (Southern California), Antwine Perez at USC, they said, 'Well, Ferla can play anywhere.'
"The knock on him was that he was 5-9, 190 pounds. I had one college coach tell me that if he was taller, maybe. But being that he was 5-9, 190, what happened if he puts 10 pounds on, so that was a problem."
St. Joseph coach Tony Karcich agreed that height was Ferla's main issue with recruiters.
"The biggest obstacle he had to overcome was his lack of height," Karcich said. "They like to see a 6-foot kid and he's in that 5-10 range. I think some people backed off because of that."
Karcich also told the story of Ron Girault, whose experience would seem to indicate that even black tailbacks can be hurt by a bad combine performance. Because of poor starting technique, Girault ran a substandard 40-yard dash at a combine, Karcich said.
"And I looked at a bunch of (coaches) and they wrote him off because he didn't break a 4.7," Karcich said. "The whole season I was trying to validate his times by showing films. Thank God for Greg Schiano at Rutgers because he decided to take a shot based on my word."
Girault, a junior, is now a starting safety at Rutgers and finished third on the team in tackles last season.
Hard to recruit a white back
Joe Susan, the recruiting coordinator at Rutgers, said he only looks at a player's talent, along with height and weight, when recruiting. He cited the fact that Rutgers features two-time All-America fullback Brian Leonard, who is white.
"As we evaluate a kid on film, we evaluate his talent, period," Susan said. "To me race is not an issue. If people look at that, then they're making a mistake."
Still, the issue of race is like the elephant in the room. No one wants to talk about it, but it's out there.
Olsen, who has two sons playing on Division I football teams that do not feature prominent white running backs, said he has had college coaching friends of his tell him that, "It's hard for a guy to come back off the road with a white player at that position (running back)."
When asked about the subject two years ago for the story in the Orlando Sun Sentinel, Florida State head coach Bobby Bowden had this to say:
"You go with the best, and it just happens to be there are more minority tailbacks than there are non-minority," said Bowden, who has spent nearly 50 years in the college ranks. "Why? I don't know. There's just more of them. They run better, jump higher.
"God has made every man different. He's even made our races different. There are some races that are smaller than others. There are some races that are taller than others. There are some races, it seems like they have more athletic ability than others. It just seems they (minority tailbacks) have more talent as runners than my race. I think that has something to do with heredity, you know?"
Channeling occurs early
While some say the sheer numbers prove that point, others argue there are several other factors in play, setting up barriers of perception.
"You've got guys in high school, white players, who are discouraged from being wide receivers, defensive backs or running backs -- I think we do have that," Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy told the Sun Sentinel. "It's 'this position is a white position or black position.' I definitely believe they are channeled early on."
Lubischer, who coaches the Shore Pop Warner team, agrees.
"If (Chris Melvin's) son (Chris Jr.) came and lived with me and came and played football, the first thing the coaches around me would say is, 'We got to put him at running back,' " Lubischer said. "Why? Because he's African-American; it's the perception that is seen in our society. And if he was a big white kid, it would be, 'Let's get him on the line.' "
But does this "channeling," also known as "slotting" or "funneling," take place because of racial bias. Is there a lack of white running backs at elite levels because they can't compete? Or does a sifting begin at a low level and wipe out the chance of competition occurring in the first place?
Former Redskins quarterback Doug Williams knows something about stereotypes. In 1988, Williams smashed racial barriers by becoming the first black quarterback to start a Super Bowl. Williams threw four touchdowns against Denver in Super Bowl XXII and was chosen the game's MVP. He'll be the first to say stereotypes are made to be broken.
"A lot of it boils down to athletic ability," Williams, now an executive in the Bucs' pro personnel department, told the Sun Sentinel. "If you have a kid who's been productive who's a black running back and he's running a 4.8 (in the 40-yard dash), and you have a white kid who's been productive who's running a 4.5, make no mistake, the 4.5 is going to be the kid getting the opportunity.
"That's never going to change. Color will have nothing to do with it."
Melvin and Lubischer agree. They think that several white running backs have a chance to open up some eyes at this year's combine. They point to Van Peenen and Vinnie Falkowicz of Brick Memorial as two prime examples.
"They're just special backs," Melvin said. "They bring a lot to the table. Whether they go to a Virginia or a Miami or a Florida State, maybe not. But there's a lot of Division I schools at our combine who are going to take a look at them and say, 'You know what? He is a good ballplayer, maybe we should take a longer look.' "
Reach Adam Zagoria at (973) 569-7156 or
zagoria@northjersey.com.
