Tim Brown: Al Davis hates black athletes from Notre Dame

Former NFL great Tim Brown was recently elected into the College Football Hall of Fame and during an interview with Jimmy Shapiro, he dropped a bombshell about Raiders’ owner Al Davis.

On meeting Al Davis for the first time:

“Meeting Al (Davis) was pretty unique. I found out five or ten minutes after my first practice there that he hated African-American athletes from Notre Dame. And they literally told me that. They literally told me that because we’re known for using our education more than our athletic ability that he thought that I would be one of these guys that would basically take the money and run. I don’t know if that was a ploy to get me amped up, but it certainly worked.”

Wow. Tim Brown has managed to totally shock me, yet I’m not totally shocked. He says it so nonchalantly like, “Yeah, that’s just Al being Al. He hates black athletes from Notre Dame – no biggie.”

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Torretta, Brown make 2009 College Football Hall of Fame Subdivision

The National Football Foundation & College Hall of Fame announced the 2009 College Football Hall of Fame Football Bowl Subdivision Class and former Heisman winners Gino Toerretta and Tim Brown made the list.

Tim BrownPLAYERS

•PERVIS ATKINS – HB, New Mexico State (1958-60)
•TIM BROWN – WR, Notre Dame (1984-87)
•CHUCK CECIL – DB, Arizona (1984-87)
•ED DYAS – FB, Auburn (1958-60)
•MAJOR HARRIS – QB, West Virginia (1987-89)
•GORDON HUDSON – TE, Brigham Young (1980- 83)
•WILLIAM LEWIS* – C, Harvard (1892-93)
•WOODROW LOWE – LB, Alabama (1972-75)
•KEN MARGERUM – WR, Stanford (1977-80)
•STEVE McMICHAEL – DT, Texas (1976-79)
•CHRIS SPIELMAN – LB, Ohio State (1984-87)
•LARRY STATION – LB, Iowa (1982-85)
•PAT SWILLING – DE, Georgia Tech (1982-85)
•GINO TORRETTA – QB, Miami (Fla.) (1989-92)
•CURT WARNER – RB, Penn State (1979-82)
•GRANT WISTROM – DE, Nebraska (1994-97)
* Selection from the FBS Veterans Committee, deceased

COACHES

•DICK MacPHERSON – 111-73-5 (.601) – Massachusetts (1971-77), Syracuse (1981-90)
•JOHN ROBINSON – 132-77-4 (.629) – Southern California (1976-82, 1993-97), Nevada-Las Vegas (1999-2004)

It’s always amazing to me that a guy like Torretta can put up such great numbers in college, yet never made it in the NFL. (Teams didn’t even consider him as a top pick despite passing for more than 3,000 yards during his Heisman-winning senior season.) But you see examples of it every year (this year’s was Graham Harrell of Texas Tech, who went undrafted), so I guess I shouldn’t be too amazed.

Good to see Pat Swilling on this list. The late Swilling was always fun to watch and I thought he was a little underrated as a player. You have to appreciate self-made players like Chris Spielman, too. Scouts said he was too small, yet he went on to appear in four Pro Bowls.

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