Beyond The Game, a Champion

By Tom Callahan

As a contest, Super Bowl XXII ended by half time. As a lesson, it should last forever. The TV ratings in the late stages were the paltriest in years, but it is pleasing to imagine that this may have only partly been a product of the lopsided score, that a multitude of black children may have already raced outside to raise their arms to the sky. And not just blacks. And not just children.

Climaxing a regular season in which he started and won no games -- none in two seasons, for that matter -- Washington Quarterback Doug Williams passed for a Super Bowl record of 340 yds. and four touchdowns, as the Redskins massacred the favored Denver Broncos and their lionized leader John Elway, 42-10. By his swagger, the Broncos' young quarterback is known as "the Duke" (though John Wayne never portrayed General Custer). Blond, blue-eyed, Stanford-educated Elway could -- in that lemon-squash phrase -- do it all. He could hurt you in a lot of ways. He even used his multiple gifts to evade the lowly National Football League team that drafted him No. 1 (the Baltimore Colts) and arranged himself a more genial place in Denver. During the drumbeating for last week's championship game, Elway proclaimed five Super Bowl titles a personal goal.

Meanwhile, brown-haired, brown-eyed, Grambling-educated Williams dutifully reported to the worst expansion franchise in pro football history, the 2-26 Tampa Bay Buccaneers. When two years later he lifted the Bucs to within a game of a Super Bowl, but no nearer, his reward was a rotten watermelon gift- wrapped by a racist fan. For peace as much as money, he eventually jumped to another league. When it folded in 1986, only Washington held out a job. At 32, five years older than Elway, Williams had been standing behind Jay Schroeder for a year and a half when Schroeder faltered in November.

For a while afterward, Washington Coach Joe Gibbs waffled between the two, but by the conference championship game with Minnesota three weeks ago, he knew who his quarterback was. Actually, the players decided. Gibbs could see who moved them, in every way. When a hailstorm of Williams' incompletions fell against Minnesota, Schroeder fidgeted on the sidelines, but the coach never blinked. In San Diego, while Elway was envisioning his five titles, Williams was trying to answer the question "How long have you been a black quarterback?" (As far as he could recall, Williams seemed to turn black about the time he left Grambling.) "I'm quite sure the Redskins didn't hire me," he kept saying, "just to be the first black quarterback in the Super Bowl."

The disappointments in Williams' life have not been small. He lost his wife to a brain tumor four years ago, ten days short of their first anniversary. Symbolic little barriers were blocking his way right up to game time. On Super Bowl eve he endured three hours of root-canal dental work. And as the first quarter was closing in a 10-0 Denver rush, Williams' left leg crumpled; Schroeder entered for two plays. Although wobbling like a table, Williams was back for the first snap of the second quarter and for the remarkable 17 offensive plays that followed. All told, they produced five touchdowns.

Suddenly Williams was on the Wheaties box. His first flash commercial took place right on the sidelines ("Where are you going now, Doug?" "I'm going to Disney World"). Really, the initial stop was the White House, followed shortly by Washington's Howard University. He went there as a way of reaching back to Grambling, to Alcorn State, to South Carolina State, to Texas Southern. He said, "I am a product of all black universities and colleges."

Williams' coach at Grambling, Legendary Eddie Robinson, 68, was present in San Diego. He is the winningest college football coach in history, probably the best of all the black coaches the N.F.L. has never hired. Beginning with the great Green Bay Defensive End Willie Davis, "Coach Rob" has been supplying Super Bowl stars since Game I. But James Harris, a decade ago, and Williams were the first quarterbacks he constructed in such a way that no one could convert them to defensive backs. So painstaking were their preparations back in Louisiana, they had even practiced a few times with a microphone.

Now that Williams is permanently fixed in dreams to come, the practice will help. Being a role model requires more than just good instincts; it takes balance and thoughtfulness. Williams seems to have the goods. He understands the score, but bitterness is not his style. As a boy, his favorite baseball player was Dodger Pitcher Don Drysdale. "Why?" he repeated a question, ignoring the questioner's point. "Because he could really throw. ((Drysdale is white.)) I can remember going to see the Dodgers play for the first time and being so disappointed that Sandy Koufax was pitching. Why? He's left- handed."

Graceful throwers and speakers are already following Williams, among them Syracuse Quarterback Don McPherson, who told the Los Angeles Times, "He's not helping an issue, he's helping people. And the people he is helping are not black, but white." That was the best line of the Super Bowl.