CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Boston College’s coaching staff list details more than names, experience and responsibilities. New defensive backs coach Eric Lewis reaffirms that his father Sherman Lewis and other passengers aboard Michigan State coach Duffy Daugherty’s Underground Railroad punched more than a one-way ticket.
Sherm’s passage was round trip when he left segregated Louisville, Ky., 59 years ago. His recruitment offered not only generational change for his own playing and coaching careers, it provided a launching pad for his family. Eric played college ball at San Diego State and then followed his dad into the itinerant coaching profession. This is Eric’s 10th stop in since his first job at Ball State (2003-05), and Boston College Coach Steve Addazio felt fortunate to add to his staff in January.
“I love having sons of coaches as players and as sons of coaches as coaches,” Addazio said at the ACC Kickoff media days. “They have a great feel for what this business is all about. You can tell Eric was raised right. He’s had a great mentor with his dad. That’s evident.”
This year is the 60th anniversary of the Underground Railroad’s first passenger. Clifton Roaf, father of College and Pro Football Hall of Famer Willie Roaf, who Pine Bluff, Ark., for the East Lansing campus.
Eric’s story is one of many examples of second-generation success the Underground Railroad has delivered. Jimmy Raye III is a Detroit Lions vice-president; his father Jimmy Raye II of Fayetteville, N.C., was the South’s first black quarterback to win a national title with the Spartans in 1966. Filmmaker Maya Washington, the daughter of College Football Hall of Famer Gene Washington that boarded in 1963 out of La Porte, Tex., tells her family’s story in her film, “Through the Banks of the Red Cedar.”
The list goes on among the 44 passengers that boarded the Underground Railroad from 1959 until Daugherty’s final season, 1972.
Among the passengers from 1959 to 1972, Sherman Lewis holds the distinction as its first All-American pick. As a senior halfback in 1963, he finished third in the Heisman Trophy voting to a fellow named Roger Staubach. He then played two Canadian Football League seasons with the Toronto Argonauts (1964-65) and two in the American Football League (1966-67) with the New York Jets in the pre-merger NFL.
But when Daugherty brought Lewis back to the Michigan State campus as an assistant coach in 1969, a time when there were few black assistant coaches in college football, he punched the round-trip portion of his ticket. Now 77 and retired since 2009, coaching has been Sherm Lewis’ more lasting impact on the sport.
After 14 seasons at his alma mater, he moved on the San Francisco 49ers, launching an NFL coaching career spanning 22 seasons and four Super Bowl rings — three with the 49ers and one with the Green Bay Packers. He served as an offensive coordinator with the Packers, Minnesota Vikings and Detroit Lions. His reputation was the reason the Washington Redskins called him out of retirement midway through the 2009 season to take over the play-calling role from embattled head coach Jim Zorn.
The bulk of his career preceded the NFL’s “Rooney Rule” that has been designed to provide African-American coaches an opportunity as a head coach. Although the rule has good intentions, it is often misused by NFL owners to check the box with a sham interview. Lewis suspects he had at least one of those with the Dallas Cowboys in 1998 when he told he was being brought into town quietly at night but was instead met in Dallas by TV news crews lighting up the room.
The job went to Chan Gailey, who is white and lasted only two seasons. The opportunities were few then and still now. When the Jets hired Herm Edwards in 2001, he was only the fifth black head coach named in the NFL.
During Sherm’s 49ers years, Eric’s high school success at Mountain View (Calif.) St. Francis earned a scholarship to San Diego State. He finished his career as the Aztecs’ career leader in pass breakups.
Eric most recently coached cornerbacks at Colorado State at the time Addazio and defensive coordinator Bill Sheridan were in the market for a defensive backs coach. Sheridan suggested Lewis and Addazio agreed to interview him.
“Eric is a serious guy, a bright guy,” Addazio said. “He has confidence and command of his players on the field. I was very impressed with him in the interview process. He’s an excellent evaluator of high school talent. He’s well rounded and well prepared. He’s got a great future in front of him.”
Lewis’ resume also includes three seasons as a young defensive coordinator, two at Weber State (2012-13) and one at Eastern Michigan (2009). That background also appealed to Addazio.
“I like to have guys with a top end that can be a coordinator or a head coach,” said Addazio, comparing hiring coaches to projecting players in the recruiting game. “We’re not paying salaries like some people are. I’ve got to look at guys and project them as coaches like we project players. I think I’ve done a good job because people keep raiding my staff.”
Lewis was hired two weeks after BC lost Anthony Campanile to Michigan.
Lewis has quickly made an impression on more the than his defensive backs..
Boston College defensive tackle Tanner Karafa, one of the two players the Eagles brought to Charlotte along with running back A.J. Dillon, said Lewis has caught the entire roster’s attention.
“I’m excited about coach Lewis,” Karafa said. “He’s come into the (defensive backfield) room where and he’s done a great job this spring and summer bringing the young guys along. We had a lot of talented guys (last year) that have left. We need to e strong and prepared at those positions.”
To Karafa, Eric Lewis is just another bright coach. He’s like many young Americans of his generation, black and white alike, that doesn’t realize how recent was segregation in the South and the racism obstacles that confronted African-Americans. He said the background on Eric’s father is new him, but he’s interested to learn more.
“Education, knowledge and understanding are a good for all ofus,” he said. “It helps bring us together.”
The Underground Railroad’s second generation is still rolling.
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I invite you to follow me on Twitter @shanny4055
Tom Shanahan, Author: Raye of Light http://tinyurl.com/knsqtqu
— Book on Michigan State’s leading role in the integration of college football. It explains Duffy Daugherty’s untold pioneering role and debunks myths that steered recognition away from him to Bear Bryant.
— Raye of Light featured at 2019 National Sports Media Association Book Festival
http://shanahan.report/a/the-case-for-duffy-and-medal-of-freedom
http://www.shanahan.report/a/forty-four-underground-railroad-legacy-facts
Don’t believe the myths at Duffy Daugherty’s expense about Bear Bryant’s motivation to play the 1970 USC-Alabama game or myths about the Charlie Thornhill-for-Joe Namath trade. Bear Bryant knew nothing about black talent in the South while he dragged his feet on segregation.
http://shanahan.report/a/myths-that-grew-out-of-1970-alabama-game-with-usc
http://shanahan.report/a/mystery-solved-in-thornhill-and-namath-myth
David Maraniss, Pulitzer Prize winner and biographer; “History writes people out of the story. It’s our job to write them back in.
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