James R. Wallen - Gridiron Underground: Black American Journeys in Canadian Football

Copyright James R. Wallen, 2019

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purpose of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.

Cover images: John Williams Sr. photo courtesy of Scott Grant (upper right); Bernie Custis photo courtesy of the Hamilton Public Library (upper left); Johnny Bright photo courtesy of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame (upper middle); Chuck Ealey photo courtesy of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame (bottom); author photo: William L. Armstrong.
Printer: Webcom, a division of Marquis Book Printing Inc.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Wallen, James R., author
Gridiron underground : Black American journeys in Canadian football
/ James R. Wallen.

Includes bibliographical references and index.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-4597-4321-2 (softcover).--ISBN 978-1-4597-4322-9 (PDF).-
ISBN 978-1-4597-4323-6 (EPUB)

1. Football players--Canada--Biography. 2. African American football
players--Canada--Biography. 3. Canadian Football League--History. I. Title.

1 2 3 4 5 23 22 21 20 19

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country, and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Ontario, through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and Ontario Creates, and the Government of Canada.

Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. Lan dernier, le Conseil a investi 153 millions de dollars pour mettre de lart dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tout le pays.

Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.

J. Kirk Howard, President

The publisher is not responsible for websites or their content unless they are owned by the publisher.

Printed and bound in Canada.

VISIT US AT

dundurn.com

@dundurnpress

dundurnpress

dundurnpress

Dundurn
3 Church Street, Suite 500
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M5E 1M2

For Bernie C. and Bruce S. and those long remembered for their exploits on the gridiron and those sadly forgotten.

Every time I go out and speak to someone or go to an event, theres someone who comes up to me with a story about Varsity Stadium back in the day. Ulysses Curtis was playing. Or they have stories about when Pinball [Michael Clemons] played. And man, that really means something. If someone can hold on to a memory, I remember this day when I was sitting in Varsity Stadium, it was freezing cold, and I was sitting there with my dad and we got two hotdogs. I sit back and I say, You know this is embedded in a lot of peoples hearts. I think this game was here before the NFL existed. Even though hockey is the number one sport here, the CFL has a place, and I understand the importance of it.

Chuck Winters, motivational speaker and former CFL player

Flipping through a dated scrapbook was a pretty common activity for my twelve-year-old self. Sometimes Id read the headlines but mostly Id just be mesmerized by the black-and-white photos. For as long as I could remember my fathers press clippings had captivated me. Images of #23 flying through the air, striking fear into the hearts of all the wide receivers that dared line up across from him. The psychedelic purple-and-red scrapbooks were as familiar a sight to me as the grade-school photos of my sister that adorned the side of the refrigerator. And like distant relatives, they would show up unexpectedly on holidays or family gatherings. If I was questioned by any of my friends regarding my dads exploits on the football field, the books served as tangible evidence physical proof that my dad played, and that he did so at the highest level. As a kid, convincing others of your fathers toughness was, and probably still is, part of the neighbourhood bragging routine.

But then one time, as I flipped through the press clippings and photos I had seen hundreds of times, a certain headline caught my attention:

A Black Player Wants To Coach.

As children we dont always understand the hardships and adversities, the highs and lows, the constant sacrifices that so many of our parents and ancestors endured, all to make it possible for us to live the lives we do. This particular article was in no way written to suggest that a black player could not coach; rather, it was written to shed light on the fact that the coaching ranks and front offices remained, as the author put it, remarkably pale. In the forty-two years since that article was written, I have learned a great deal about my father and so many others just like him. Because behind the black-and-white images we see in scrapbooks and in old highlight reels were men who endured the kind of racism that my generation could only begin to imagine. And yet despite this they thrived, making lives and careers for themselves as family men, coaches, educators, and community leaders.

As a co-producer on the film version of this book, I experienced an awakening of sorts. Throughout the sometimes long, drawn-out, tedious process of making a documentary, I felt as though I was taking my own journey. Just as many of the men in this story uprooted their own lives and moved to another country in the hope of realizing a dream of something greater than just a sport, I began to feel as if I were riding right alongside them aboard the Gridiron Underground. With every thought they had, I had the same one. With every experience they went through, I wondered what I would have done in that same situation, whether being refused a meal with the rest of my teammates or being unable to drink from a water fountain because it was designated whites only. The latter was my own fathers experience growing up in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s in Denton, Texas, where the heat could reach ungodly temperatures in the summer. With each of these stories, these stops along the route to our destination, I was learning more about myself.

Out of all my time with the Toronto Argonauts, the 2004 Grey Cup game particularly stands out. Not just because we won but because there was something happening that was much larger than football. There was Michael Pinball Clemons becoming the first black coach to win a Grey Cup. We had Damon Allen at quarterback, a position that to this day still draws a large amount of attention, especially in the States, particularly if the man playing it has a certain skin colour. And finally, there was me, a son playing in the same game his father came to play in this country some thirty-two years before. Even the halftime show was headlined by the legendary Gord Downie, a man who some years down the line would bring national attention to the horrors of the residential school system with his album