"Your" team before becoming racially aware

[La France Blanche]

Who here had "their" team to cheer for before becoming racially aware?

I grew up a Denver Broncos fan. I still have my Elway jersey, which I've considered getting rid of a few times, but decided to keep for now after his sanity about the anthem protests. But now, to me the Broncos are just another dark team, fairly typical by Caste standards, and nothing more.

 

[sprintstar]

'49's Montana and Steve Young era...Packers under Farve.

 

[Leonardfan]

The early 90s Bills as a young kid, lost interest in football until 1998 and became a Bills fan again due to Flutie and was always partial to the Crawfords up until 2006 (I still remember the 2003 college season and reading about Big Ben and wanting Pittsburgh to draft him).

 

[Riggins44]

The Redskins of Joe Thiesman and John Riggins. Also Russ Grimm, Jeff Bostic, Joe Jacoby and Dave Butz.

 

[Claimjumper]

I grew up a chargers and niners fan (had seau and young jerseys) having been born in Cali but moved to Colorado at an early age. From then on a broncos fan which like was alluded to above is basically just a run of the mill black team now. Only football related item I still own is my 97/98 back to back super bowl champs hat and a Peyton Manning shirt jersey which I’ll probably keep, one of the last vestiges of white america 1.0 in football

As an aside, I always get weird looks when I say I just enjoy watching football as a whole or certain players as opposed to having “my” team

 

[Westside]

In 1980 I was racially and castefully aware, therefore, wanted the Los Angeles Rams to beat the Stealers in that year's SB, which I was fortunate to attend. Both the defense and offensive were loaded with White men. The Defense more so.

 

[Heretic]

Minnesota Vikings starting with Fran Tarkenton in the mid 70's.

 

[backrow]

Bucs, but I think it was mostly because of Alstott, really.

 

[Don Wassall]

Great thread idea. I was a Steelers fan, who had been a bottom-feeding franchise all through their history until the hiring of Chuck Noll in 1969. Noll started off 1-13 that year but got the team to the playoffs in '72 and then they won the Super Bowl four times in four appearances, after the '74, '75, '78 and '79 regular seasons. Their best team was in 1976, but they lost to the Raiders in the playoffs that year when Franco Harris and Rocky Bleier were both out with injuries. That '76 team screwed around and started off 1-4 and then reeled off nine straight wins in as dominant a fashion as maybe any NFL team has ever displayed, just to make it into the playoffs that year.

I was at Penn State when the Steelers won their latter two Super Bowls, sandwiched around the Pirates winning the World Series in 1979, so that was as good as it got as far as being a great time to be a fan. Most Penn State students seemed to come from either Philly and environs or Pittsburgh and environs, so we Pittsburghers got to rub it in the faces of the East Coast Philly snobs and their legendary choking sports teams pretty good back to back to back! We marched all through the campus after both Super Bowl wins, yelling and carrying on; I was nearly arrested during one of the parades when the State College cops swooped in en masse and started randomly selecting people near me for a night in the drunk tank. When the Steelers beat the Cowboys in that 35-31 thriller we watched in a theater on a giant 16 foot screen, pretty heady technology for the time.

1981 was when I started making racial head counts of all the teams as I became aware of the Caste System as part of the overall racial awakening I was going through. I was certainly casually aware of the racial make-up of the Steelers dynasty of the 1970s; the starters were usually half-White (7 on offense, 4 on defense) despite the all-black "Steel Curtain" that received so much attention. But man, they were a great team to root for, pretty much unbeatable for a six-year stretch.

 

[BeyondFedUp]

Born and bred and grew up in Texas during the Roger Staubach (Mr America/Captain Comeback) years where he took them to the playoffs 7 of his 9 years, won 5 of 7 NFC Titles and 2 Superbowls and you were a Cowboys fan and bled silver and blue as long as you had a pulse.

You talk about religion, Texas Stadium in Irving was seriously believed to have a hole in the roof so God could watch His team play. They also had my other hero Bob Lilly, one of the greatest DLs of all time. Guys like LeeRoy Jordon, Chuck Howley, Lance Alworth, Cliff Harris, Charlie Waters, Larry Cole, Golden Richards and on and on. They had the original #88 Drew Pearson, one of my favorite Black players of all time.

Then we had the Aikman years and those Championships were special but Roger the Dodger was who got me hooked.

Even though Roger was a first ballot HOFer I still believe he is one of the most underrated QBs and is one of the truly all time greats, maybe top 5 easily.

It's sad to think of those great White household names from a better time before everything went very "dark"...

 

[Carolina Speed]

Born and bred and grew up in Texas during the Roger Staubach (Mr America/Captain Comeback) years where he took them to the playoffs 7 of his 9 years, won 5 of 7 NFC Titles and 2 Superbowls and you were a Cowboys fan and bled silver and blue as long as you had a pulse.

You talk about religion, Texas Stadium in Irving was seriously believed to have a hole in the roof so God could watch His team play. They also had my other hero Bob Lilly, one of the greatest DLs of all time. Guys like LeeRoy Jordon, Chuck Howley, Lance Alworth, Cliff Harris, Charlie Waters, Larry Cole, Golden Richards and on and on. They had the original #88 Drew Pearson, one of my favorite Black players of all time.

Then we had the Aikman years and those Championships were special but Roger the Dodger was who got me hooked.

Even though Roger was a first ballot HOFer I still believe he is one of the most underrated QBs and is one of the truly all time greats, maybe top 5 easily.

It's sad to think of those great White household names from a better time before everything went very "dark"...

Yes, great thread idea! Same here Beyond! I grew up wanting to be a cowboy, so naturally I became a Dallas Cowboy fan all the way from North Carolina. We didn't have a pro football franchise in the 70's, but NC always televised the Redskin games. My brother was a big Redskin fan, but not me.
I still say Roger Staubach is a top 5 QB of all time. Wasn't the permanent starter until age 29. Served 2-4 years in the Navy before making it to the NFL. Was a part of 5 Super Bowls, won 2 and a Jackie Smith dropped pass in the end zone or they would have beaten Don's Steelers for a third ring! That one still HURTS! I believe Staubach was the first player to win the Heisman, Win a Super Bowl and a SB MVP! I know my Cowboys.
Chuck Howley wow! The only Super MVP from the losing team. There's some SB trivia. Dallas lost to the Colts in 71' I believe, but Dallas Cowboy Howley was the MVP!
Beyond, what about Randy, "MANSTER" White, Co-SB MVP in 77' I think. One of the all time great LB/DT.
Tom Landry, my all time favorite coach, was very fair to white players for the most part. He even had white RB's. Walt Garrison, Scott Laidlaw, Jim Jensen WR/RB and Dan Reeves. Bears SB Coach Mike Ditka played TE for Landry in 1972.
How many teams have a white safety today? Dallas had three in 76'. Two of them started. Beyond mentioned Cliff Harris and Charlie Waters. They also had Randy Hughes who played often.
Lots of history from Dallas! I could go on. Again a great thread. Good post BeyondFedUp.

 

[Freethinker]

As I mentioned before on the site, when I started following football in the late 90s I became a Giants fan. I’m a born and raised New Yorker so that’s why I chose the Giants. I’m not really sure why I chose them over the Jets. It could be because they had a somewhat storied history of success, at least when compared to the archetypal loser Jets. It might have also been instinctual as the Giants under GM Ernie Accorsi were fairly White friendly. They had men like Jason Sehorn, Joe Jurevicius, Sean Bennett and later Jeremy Shockey at taboo positions.

I also was always drawn to the Packers. I visited Lambeau Field as a kid, loved the small town culture and loved Brett Farve. His jersey was actually the first I owned. The Packers also had some great White skill players who I instinctively liked like Bill Schroeder, Don Beebe, Mark Chmura and Travis Jervey.

I became aware of the Caste System in late 2007 thanks to a friend who directed me to this site. I lurked for a year before joining the discussion. It took awhile to fully break my Giants DWF conditioning but I’ve come along way, now actively rooting against them in recent years under GM Reese. I would love to be able to “support” them again but they’d need to add about 10 Whites more to the roster and have a few guys at skill positions.

 

[Westside]

As I mentioned before on the site, when I started following football in the late 90s I became a Giants fan. I’m a born and raised New Yorker so that’s why I chose the Giants. I’m not really sure why I chose them over the Jets. It could be because they had a somewhat storied history of success, at least when compared to the archetypal loser Jets. It might have also been instinctual as the Giants under GM Ernie Accorsi were fairly White friendly. They had men like Jason Sehorn, Joe Jurevicius, Sean Bennett and later Jeremy Shockey at taboo positions.

I also was always drawn to the Packers. I visited Lambeau Field as a kid, loved the small town culture and loved Brett Farve. His jersey was actually the first I owned. The Packers also had some great White skill players who I instinctively liked like Bill Schroeder, Don Beebe, Mark Chmura and Travis Jervey.

I became aware of the Caste System in late 2007 thanks to a friend who directed me to this site. It took awhile to fully break my Giants DWF conditioning but I’ve come along way in actively rooting against them in recent years under GM Reese. I would love to be able to “support” them again but they’d need to add about 10 Whites more to the roster and have a few guys at skill positions.

Don't forget running back Rob Carpenter who took them deep in the playoffs one year in the early 80s. Carpenter originally played for Houston and was Earl Campbell's back up.

 

[Carolina Speed]

Don't forget running back Rob Carpenter who took them deep in the playoffs one year in the early 80s. Carpenter originally played for Houston and was Earl Campbell's back up.

Right Westside. The Giants previously had a another white RB, Doug Kotar, 1974-1981. He began 1982 as a team member, but retired shortly after training camp began due to knee and shoulder pain. However, he was also was diagnosed with a brain tumor shortly after retirement and died at age 32. A pretty good RB though. over 3,000 yards and 20 TD's.

 

[Rocky B]

Western PA guy here.....Still a Steeler fan, but it gets harder and harder.....Drafting Watt was a surprise...They passed on Puz and Sean Lee, so many WR (most recently they drafted JuJu over Kupp)....I was pissed, but JuJu ended up seeming like a nice kid, then the bull crap the other week squashed a lot of people’s thoughts of him.....
As many of you know, I’m a running back guy.....My favorite team in college was SMU when Zach Line was there, Stanford when Toby was there (CM also, of coarse).....
Can’t miss games to me are games that highlight Nall, Laird, Epstein,Ouelette, etc....

I watch the Panthers for CM and NE for Rex, wishing ZZ got reps, hoping Woodhead gets more than a few with Baltimore.....you get the idea......

Thielen and Kupp have been fun to watch.......Hoping to get a few more wideouts next year......

 

[Heretic]

Born and bred and grew up in Texas during the Roger Staubach (Mr America/Captain Comeback) years where he took them to the playoffs 7 of his 9 years, won 5 of 7 NFC Titles and 2 Superbowls and you were a Cowboys fan and bled silver and blue as long as you had a pulse.

You talk about religion, Texas Stadium in Irving was seriously believed to have a hole in the roof so God could watch His team play. They also had my other hero Bob Lilly, one of the greatest DLs of all time. Guys like LeeRoy Jordon, Chuck Howley, Lance Alworth, Cliff Harris, Charlie Waters, Larry Cole, Golden Richards and on and on. They had the original #88 Drew Pearson, one of my favorite Black players of all time.

Then we had the Aikman years and those Championships were special but Roger the Dodger was who got me hooked.

Even though Roger was a first ballot HOFer I still believe he is one of the most underrated QBs and is one of the truly all time greats, maybe top 5 easily.

It's sad to think of those great White household names from a better time before everything went very "dark"...

Just like the differences between America 1.0 and Amerika 2.0, was there ever a clearer delineation between NFL 1.0 and (the Caste) NFL 2.0 as when Jimmy Johnson took over for Tom Landry to coach the Cowboys? Disgraceful the way that was handled. Just like I've written before on other topics, I knew that the best era of football was over and was sickened by what happened in Dallas and knew in the back of my mind that it would become the "new normal" throughout the entire league, along with the class and professionalism that Landry embodied, gone. It angers me to this day. My interested waned greatly in the NFL at about that time.

 

[Don Wassall]

Just like the differences between America 1.0 and Amerika 2.0, was there ever a clearer delineation between NFL 1.0 and (the Caste) NFL 2.0 as when Jimmy Johnson took over for Tom Landry to coach the Cowboys? Disgraceful the way that was handled. Just like I've written before on other topics, I knew that the best era of football was over and was sickened by what happened in Dallas and knew in the back of my mind that it would become the "new normal" throughout the entire league, along with the class and professionalism that Landry embodied, gone. It angers me to this day. My interested waned greatly in the NFL at about that time.

Agree completely.

Another delineation occurred a couple years later when Bill Cowher succeeded Chuck Noll. Cowher was an out and out wigger, disgusting in his manner and style, and I never use that term lightly. Noll was no Tom Landry, but Johnson and then Cowher marked the onset of the full-on in-your-face Caste System that made the '90s and early '00s such a dark period for White players. And both were successful, which sealed the deal.

Maybe just as sad was how Don Shula 1.0 dutifully became Don Shula 2.0 beginning at the same time. But Shula 2.0 never came close to recapturing his previous glory, never again sniffing a Super Bowl appearance with his Caste appropriate teams.

Bill Belichick is far from ideal, but he should be the template for today's NFL, just as Johnson and Cowher were a generation ago. But that ain't gonna happen no matter how dominant the Patriots continue to be, and unfortunately I think we're getting close to the end of at least the Tom Brady era and I doubt Belichick at 65 will continue on very long after Brady is done.

 

[Extra Point]

I grew up a Bears fan. Now I don't have any loyalty to any team. I just want white players and relatively pro white teams to do well. I think a lot of posters here have this same attitude.

 

[white is right]

My first sporting hero was Larry Csonka, but in terms of team loyalty I was always a Bills fan as they were on local tv, week in week out.

I remember the tail end of the Simpson era and my favorite player on the Chuck Knox teams was Italian American Lou Picone who would probably be a starter in today's era of 3 and 4 wide receiver formations.

I stayed a Bills fan through the late 90's through early 2000's. I would still say I'm a tepid fan but the fans of the team tend to have blinders on when it comes to obvious Black favorite sons of the team like EJ Manuel, Stevie Johnson and others.

PS as young as 7 or 8 I noticed the slow disappearance of White players in the league as I used to read sports books intended for children and the books on the Cowboys or Steelers showed yearly team photos and the percentage of White players slowly dwindled from about 78' on. What totally convinced me on a scouting bias against White players is statistical impossibility of virtually zero White corner backs year in and year out less a mid game injury replacement.

 

[Thrashen]

I also was always drawn to the Packers. I visited Lambeau Field as a kid, loved the small town culture and loved Brett Farve. His jersey was actually the first I owned. The Packers also had some great White skill players who I instinctively liked like Bill Schroeder, Don Beebe, Mark Chmura and Travis Jervey.

I'm not sure why a kid from rural PA (like myself) was a Favre-era Packers fan in the 1990's, but given that they had plenty of white players to root for, I'm glad that I was. Aside from the guys you mentioned, I always liked safety Mike Prior. I'll always remember his INT in Superbowl 31...

As the Packers became ever darker with both Ray Rhodes and Mike Sherman as the head coach, I lost interest in the team...not because I was "aware" of the Caste System, but because even as a young teenager, I felt embarrassed to root for such a black-heavy team.

 

[PHillisFan]

Grew up Bills fan. Occasionally, want them to do well, but their decision to start black qb's and darken the team makes it impossible. Now all that matters is rooting for white athletes to succeed and beat the caste system.

 

[Shadowlight]

You would never know it now but before my transformation I paid little attention to the race of the players. I tended to prefer black players in general. But it was always formulated like a fan. For example I worshipped Hank Aaron but couldn't stand Willie Mays. I changed in the latter part of 1978 and the main cog on that wheel was the rise of Larry Bird and his undefeated Indiana State team that got beat by Michigan State in the infamous 1979 final. My changeover was quite sudden although the Kentucky team that won it all in 1978 was a team I liked. The two power interior players Rick Robey and Mike Phillips and the precocious guard Kyle Macy were players I liked a lot. As for my pre caste days look below. In 1977 though I was a huge Dr. J fan and was upset his team got beat by Bill Walton's Portland team.

But as for Super bowl teams I liked the 1970 Chiefs and MLB Will Lanier was my favorite. I was just a little kid back then.They had an all star safety in Johnny Robinson but I preferred the black players and WR Otis Taylor. Loved their kicker though, Jan Stenerud. I HATED the Vikings and Fran Tarkenton.

I liked Bob Griese and my favorite player on those great Dolphin teams team was Larry Csonka. I didn't much care for Mercury Morris or Jim Kiick. My other favorite was WR Paul Warfield who was very smooth. Worth noting those mighty Dolphin teams featured two stellar white safeties. Dick Anderson and Jake Scott. Anderson was superb. And back then kickers were big things so I was crazy about Garo Yepremian. Of course he is most famous for that muffed throw against the Redskins in the Super Bowl. But they won it anyway.

I also liked the Steelers and Franco Harris, Lynn Swann and Mel Blount were favorites. For some reason I didn't much like Bradshaw or Mean Joe Greene or Jack Ham. But my favorite player on the team by a longshot was Jack Lambert. He was like the second coming of Ray Nitschke.

Carolina alluded to the Cowboys and I was a big fan of Tony Dorsett---just like I was of OJ Simpson. Other players I liked a lot were Staubach and Cliff Harris who teamed with Waters to form a formidable safety tandem. But the player I loved most was converted LB DT Randy "Manster" White. He was the quickest most athletic DT I had ever seen and I was happy they beat Denver in 1978. White earned a co MVP in that game. I was just starting to edge towards my appreciation of white athletes at that point. I was rooting for the Cowboys in their famous Super Bowl against the Steelers in 1979 mainly because of Randy White and Cliff Harris.

By the fall of 1979 my metamorphosis was basically in place. I did not like the mainly black "We Are Family" Pirates that won the 1979 World Series and apart from a few small detours I have not looked back since.

By 1982 I was rooting for the Bengals against the 49'ers for one reason, rookie star WR Chris Collinsworth. Funny how things turn out sometimes.

 

[Heretic]

Hey, I haven't seen anyone post anything about the Raiders being their "team" .

Actually, back in the day they were pretty decent with the likes of QB Kenny Stabler, RB Mark van Eeghen (surprised his name doesn't come up much here at CF), WR Fred Biletnikoff, TE Dave Casper, and notably, John Matuszak and Ted Hendricks on Defense...also HOF Punter Ray Guy.

I hated them back then, but all things considered now, I'd probably be a big fan.

 

[Leonardfan]

I just posted in the San Fran thread and a wave of childhood nostalgia hit me. I remember being a huge Joe Montana fan as a young kid and hating Steve Young. I can still recall when Montana was traded to the Chiefs. It's pretty amazing how little Joe Montana is talked about or appreciated today in the context of modern football. Brady and Manning have pretty much dominated the 21st century but Montana had to be the best ever in any era. Just check out some of his highlights on Youtube.

 

[Carolina Speed]

Hey, I haven't seen anyone post anything about the Raiders being their "team" .

Actually, back in the day they were pretty decent with the likes of QB Kenny Stabler, RB Mark van Eeghen (surprised his name doesn't come up much here at CF), WR Fred Biletnikoff, TE Dave Casper, and notably, John Matuszak and Ted Hendricks on Defense...also HOF Punter Ray Guy.

I hated them back then, but all things considered now, I'd probably be a big fan.

Right Heretic! I would have probably been a fan, but as mentioned, I was a Cowboy. Good post though. I have mentioned Van Eeghen before. Van Eeghen had three, 1,000+ rushing seasons. The Raiders once had three white RB's on their roster in 1975, Van Eeghen, Marv Hubbard, and Pete Banaszak who led the league in rushing TD's in 1975 with 16. Three white RB's on one NFL team, really? (Technically, one or more of these guys were listed as FB's at different times in their careers) Yes and they all contributed. Those were great times!
Thanks Heretic for reminding us about the 70's Raiders.