Who He Was

The eldest son of a steelworker in a poor black neighbourhood in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Johnny Bright had some pretty tough odds stacked against him. Luckily, he was a superior athlete from a young age, excelling in track, basketball, boxing, softball, and football in high school. Probably didn’t hurt that he was a big guy, standing six-foot-one as an adult.

He was good enough to get a football scholarship to Michigan State University, but left in his first year to go to Drake University in Iowa. He was a standout player there as a quarterback and halfback–in 1969 Drake named him their greatest player of all time, and his is the only jersey retired at the school. He was bound for a top career in the NFL.

In the 1952 NFL draft, the Philadelphia Eagles picked Bright fifth overall, the highest draft pick ever for an African-American player. But Bright knew first-hand that racism was a major problem in American football, whose teams were only just starting to integrate. “I would have been their first Negro player,” Bright said later. “I didn’t know what kind of treatment I could expect.”

So instead of accepting Philadelphia’s offer, Bright accepted an offer from the Calgary Stampeders of the CFL.

Why He Was Great

Johnny Bright’s first two seasons in the CFL for Calgary didn’t go as well as planned; he did pick up some serious running yards, but nagging injuries led to Bright’s trade to Edmonton in 1954. With two all-star running backs on the team already, Normie Kwong and Jackie Parker.

Among Bright’s advantages, though, was being about as big and unstoppable as a cement truck. He was a huge 215 pounds, at a time when many of the guards defending him were ten pounds lighter. And he was strong and tough, tearing effortlessly through defenders.

In 1956, he smashed teammate Kwong’s record for rushing yards in a Grey Cup game; Bright ran for 171 yards in the 1956 final, a record that still stands (unlike the linemen from the 1956 Alouettes). And that was just the start of his dominance.

1957: eight consecutive 100-yard games and 1679 yards on the season. 1958, 1,722 yards rushing. 1959. 1,340 yards. After those three straight seasons as the CFL rushing leader, Bright won the CFL’s Most Outstanding Player award, the first black player ever to win it.

Bright played until 1964, retiring as the all-time leading rusher in the CFL.

One Great Moment

Everyone knew Johnny Bright was a marked man when his team, Drake University, lined up on the Oklahoma A&M field in 1951. Bright had scored 70% of the points and gained 70% of the yards for the team that season. He led the nation in offensive production. He had never played for a college team with a losing record.

But Oklahoma wasn’t only deep in the segregationist south; it was coached by a certain J.B. Whitworth. The guy was almost a cartoon version of the lowlife racist. In his practices the week before Drake arrived, he was literally yelling “Get that n—–!” to motivate the team, who we can only assume had white hoods on under their helmets.

So as a black quarterback, Bright was in for some, shall we say, extra attention. Or shall we say, evil racially-motivated douchebaggery.

Lineman Wilbanks Smith managed to get to Bright three times to lay an elbow on him. Football equipment wasn’t quite as protective then, of course: no faceguards. Each time, Smith made direct contact with Bright’s face.

The third time, Bright had already handed off the ball and was well behind the play. Look at the photos yourself: both of Smith’s feet were off the ground as he made contact, and Bright’s jaw was utterly shattered.

That was seven minutes into the game.

We like to think there’s a special place in hell, some dingy living room where Smith and his racist scumbag coach Whitworth are forced to watch the next part of that game over and over into eternity. Because Bright got up off the field, clenched his badly broken jaw, and continued playing.

A few plays later, he threw an astounding 61-yard pass to score Drake’s first touchdown, tying the game.

Not long after that, the coach took him out, Bright’s only college game as quarterback where he produced fewer than 100 yards. With Bright gone, Drake lost the game. But the NFL lost an even bigger opportunity: one of the strongest players ever to carry a football went to the CFL instead.

Oh, and just in case you’re wondering whether there’s any justice in the universe. 1956 was Bright’s breakout year as a star running back. That same year, the horribly racist coach from Oklahoma, J. B. Whitworth, led the Alabama Crimson Tide to a 14-game losing streak. His coaching record in Alabama ended at 4-24-2, one of the worst-top level coaching records in US college history.

Why We Should Stand In Awe

He rarely spoke of “Johnny Bright Incident” at Oklahoma, and when he did he didn’t sound bitter. In a 1980 interview, Bright stated that “getting a broken jaw has somehow made college athletics better. It made the NCAA take a hard look at itself and clean up some things that were bad.” The photos of the incident won the Pulitzer Prize, and that led to major changes to US college football, including mandatory facemasks and improved rules around illegal blocking.

So Bright walked away from the life-threatening racism that he saw in the NFL, and instead carved out one of the most awe-inspiring running careers the CFL has ever seen, still good for 15th on the all-pro rushing list. And Bright’s 171 rushing yards in a Grey Cup game still stands.

When most of us are smashed in the face with hospitalizing injuries, we start to rethink our life choices. We don’t stand up again and throw touchdown passes.

Johnny Bright is not most of us. You want to see what courage looks like? This is what courage looks like.

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