Not Just Black And White

Sometimes things aren’t a matter of black or white, right or wrong, weak or strong. But once, in this country, it WAS about black or white and if you were white, you were the right and you were the strong. Once. The bad old days. Not relevant now, right?

Everybody who knows me knows I despise racism. However, everybody who knows me knows I disapprove of most of the policies proposed by Barack Obama and that I believe he leans so far left he probably requires a gyroscope to stand up straight. But a football player helped me see things in a different light.

THURSDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL

Denver’s Brandon Marshall caught an 11-yard touchdown with 1:14 remaining in Thursday's game against the Browns to win the game 34-30 after a 93 yard Jay Cutler-to-Eddie Royal hookup broke a Denver Bronco record while getting the score close. That, plus one or two costly mistakes by Browns tight end Kellen Winslow, a first-half hero when catching the first two touchdown passes of Brady Quinn’s NFL career gave Marshall a chance to be a difference-maker.

When Marshall scored, he reached inside the front of his pants and took out something unidentifiable but fellow wide receiver Brandon Stokley ran up and grabbed Marshall’s hands, holding the young player’s arms down while saying something emphatic and Marshall’s teammates immediately surrounded Marshall as an official ran up to see if the young wide receiver was breaking a rule about including a prop in a touchdown celebration. No see, no harm, no foul.

I observed to my wife and son, watching the game with me, that Marshall had some stupid prop he was about to use and Stokley had just saved the team fifteen yards for unsportsmanlike conduct.

“Marshall is a good player, but he’s just another showboat like T.O. or Ocho Cinco. If they gave them 15 yards on the kickoff it might’ve cost them the ballgame. What a bonehead.”

“Smart play by Stokley, though.” Said my son, Rob. “I’ve always liked him.”

“Yeah. Maybe he can teach Marshall how to act. He was probably going to write the cornerback a parking ticket or something like that.”

I’m glad I waited to watch the post-game interviews.

You know Brandon Marshall. Big talent, big mouth, big trouble?

They call him “The Beast.” Actually, he calls himself that: "Right now when I sign my signature, I put 'Brandon Marshall #15' and I put 'The Beast' underneath. I'm running with 'The Beast' right now but if the fans vote and they have something better, let's go with the fans." (as told to local television affiliate CBS4)

Brandon Flowers, KC defensive back, once said, "Brandon Marshall is a defensive lineman playing wide receiver. He wants to inflict punishment on you. He wants you to try to tackle him so he can shove you off of him and get more yards."

After a 20-catch rookie season in 2006, Denver Bronco receiver Marshall caught 102 passes for 1325 yards and seven touchdowns. He was branded a star, a Beast! He claimed his goal for 2008 was to catch 140 passes.

But the offseason leading up to this year didn’t go too well. He was horsing around at his home in March and wound up smashing his forearm through a television set and cutting it severely, making it impossible for him to practice until June. Horsing around had not been limited to wrestling with friends and family either. His sometimes-careless-or-idiotic lifestyle led to an NFL suspension that cost him game one of the 2008 season…and it could have been worse.

Quoting ESPN from an August 6th post:

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. -- The Denver Broncos will start the season without wide receiver Brandon Marshall, who was suspended by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell for three games for violating the league's personal conduct policy.

Marshall was summoned to Goodell's New York offices on July 18 to explain a series of off-the-field misdeeds over the past year, most notably his March 6 arrest on a domestic violence warrant filed by his former girlfriend in Atlanta.

Marshall, who is due in court next month for a drunken driving trial, can have his suspension reduced to two games if he undergoes counseling and abides by other conditions, which the NFL did not specify.

Marshall managed to appeal the suspension down to one game. But he started the season with some doubts about his character to belie his obvious physical talents. Then in Marshall's first game back from suspension, he caught 18 passes for 166 yards and a touchdown to lead Denver to a 39-38 victory over San Diego.

Doubters remain. Miami linebacker Joey Porter yapped at him throughout a Denver loss to Miami during which Marshall caught, officially, just two passes for 27 yards although a long touchdown pass from Jay Cutler was called back on an exceedingly dubious penalty. After that week nine game, Joey Porter said this:

"I didn't get inside his head, we just were talkin'. He got in his own head. He was done," Porter said. "He's one of those soft receivers, where he has to have the ball all the time. If he don't get it, he's going to mope and cry. He did it to himself."

Brandon Marshall had a lot on his mind late in Thursday’s game with Cleveland. The Broncos had missed opportunities and he himself had dropped a pass or two and run the wrong routes once or twice and his numbers were unimpressive. His team was behind. Then, even while catching what turned out to be the game-winning pass he nearly made another stupid mistake. After the game he gave an interview to the NFL Network crew and confessed that he had not played a good game overall:

“Man I’m happy now because it was one of those games where I was relying on my team ‘cause I dropped a couple balls…I was out there doing too much, man. That interception was my fault. It was a cover two and I slid in when I shoulda slid out and I screwed Jay a little bit and it was one of those nights for me.”

He talked about his past problems.

“I made a lot of mistakes on and off the field in my three years and …they have meetings with rookies telling them how to stay out of trouble….I poked my head into the rookie meeting and said, man, you guys learn from all the things I been through and don’t do the same things! It’s been a blessing, man, and being accountable, and showing those guys you can do the right thing? It’s just keeping me going.”

The NFL Network crew was chuckling and Marshall was as well. This big, likeable young man wasn’t afraid to blame himself for his mistakes and credit his teammates. What a refreshing point of view in a world of self-centered blame-shifting athletes. Was this the same clown with the DUI and a history of off-field troubles? I could not believe it, how could you not like this guy?

Denver Broncos receiver Brandon Marshall gave credit to his quarterback Jay Cutler for staying with him in the end, to rookie running back Peyton Hillis, to Eddie Royal for getting the team going and called himself out for making mistakes during the game. Still all the while wearing a big smile, being able to say these things after a win rather than a loss.

One of the interviewers, Warren Sapp, soon came to the subject of what the heck was that thing he had pulled out of his pants? Didn’t he realize Brandon Stokley and a few other teammates surrounding him quickly is all that kept him from receiving a fifteen yard penalty that could have cost his team the victory?

Marshall said this:

“It was an historical day for America and when we look at the 44th President, Barack Obama, he inspired me and not just me and my teammates but the nation. I know in the 1968 Olympics two of our black athletes stood on the podium and threw up their Black Panther sign just for black power and liberation. But in my own way I wanted to pay my respect to our nation and the progress we made so I got a white glove painted black half and half. It’s not about black power and it’s not about white and black it’s about USA red, white and blue and I wanted to do it but Stokley came and said it’s too close of a ballgame you might get flagged, so put it back in!”

The announcers, two of them white and three of them black and one black ballplayer, they were all laughing, asking him where he put the glove (threw it away, so look for it 47 times on EBay for $1,000.00 each)! It hit me that I hadn’t thought about them as black and white but simply that one is Deion Sanders and that one is Marshall Faulk and that one is Rich Eisen and so on.

I considered how a member of my generation and a basketball player I really admired, Alex English, told a story about him and his brother getting literally kicked in the rear and chased away from a “white only” drinking fountain in South Carolina, as quoted in the Toronto Star:

"My brother was drinking and this white guy came out and said, `You niggers, what are you doing?' and he just kicked my brother right in his behind. ... We cried, we walked home," said English, 54. "(Tuesday) night, my phone, my sisters, all the people were calling me and crying and saying, `We did it! We did it!'"

I remembered how, over a decade after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier for major league baseball the black players still had to eat in separate diners and stay at separate hotels during spring training down south. Jim Crow lasted long after Abe Lincoln declared slavery to be dead.

How would I feel if it was the other way around and black faces had been on every piece of folding money and black hands at the tiller of the ship of state since the 18th century and now, finally, one of my own had finally arrived? Wouldn’t it say to me and everyone else that America had finally put racism in the past? That there were no longer any second-class citizens? That I belonged as much as anyone else?

I saw Brandon Marshall and listened to him and I saw his color was different and he had tattooing up and down his arms, wearing an earring in each ear and here he was, so much younger than me, so much richer…and I loved the guy! What a cool moment for a young man so happy that his country, by electing Barack Obama, had told him that he truly did belong! I realized that he was just a young kid (compared to me) who had made mistakes, mistakes that had helped humble him and grow him up. He was also still a little boy, yukking it up on national television after a big win and just loving life. Someone you’d want living next door or hanging out at the local gym with you.

Brandon Marshall is like me and I am like Brandon Marshall. Maybe for the first time we all are able to believe we are not black and white and yellow and brown and man and woman so much as we are all people and, in particular, equally valuable Americans. And here I am this white conservative who voted for John McCain and thought McCain was too liberal himself and yet…as I saw the joy on Marshall’s face and heard the sound of his laughter…the thought came to me…maybe four years of Barack Obama is worth it after all.
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Here is the URL for the Marshall interview: http://www.nfl.com/videos?videoId=09000d5d80c4773e