The First African-American Battery—Marlin Briscoe and Buzz Highsmith

LOOKING BACK
By John Turney

Dwight Stephenson

We are not sure who the first African-American player to snap in the NFL is. In the NFL's early days, there were some Black players and it's possible that someone played center in the 1920s, though if it happened it's never been noted, it's not likely—it likely would have been reported at the time or caught by historians and written about later.

That was followed by a shameful period when Black players were banned from the NFL, a practice that ended in 1946 in both the NFL and the AAFC.

From that time until the 1960s we are unaware of any Black players who played center. However, we do know that in 1965 Winston Hill, an great tackle for the AFL's New York Jets was the backup center and in one game versus the Chargers the starter went down and Hill played the majority of the game at center.

Winston Hill at center in 1965

In 1968 Walter "Buzz" Highsmith was the first African-American to start a game in the major leagues (NFL, AAFC, AFL) when he opened the game at center in the fourth game of the 1968 season. The quarterback for that game was Marlin Briscoe, the first quarterback to be a starter in the major leagues in modern history. Briscoe didn't start the opener, but he was the starter for the majority of the games. 

There were some Black quarterbacks in the pre-modern era such as Fritz Pollard, Joe Lillard, Kenny Washington (for a few plays) George Taliaferro, Willie Thrower, and Charlie Brackins but only Pollard got real playing time. Taliaferro played mostly tailback in a single wing and as such threw a lot, so in a sense he was the "passer" but Glenn Dobbs got more playing time and threw more passes so we don't think he was the "starter" in  the traditional sense of the word.

Highsmith at Center, Briscoe at Quarterback

It was, however, Briscoe's first start that season and that, coupled with Highsmith, made them the first African-American battery (a stolen baseball term referring to the pitcher and catcher) in history. The fact that both were in their first-ever starts is also notable. 

It didn't last long. Briscoe struggled and was benched at the half and it seems Highsmith was, too. In the second half usually starting center Larry Kaminski was back at the pivot and Steve Tensi took on the quarterback duties.

The Kaminski and Tensi battery versus Bengals, 1968

Sylvester Croom played one game and started it in 1975 for the New Orleans Saints. Croom is best known as an NFL position coach and NCAA head coach but he started the season opener on September 21, 1975, but was cut on the 23rd of September. Late in the season began his coaching career. 

The next chapter includes Larry Tearry, a 1978 fourth-round draft choice from Wake Forest by the Detroit Lions who took over the starting spot as a rookie. Veteran Mike Montler who'd been acquired from Denver that year didn't like the Motor City and quit the team, citing long practices by head coach Monte Clark and not being able to find suitable housing in Detroit. So, he walked.

Larry Tearry

That opened the door for Tearry who held the job until he walked out on the team in late 1979, later citing that the teams' losing got to him (they were 1-10 when he quit). In 1980 he was traded to the Kansa City Chiefs for a pair of draft picks but failed to make the team. He tried to play with the Dolphins in 1981 but after being in camp less than a couple of weeks, walked out. Pro football may not have been for him.

In 1981 there were two starting Black centers, Ray Donaldson and Dwight Stephenson, however, Donaldson started all sixteen games and Stephenson started just five. (Both entered the NFL in 1980 but neither started a game as a rookie). So, Donaldson can't rightly carry the title of the NFL's first African-American starting center, when "starting" is defined as starting the majority of the games for a given team but he does for being a center who started all his teams' games in a season. 

But if the distinction goes to someone who earned the starting spot in an NFL training camp and kept it job for an entire season then Ray Donaldson is the guy.

Ray Donaldson

Kevin Glover became the Lions starting center in 1987 and two years later Rodney Peete took over as the Lions signal-caller. We're confident this is the second African-American "battery" in league history. (Glover also started with Warren Moon in 1998 which, we think, would be the fourth tandem ever).

Kevin Glover

In 1988 Dermontti Dawson, as a rookie, started five games and was a starter the rest of his career. In 1997 when Kordell Stewart earned the starting quarterback position he and Dawson became the third-ever all African-American "battery".

Dermotti Dawson

Tony Mayberry became the Buccaneers' center in 1991 and in 1999 he and Shaun King started five games together and we think is the fifth pairing ever.

Tony Mayberry

After that, we've not looked into the subject much so this is definitely not the definitive work on the subject so we may have missed some key details. We simply wanted to highlight Buzz and Marlin's accomplishments but it has raised some questions in our mind.

There have been over 100 Black quarterbacks in the NFL (including AFL/AAFC) but nothing near that in the number of centers. The first starting Black quarterback happened in 1968 and there were Black starting quarterbacks in 1969, 1973-77, 1979-80 but it wasn't until 1978 that there was a starting center.

Honestly, we don't know how many Black centers there have been in the NFL, it's not something we've tallied but The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport reported that from 1999-14, 13% to 31% of NFL centers were black in any given year. Eyeballing the data it seems that the average is around 20% in that span. But it does seem that center and kicker/punter (about 3% Black) are positions where there are not many Black participants compared to other positions. 

We do note that of the centers that are Black, many have been truly great. Stephenson (the best ever) and Dawson are Hall of Famers. Ray Donaldson is not, but he's close to that level. Jason Brown was very good, and Mayberry was a Pro Bowler as was Glover.

On a personal note in the seven years I coached semi-pro football we never had a white center. For five years it was one smart, tough kid, and when he hung 'em up he was replaced by a younger, bigger kid who was also the quarterback of our line, very smart. It just begs the question in my mind: Why are so few Black centers in the NFL? 

In this case, in this day and age, we find it hard to believe it's pure racism, not that racism is over by any means—it's certainly still around. It seems, though, teams want to win and coaches are going to play the best players in perhaps 99% of the cases. Maybe coaches are just moving good college centers to guard or tackle? Maybe it's too few Black centers in high school in college ... we don't know, we're just curious. Smarter minds than ours will eventually give us some answers.

Updated: 12/30/2024. Credit to a reader for info on Tearry. Many thanks.