I was watching a bit of Roger Wehrli's press conference on the NFL Network today. I was struck by what a powerful statement this guy could make, if he only brought up the huge elephant in the room; something like, "I'm honored to be chosen for the Hall of Fame, but I'd sure like to see some white cornerbacks in the NFL again." You can easily picture a black retired athlete mentioning a racial issue like that, but never a white one. Here's hoping that Wehrli summons up the courage to touch on this subject during his induction speech.
Roger Wehrli-Hall Of Fame
- Thread starter bigunreal
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white is right
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He is a god squader so he would never rock the boat. I did see that Leroy Kelly was lobbying for Pat Fischer. Maybe he will have a shot with the veterans committee.
Edited by: white is right
Not only did Kelly lobby for Pat Fischer, Jim Brown was probably responsible for getting Gene Hickerson inducted into the HOF. It was certainly an unusual sight to see three blacks (Brown, Bobby Mitchell and Kelly) pushing a white player like Hickerson on stage and standing behind him in a solid show of support. Why don't we hear Fran Tarkenton lobby for Mick Tingelhoff to be inducted? Why doesn't Bart Starr, Jim Taylor or Paul Hornung lobby for Jerry Kramer? What about Sonny Jurgensen lobbying for Jerry Smith, statistically one of the greatest TEs ever? How can anyone who played with Smith stay silent when he's not enshrined and a wildly overrated, pedestrian TE like Charlie Sanders is? It's nice that Kelly mentioned Fischer, but the greatest white CB who's not in the HOF is Dick LeBeau. I'm sure he'll have to wait for some black player to speak up for him, because no white player is ever going to. I knew that Wehrli wouldn't raise the obvious issue at hand, but one can always hope.
Gi-15
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They showed it at the hall of fame game 2 day ago, some of the steelers guys were wearing no.44 lions jersey with LeBeau's name on it. That was a nice from them to show support like that.
white is right
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Black players from the 50's and early 60's were completely different then the street morons that play now. I don't think a Marcus Vick or a Lawrence Phillips would have gotten beyond training camp, before they would have been cut. The only sport that historically embraced people like that is boxing. People forget but even Jack Dempsey had a dubious past as a pimp and draft dodger. Ps I forgot to mention Jack Johnson was convicted on those charges........bigunreal said:
