The NFL Network has announced February 7 as the first date to air its NFL 360 Videos documentary on Jimmy Raye’s ground-breaking careers as a Black quarterback and Black college and NFL coach. The start time is 8 p.m. ET on the NFL Network.
The film is part of series of shows the NFL Network is airing to celebrate Black History Month.
“Jimmy Raye was an exceptional athlete, but he was also a trailblazer,” said Angela Ellis, VP of Entertainment & Initiatives at NFL Media. “He became the first Black starting quarterback from the South to win a national championship, forging a path for Black players and coaches after him.”
NFL 360 producer/director Osahon Tongo, a former Georgia Tech player from Naperville, Illinois, included in his research reading my 2014 book, “Raye of Light,” for his research.
RAYE of LIGHT
Jimmy Raye, Duffy Daugherty, the Integration of College Football and the 1965-66 Michigan State Spartans.
Foreword by Tony Dungy
Raye of Light was the first book to properly tell the full story of Michigan State College Football Hall of Fame coach Duffy Daugherty’s Underground Railroad. Daugherty defied stereotypes of playing Black athletes in leadership positions at quarterback and linebacker and smashed the unwritten quotas in college football that existed into the 1960s of limiting Black athletes on a roster to a half-dozen or so.
In 1962, the Associated Press reported Michigan State’s 17 Black athletes was the most in major college football history. In 1962, USC won the national title with only five Black players and only seven on its 1967 national championship roster.
In 1966, Michigan State and Notre Dame played in the Game of the Century. Michigan State featured 20 Black players, 11 Black starters, two Black team captains, College Football Hall of Famers George Webster and Clinton Jones, and the South’s first Black quarterback to win a national title, Jimmy Raye of Fayetteville, N.C.
Notre Dame had one Black player, Alan Page.
The teams played to a controversial 10-10 tie and finished with 9-0-1 records. The National Football Foundation crowned the Spartans and Irish co-champions, although the AP, United Press International and Football Writers Association named Notre Dame.
The documentary also follows Raye’s pioneering career as a coach. Daugherty hired him in 1972, joining Sherman Lewis, hired in 1969, on the Spartans’ staff. Michigan State had two Black asssistant coaches at a time other schools were hiring their first Black assistant.
When Raye joined the San Franciso 49ers in 1977, there were only seven other Black assistants in a 28-team league. When Los Angeles Rams coach John Robinson named Raye his offensive coordinator in 1983, Raye was only the league’s second Black coordinator.
Although Raye was denied the opportunity as a head coach, many Black coaches, including Pro Football Hall of Fame coach Tony Dungy, consider Raye and mentor and elder statesman.
NFL 360 is an Emmy Award-winning series that is part of the NFL empire.
A long-standing misconception about the Underground Railroad was Daugherty recruited Black players to win football games. In reality, it was the southern Black high school coaches who contacted Daugherty because they trusted them to treat their players fairly.
Michigan State’s 1960s teams were college football’s first fully integrated rosters, but the Spartans reputation for Black stars — particularly respected in the South — dated to wins on national television in the 1954 and 1956 Rose Bowl games.
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