By Mike Pearson
FightingIllini.com

To many younger Fighting Illini fans, the name Claude "Buddy" Young may be familiar, but likely no more than someone recognized for his athletic achievement.

The University of Illinois' first nationally famous African American athlete stood only five-feet-four-inches tall, but the legacy he would go on to establish beyond the athletic fields was immeasurable.

Coaches Ray Eliot and Leo Johnson recruited the kid from Chicago Phillips High School to Champaign-Urbana to play football and run track. Dressed in football jersey No. 66, Young was magnificent as a freshman halfback in 1944, averaging nearly nine yards every time he carried the ball and tying Red Grange's single-season school record for touchdowns.

Following his service in the Navy during World War II, Young returned to Illinois, and became the first Black man to earn Most Valuable Player honors in the Rose Bowl (1947).

On the oval cinders of Memorial Stadium, Young was a sprinter extraordinaire, capturing a pair of titles at the 1944 NCAA Outdoor championships. At the prestigious Millrose Games in New York, the "Bronze Bullet" tied the world indoor record of 6.1 seconds in the 60-yard dash.

Young left Illinois in 1947 and, following the All-American Football Conference Draft, signed a contract with the New York Yankees. He eventually played 10 seasons with the Yanks, the Dallas Texans and the Baltimore Colts. He was the first Colts player to have his uniform number (22) retired.

Yet, it was Young's skills off the field that gained him his greatest acclaim. So highly respected was Young that, in 1964, he became the first African American executive hired by a major sports league. National Football League Commissioner Pete Rozelle specifically targeted the affable Young and snatched him away from the Colts to be his confidant and insider as it related to the rapidly growing number of Black NFL players.

In one of his first major projects, a memorandum dated August 3, 1966, Young meticulously produced a revealing five-page synopsis that was entitled "Some Observations on the NFL and Negro Players."

It's a document that renowned sociologist Harry Edwards says, "should be in Canton, enshrined in a case like the Declaration of Independence."

Richard Lapchick, director of the Institute for Diversity of Ethics in Sport, concurred.

"The proposals Buddy Young spelled out here were just so forward-thinking for that period of time," Lapchick said. "He basically proposed what player programs eventually became 20 years later. This document is something activists and scholars will refer to far into the future."

To understand the period of time when Young wrote his document, the 1960s were fraught with racial injustice in the United States. In February of 1960, numerous African American students staged sit-ins at lunch counters throughout the South. Two-and-a-half years later, in September of 1962, James Meredith became the first Black man admitted to the University of Mississippi. In August of 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King presented his "I have a dream" speech before more than 200,000 peaceful demonstrators on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Those actions culminated 11 months later when President Lyndon Johnson signed the historic Civil Rights Act, outlawing discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin.

The first three sentences of Young's memo to Rozelle came right to the point.

"Of the 560 professional athletes under contract to 14 National Football League teams at the end of the 1965 season, a total of 137 were Negroes. Approximately that same ratio prevailed among the members of the so-called taxi squads attached to these teams. Quite plainly, this is a disproportionate number of Negroes in a nation whose total population breaks down to 11.9% non-white and 89.1% white."

Ten years earlier, Young pointed out in his memo, only 58 of 406 NFL players were Black.

"Under the circumstances," Young wrote, "it is important to carefully explore the role of the Negro in the NFL today. Quite apart from mere statistics, a number of the truly celebrated stars and box-office attractions—Jimmy Brown, Gale Sayers, Bob Hayes, Dick Bass, etc.—are Negroes. Since the performance of these men can specifically relate to box-office receipts, it is no exaggeration to suggest that their performances, and the performances of the other Negro players has or may in the future be related to how they are treated by teams as well as the team cities and communities, as whole men."

"It is not the point here," Young continued, "to look into the political and civil rights sentiments of the Negro players, which vary considerably. On the basis of his autobiography two years ago, for example, Jimmy Brown takes a hard, militant view of American society, while a number of others are far more moderate. But the all too familiar atmosphere of the nation already does and certainly will continue to relate to the disposition of the attitude of Negro athletes, not to mention both Negro and non-Negro spectators and the television audience. The emergence of the more militant Negro civil rights groups, and the severe splinterization of the entire civil rights movement, individual NFL teams may expect not less but more involvement in the communities in which they operate. For these communities are, by and large, the major metropolitan areas with large Negro populations, oppressive slum areas, high unemployment, crime and truancy."

Young stressed to Commissioner Rozelle that the NFL had the opportunity to be a trend-setter.

"With such a heavy proportion of Negro players," Young wrote, "the NFL happens to be in a position to make great contributions—not only to the Negro cause, which admittedly not every owner might agree to—but to its own competitive and financial situation, which is important to every owner, as well as to the League itself. Little or nothing has ever been done in this realm by professional baseball, basketball or boxing; football has the opportunity for a real contribution."

Young then outlined to Rozelle the steps he deemed necessary to impart the beginnings of equality. First, he urged that every team should have at least one full-time front-office man "who is a Negro", for the expressed purpose of communicating with representatives of the African American community.

Secondly, "Negroes should also be employed in every department of a member club", stressing that "they should be represented as much on the sidelines, in the front-office, and in the background as on the field. Deliberate pains should be taken to assure their presence."

Furthermore, Young emphasized that new African American athletes "from Negro colleges" should be prepared, psychologically, "for the possibilities which lie ahead."

Young continued, "In short, these draftees would benefit greatly from as much as may be possible of the kind of treatment accorded the high-ranking draftees from the larger colleges. Not to do so, it is feared, may jeopardize the investment already entered upon, or may render unnecessarily more difficult the assimilation of the draftee into the club's program."

He went on to suggest that Negro players should be made available for public appearances.

"They should appear before all kinds of civic groups—Negro and white," Young said. "This type of exposure will serve three ends simultaneously: it would be a morale builder for the player, would be good for the community at large, and it would produce tremendous goodwill for the clubs."

Young urged that non college graduates should undertake full-time college studies during the off-season toward completing requirements for their degrees.

"A well-adjusted football player," Young said, "active or retired, reflects the very greatest credit upon the club and the League."

Young completed his report by stating, "In this day and age, with the civil rights involvement more acrimonious than ever—but with the goals never more desirable and with the dignity of the individual not all it should be for anyone, Negro or white—the NFL has a tremendous opportunity. Let's hope this project isn't fumbled."

Upon reading Young's memo, Rozelle immediately distributed it to NFL teams. His cover sheet urged them to "Please give it your careful consideration."

It wasn't until 23 years later—1989—that Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis made Art Shell the first Black head coach in the NFL's modern era, but the memo's emphasis on minority hiring far predates the eventual enactment of the Rooney Rule, which requires teams to interview minority candidates for head coaching and senior administrative positions.

This past August, Jason Wright, a fast-rising African American who attended Northwestern University, was named president of the Washington Football Team.

Buddy Young tragically died in an automobile accident in September of 1983 on a highway in Texas. Legendary New York Post sportswriter Jerry Izenberg praised him in a stirring tribute.

"Buddy was just 57 years old," Izenberg wrote. "Few men are loved in so short a span of time the way he was. It is generally said of such a man that he walked among giants. In this case, it's not quite so. Buddy was larger by far than most men. He was 5-4 and the world looked up to him."