Review by Booklist Review
Playing quarterback in the NFL is likely the most challenging position in the world of professional sports. Sportswriter Eisenberg navigates the choppy waters of professional football history, from the 1920s to the present, focusing on the predicaments and accomplishments of Black quarterbacks. In the past, skilled and successful collegiate Black quarterbacks were mostly denied access to playing the position in the NFL. For decades, stereotyping and racist attitudes about Black athletes were maintained by many NFL team owners, coaches, and general managers. Eisenberg explains how the color line in NFL quarterbacking "fell gradually, almost imperceptibly at times, in baby steps taken by a succession of trailblazers." It's a lengthy saga of opportunities, many denied, far fewer granted and capitalized on. Ironically, Rocket Men is a rather slow read. It is crammed with individual player statistics, season records, descriptions of notable games, biographies, and interviews. But the quarterbacks featured are compelling, from such pioneers as Eldridge Dickey to more familiar names like Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson, Michael Vick, and Warren Moon. Eisenberg meticulously chronicles the struggles and success of NFL Black quarterbacks.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
This insightful chronicle by former Baltimore Sun columnist Eisenberg (The Longest Shot) examines the discrimination faced by Black quarterbacks in professional football, beginning in 1923 when Fritz Pollard of the Hammond Pros became the first African American quarterback to start for an NFL team. However, as the position grew in esteem over the ensuing decades, white general managers and coaches insisted that only white men could handle the intellectual rigor it required. Aspiring quarterbacks of color were advised to play wide receiver instead, and those who made the cut were sometimes asked to perform demeaning jobs or housed in inferior quarters. Eisenberg traces how the accomplishments of such players as Randall Cunningham in the 1980s and '90s led front offices to reconsider their racial assumptions, culminating in the Atlanta Falcons selecting Michael Vick as the first pick in the 2001 draft. Eisenberg cautions, however, that progress has been uneven, as seen in the NFL allegedly shutting out Colin Kaepernick for protesting police brutality. Eisenberg's indictment of the pro leagues is scathing, and he makes clear the personal toll racism took on Black quarterbacks, as when he describes James Harris's despair after getting passed up for obviously inferior white players in the 1969 NFL draft. It's an incisive appraisal of how racism has shaped who gets to play the "most pivotal and glamorous" position in football. (Sept.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Covering more than a century, this book by award-winning sportswriter Eisenberg (The League) exposes the stereotypes and institutional racism that Black people have battled to play as quarterbacks in the National Football League (NFL). Twenty-nine chapters span from Fritz Pollard's October 1923 quarterback role to the 2022 NFL season that included 18 Black quarterbacks--10 starters, eight backups. Through 1985, no NFL season saw more than two Black starting quarterbacks. In fact, the gridiron was white-only from 1934 to 1946, during the NFL's ban of Black players. Backgrounding aspiring Black quarterbacks over the years, the book indicates changes in society and on the field, as franchises, owners, and coaches hindered or helped players of color. The author takes special care to unfold the spike in opportunity in the 1990s that produced the 2000 season's unsurpassed peak of 14 Black starting quarterbacks. VERDICT An insightful behind-the-scenes peek at the NFL and its continuing prejudices that negate the concept that the best quarterback should play, regardless of race. Rich with commentary from interviews, this expansive narrative is ideal for football lovers and readers interested in developments in U.S. race relations and the compelling stories behind some athletes' paths and experiences.--Thomas J. Davis
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A history of the agonizingly slow acceptance of Black quarterbacks in professional football. Who recognizes the name Frederick Douglass "Fritz" Pollard? A Black Illinoisan born in 1895, Pollard was taught by his parents "to interact respectfully with whites but also to stand up for themselves when necessary." As veteran sportswriter Eisenberg notes, he later became "the NFL's first Black quarterback" as well as "the first Black player to participate in the game that became known as the Rose Bowl…and the first Black head coach in the NFL." Pollard is not better known because after his time on the field, which ended in the mid-1920s, Black players were frozen out of the game, "and by the time the tiniest trickle of Black players resurfaced after World War II, the quarterback position had evolved, emerging as football's most glamorous and complex role, deemed so important and challenging that owners and coaches would not dare trust a Black man with it." That lack of trust was born of pure racism, of course, and the unfounded assumption that Black players lacked the intelligence to captain a team. Eventually, players such as Buffalo's James Harris proved that assumption wrong--though Harris, a star college player, was selected No. 148th in the NFL draft, "a slap in the face." Finally, in 1974, then with the Los Angeles Rams, Harris "became the first Black quarterback to start an NFL playoff game." It would be another decade before two Black quarterbacks faced each other. Two decades after that, when Michael Vick ran afoul of the law, Black players were again effectively frozen out of the position. Now, of course, the situation has changed utterly: Aaron Rodgers, Eisenberg points out, is the NFL's highest-paid player, but after him come four "Black quarterbacks with contracts worth more than $1 billion combined." A vigorously told story of the battle for equity on the gridiron, a battle that is still playing out. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
