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<div ="line" id="component_1222118"><h1>Vikings' draft pick of
Toby Gerhart raises the specter of the unspoken NF-Elephant in the room</h1>Steve Aschburner
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<div ="_component left mp_main_wide with_credit with_caption" id="component_1222120">
<div ="caption_credit">REUTERS/Robert Galbraith</span>Stanford
University running back Toby Gerhart is shown scoring a first quarter
touchdown against the University of Southern California in 2008.</span></div></div>
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Toby Gerhart was born in March 1987 and has
been rushing the football since he was in high school, which means he
has been a white running back for at least eight years.
The
last white running back to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of
Fame in Canton, Ohio? Washington's John Riggins, back in 1992.
As
the NFL draft approached this weekend, scouts from around the league
had reservations about Gerhart because "¦ he was also an accomplished
baseball player. Yeah, that's it.
Whaaaa?</div><div ="richtext">
We began this post rather haphazardly to
highlight an issue that is very much a part of Gerhart's story as
the Minnesota Vikings' pick at No. 51 Friday night,
yet doesn't get nearly the same scrutiny â€" more like microscopic
biomolecular inspection â€" that most elements of most draftee's games
receive.
Instead, it gets dealt with sideways, cautiously, even
self-consciously casual, although it has much to do with where and when
Gerhart was drafted and even more so with the projections all the
experts have for his career.
Gerhart, if you didn't know by
now, is white. Which is a rarity these days, akin to being a black
Olympian in the butterfly or a fifty-something journalist with two job
offers. It was backdrop heading into the draft â€" as much as his
runner-up finish in the Heisman Trophy balloting or his 27 touchdowns
and 1,871 yards gained last season at Stanford.
And it figures to
be subtext to his pro career, good, bad or indifferent. Whether folks
'fess up about that or not.
Just when you thought Vikings coach
Brad Childress was about to tackle the topic head on â€" "I know you guys
[media] want to put him in a box because of"¦," Childress said in his
post-pick news briefing â€" he veered away from it. Finishing his thought,
the coach said: ""¦ what his weight is." Oh, right, because of what
Gerhart's
weight (231 pounds, by the way) is. Let's just say
the real answer is contained therein, anagram style: w-h-i-t-e.
Reporters
had asked about Gerhart being a lead blocker for the Vikings, rather
than a featured back. Code lives, apparently.
Even the most
innocent references to Gerhart and where he'll fit into the Vikings'
pecking order can get a little awkward. Adrian Peterson's "shadow" in
the Purple backfield? Ahem. What if the roles were reversed â€" would
Peterson be referred to as Gerhart's shadow? People would be waiting for
a Sammy Davis Jr. number to break out.
More than 22 years have
passed since Washington's Doug Williams, the MVP of Super Bowl XXII,
allegedly was asked in the days leading up to that game: "How long have
you been a black quarterback?"
But that sort of stereotyping â€"
even without any malice involved â€" still goes on. Where once it focused
on black QBs, now the shock and skepticism is associated with white RBs
or WRs.
Gerhart told Yahoo! Sports that race came up as he
prepped for, and was poked and prodded by curious teams, the NFL draft.
Sure, they liked his size (6-0, 231), his 4.50 time in the 40-yard dash
and the athleticism suggested by a 38-inch vertical leap. But there were
little insinuations and, sometimes, blatant queries, all based on his
unintentional challenge to, er, positional assumptions.
"One
team I interviewed with asked me about being a white running back,"
Gerhart told Yahoo! NFL writer Michael Silver. "They asked if it made me
feel entitled, or like I felt I was a poster child for white running
backs. I said, 'No, I'm just out there playing ball. I don't think about
that.' I didn't really know what to say."
It also is curious
that, when experts compare Gerhart's style as a back, names like
Riggins, Tommy Vardell and Craig James come up in the conversation. All
white running backs. It works that way in the NBA, where the young
fellows who get compared in playing style to Larry Bird or John Stockton
â€" lo and behold â€" almost always are Caucasian. Christian Laettner,
during his stay with the Timberwolves, even lectured a local AP reporter
for almost mindlessly, certainly harmlessly, linking him and Bird.
In
Minnesota, folks like to think they are beyond such superficial factors
(though the Timberwolves, like Utah and Boston, share a reputation for
wanting white players in the mix for fan appeal). As for Vikings fans,
they are like NFL fans in most places â€" they care mostly about victories
and defeats, cheering the guys who contribute to the former,
criticizing those who seem responsible for the latter.
But in
the equivalent of another NFL lifetime, a fullback named Rick Fenney was
cheered seemingly out of proportion to his on-field production, with
Twin Cities sportswriter Patrick Reusse suggesting it was directly
attributable to Fenney being white.
And if we start hearing
Bill Brown or Dave Osborn mentioned more often in 2010 than in recent
seasons â€" in talks about Vikings rushers past and present and anywhere
in the vicinity of Gerhart's name â€" we'll know that these things haven't
quite gone color-blind.
http://www.minnpost.com/steveaschbu...ecter_of_the_unspoken_nf-elephant_in_the_room
Has this sportswriter been visiting Caste Football?
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