PHOTO: Michigan State’s Jimmy Raye hands off to Syracuse’s Larry Csonka in a publicity photo for the 1968 East-West Shrine Game played at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. In the days before the NFL Combine, pro teams used all-star games evaluations prior to the draft.

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Visit my homepage: TomShanahan.Report

— Click here for review and purchase link: THE RIGHT THING TO DO, The True Pioneers of College Football Integration in the 1960s and here for a purchase link to RAYE OF LIGHT, Jimmy Raye, Duffy Daugherty, the Integration of College Football and the 1965-66 Michigan State Spartans.

— Watch a three-minute video to learn about our documentary at the fundraising stage, GAME CHANGERS OF THE CENTURY, and the Investment Deck.

— Documentary synopsis: Duffy documentary snynopsis.pdf – Google Drive

— How Duffy Daugherty and the MSU Team Changed College Football History

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By TOM SHANAHAN

The above picture of Jimmy Raye handing off to Larry Csonka in a publicity photo for the 1968 East-West Shrine Game played in San Fransico prompted me update a story I wrote three years ago upon the death of Marlin Briscoe.

Both Raye and Marlin Brisco were starting college quarterbacks at a time Black quarterbacks were rare. Raye, Michigan State’s sophomore backup in 1965 and the starter in 1966 and 1967, was the South’s first Black quarterback to win a national title. Briscoe was a starter at Nebraska-Omaha, an NCAA Division II program until football was disbanded in 2011.

The lack of opportunities for Black quarterbacks in the NFL played out through the selections of Raye and Briscoe in the 1968 draft.

Briscoe was taken by the Denver Broncos in the 14^th round, the 357^th choice overall, but as a wide receiver.

Raye was taken by the Los Angeles Rams in the 16^th round, the 431^st selection overall, but as a defensive back.

Briscoe got a chance to move back to quarterback temporarily due to injuries to the Broncos’ quarterbacks. You can read more in the story below. He was traded to Buffalo and finished his career as a wide receiver.

Raye took snaps at quarterback in practice during the NFL labor lockout of players, but he was moved back to DB once Roman Gabriel and the Rams’ veteran QBs returned.

In the 1968 East-West Shrine Game played at Candlestick Park, Raye played extensively at quarterback. He says he didn’t know at the time he would be drafted as a defensive back.

Csonka was a first-round pick, the eighth overall, by the Miami Dolphins. He’s a College and Pro Football Hall of Famer with two Super Bowl rings.

Raye went onto a pioneering career as a Black college and NFL coach. He was the NFL’s second Black coordinator when hired by the Rams in 1983. In 2022, the Pro Football Hall of Fame honored him in the inaugural class of NFL Awards of Excellence for his long career.

Omaha honored Briscoe with a statue on campus in 2016, even though the school no longer sponsors football. The statue is outside the basketball arena.

Michigan State didn’t induct Raye into its Hall of Fame until 2018. There are no statues on campus of Raye or any other pioneers from Duffy Daugherty’s 1960s teams who changed the face of the game. Daugherty fielded college football’s first fully integrated rosters in the 1960s.

There were no references to Raye as the South’s first Black quarterback to win a national title in stories about him preceding the East-West Shrine Game. Why? The sports media of the time avoided Black milestones, which is explains why much of Daugherty’s leadership was lost to history.

I realized the overlooked milestone while researching RAYE OF LIGHT, Jimmy Raye, Duffy Daugherty, the Integration of College Football and the 1965-66 Michigan State Spartans. I ran my research by the National Football Foundation. They verified the milestone and included it in a newsletter.

Draw your own conclusions on Michigan State properly recognizing of its history.

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FROM JUNE 29, 2022

By TOM SHANAHAN

In many ways Jimmy Raye was Marlin Briscoe and Marlin Briscoe was Jimmy Raye. They were both pioneering figures connected in similar but different ways.

Briscoe died on Monday at age 76 from circulation problems in his legs and from pneumonia. Raye recalled how he and his old friend were tied together in history as he prepared to travel to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. Raye is among five long-time NFL assistant coaches to receive on Thursday the inaugural “Awards of Excellence.”

“Marlin was a great guy,” Raye said. “As a quarterback, he could spin it and run with it.”

Raye and Briscoe were Black starting college quarterbacks in the mid-1960s when such opportunities were rare for African Americans. Raye played in the Big Ten for Michigan State, Briscoe for Omaha University (now Nebrasaka-Omaha), which was a Division II program.

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My appearance on the Adam Gold show discussing Marlin Briscoe and his friend Jimmy Raye

I’m on at the 33:00 mark

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The prevailing attitude in those days was African Americans weren’t smart enough to play quarterback or able to lead a huddle with white players. Raye and Briscoe defied those stereotypes behind coaches who gave them a chance, Michigan State’s Duffy Daugherty and Omaha’s Al Caniglia.

Raye was the South’s first Black quarterback to win a national title. He was a sophomore backup who played frequently behind All-American senior Steve Juday on the 1965 national title roster and a junior starter earning second-team All-Big Ten honors (behind All-American Bob Griese of Purdue) on the 1966 team that shared the national title with Notre Dame. Injuries hampered him as a senior starter in 1967, but he posted a second career win over Michigan as a starter.

Briscoe was a three-year starter, leading Omaha to three straight conference titles (the school dropped football after the 2010 season).” Raye and Briscoe were both drafted as defensive backs — Briscoe a 14th-rounder by Denver and Raye a 16th-rounder by the Los Angeles Rams — but through a twist of fate Briscoe was the NFL’s first Black starting quarterback as a rookie in 1968.

Black quarterbacks drafted to play another position was nothing new for the handful that gained the opportunity. The University of Minnesota’s Sandy Stephens also was a victim, even though in 1960 he was the first Black quarterback to win a national title and earn All-American honors. The NFL’s Minnesota Vikings and the AFL’s New York Jets (then the Titans) drafted Stephens but informed him he wouldn’t play quarterback. Stephens instead signed and played quarterback for the Montreal Alouettes in the Canadian Football League.

Briscoe’s NFL opportunity came about when starter Steve Tensil was injured in the third game against the Boston Patriots at a time when Denver was shorthanded at the position. Broncos’ head coach Lou Saban called upon Briscoe, who directed an 80-yard TD drive. Denver lost 20-17, but Briscoe earned a start the next week, a 10-6 win over the Cincinnati Bengals. That earned Brisco his immortal place in history as the NFL’s first Black starting quarterback.

In another Raye-Briscoe small-world example, the NFL’s first Black quarterback was Michigan State’s Willie Thrower in 1953 with the Chicago Bears. Thrower’s career was one of the reasons Raye trusted the Spartans to give him a fair chance to play quarterback.

Briscoe ended the 1968 season starting five games and playing in 11. He finished the year leading the team with 1,589 yards passing, 14 touchdowns and 13 interceptions. Tensil’s final numbers in seven games, six starts, were 709 yards with five TDs and nine interceptions.

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Raye, who noticed Briscoe’s regular-season success from afar as a Rams rookie DB, nearly had his own fateful chance to play quarterback as a 1968 rookie. The 1968 season was the first NFL lockout. In the 12 days of the lockout Raye was the only player in the Rams’ camp who could throw the ball. He was taking snaps in practice — until the veterans – Roman Gabriel, Milt Plum and Karl Sweetan – returned at the end of the lockout.

But Raye followed from afar Briscoe’s opportunity at quarterback. In the days before every game was on TV and Sunday NFL highlight shows, that meant studying box scores in the Monday morning newspaper.

Raye was both proud and envious.

“I was thinking, ‘Wow! That could have been me,’” he said “But I was thrilled for him. Sandy Stephens never got that chance. Marlin got his chance and then he had success at it.”

But not for long.

As the Broncos assembled for the 1969 season, Saban invited his quarterbacks to camp early for meetings. When Briscoe learned he hadn’t been invited among the QBs, he showed up anyway at Saban’s office. He confronted Saban. The result was asking for his release, which Saban granted.

In another twist, Briscoe subsequently signed with the Buffalo Bills for the 1969 season. That year Buffalo had drafted James Harris as a quarterback out of Grambling, the Historically Black College and University. Harris had the prototype size for a QB as a 6-foot-4, 210-pounder and was installed as the backup for established starter Jack Kemp. Briscoe (5-10, 177) was converted to wide receiver.

Briscoe accepted the move and Harris was thrilled to have Briscoe as a teammate. Years later, Harris told Raye he followed Raye’s and Briscoe’s college careers. He visited the Grambling library to find newspaper results.

“He told me we were the two quarterbacks he followed,” Raye said.

Raye and Harris had their own small-world story when they met as young teen-agers at Seabrook Park in Raye’s hometown, Fayetteville, N.C. Harris, who was from Monroe, Louisiana, was in Fayetteville with his family to visit an older brother who was stationed at Fort Bragg. In those days, Raye could be found either at home or next door at Seabrook.

Raye and Harris were soon engaged in marathon pickup basketball games that drew a crowd.

Briscoe enjoyed success with the Bills, including the 1970 Pro Bowl. But he was traded after the 1971 season for a 1973 first-round draft pick to the Miami Dolphins. Briscoe won two Super Bowl titles with the Dolphins. The Dolphins were a run-oriented team in a run-first league, but Briscoe finished his career with 234 catches for 3,537 yards and 30 touchdowns.

In another small-world story, the Bills used the draft pick for Briscoe to take Michigan State All-American guard Joe DeLamielleure, who went on to a Pro Football Hall of Fame career. DeLamielleure was a All-American pick for the Spartans in 1972, which was Raye’s first year as a full-time coach.

Seven degrees of Jimmy Raye.

Duffy Daugherty had hired both Sherman Lewis in 1969 and Raye as pioneering Black college assistant coaches before both moved on to the NFL as pioneering assistants and offensive coordinators.

Raye first met Briscoe in 1968 through his Michigan State teammate Drake Garrett, who was drafted by the Broncos in 1968 as a DB. Raye and Briscoe remained friends, including when Briscoe fell on hard times.

By the time Briscoe retired, he settled in Los Angeles, working as a financial broker. He was later addicted to cocaine, but he has candidly told his story about drugs and time spent in jail. During his downfall years, Raye was with the Rams as only the second Black offensive coordinator in NFL history, 1983-84.

“I tried to help him out and gave him some money, but he was too deep into his drug addiction,” Raye said. “But he came out of it years later. He did a great job working in Long Beach (with the Boys and Girls Clubs).

In 2016, Briscoe was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as Division All-American player. Nebraska-Omaha erected a statue of him the same year outside the school’s Baxter Arena.

Raye is having his moment at the Pro Football Hall of Fame with the Awards of Excellence ceremonies.

In so many ways. Jimmy Raye was Marlin Briscoe and Marlin Briscoe was Jimmy Raye.

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The other assistant coaches receiving the “Awards of Excellence” are Alex Gibbs, Terry Robiskie, Fritz Shurmur and Ernie Zampese.

The names of the winners will be on display at the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Raye will be joining two other Spartans honored with a display in Canton. Thrower has been recognized among the Black pioneers quarterbacks. Gideon Smith, Michigan State’s first Black player from 1913 to 1915 who led the Spartans to their first two wins over Michigan, is listed among the early Black NFL players. Smith played with Jim Thorpe with the Canton Bulldogs.

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I’ll put my facts on the true pioneers of college football integration versus Bear Bryant fairytales against anybody, anytime, anywhere. Watch here.

Click here for my story on the 1962 Rose Bowl and Segregation and Alabama.

— Tom Shanahan is an award-winning sportswriter with two books on college football integration, “RAYE OF LIGHT, Jimmy Raye, Duffy Daugherty, the Integration of College Football and the 1965-66 Michigan State Spartans,” and “THE RIGHT THING TO DO, The True Pioneers of College Football Integration in the 1960s.” They are the most accurate accounts of college football integration in the 1950s and 1960s. They also debunk myths about the 1970 USC-Alabama game. The false narrative co-opted the stories of the true pioneers who stood up to Jim Crow and the KKK.

— Two children’s books also explain Michigan State College Football Hall of Fame coach Duffy Daugherty’s impact on integration through the Underground Railroad and the Hawaiian Pipeline: “DUFFY’S COLLEGE FOOTBALL UNDERGROUND RAILROAD” and “HOW DUFFY PUT HAWAII ON AMERICA’S FOOTBALL MAP.”

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PURCHASE LINKS, non-fiction books

— RAYE OF LIGHT, August Publications or on Amazon.

— THE RIGHT THING TO DO, August Publications or on Amazon.

PURCHASE LINKS, children’s books

— DUFFY’S COLLEGE FOOTBALL UNDERGROUND RAILROAD, Order from Barnes and Noble here and Amazon here. 

— HOW DUFFY PUT HAWAII ON AMERICA’S FOOTBALL MAP, coming soon on Barnes and Noble and Amazon.