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Doyle approached him and said, “Do you know there’s a retired number in Williams football?”

“Williams doesn’t retire numbers,” Quinn replied.

“Apparently it does,” Doyle said.

On the Monday after that game Quinn called Boyer and asked, “Williams has a retired football number?”

“I don’t know about retired,” Boyer said, “but there’s this box down here.

“The Forgotten Hero.” — Tim Layden, Sports Illustrated

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Top 5 #Longreads of the Week: Orion Magazine, The New York Times, GQ, Business Insider, McSweeney’s, plus a guest pick by sportswriter Ben Cohen.

Top 5 #Longreads of the Week: Orion Magazine, The New York Times, GQ, Business Insider, McSweeney’s, plus a guest pick by sportswriter Ben Cohen.

As the 1950s arrived, more teams starting signing African-Americans. A turning point came when the great Jim Brown, from Syracuse, joined the Cleveland Browns in 1957. Brown’s domination on the field was so thorough that all questions about the skills of black players were erased—except in the nation’s capital, whose team, Marshall said, would “start signing Negroes when the Harlem Globetrotters start signing whites.”

Washingtonians, it must be said, did not simply let all this go unremarked. Redskins fans, then as now, were among the most passionate in the league, and many ardent supporters among both the Georgetown set and the hoi polloi urged Marshall to rethink matters. Their view was given its strongest expression by Shirley Povich, the star Washington Post sportswriter. Povich (a man—Shirley was a male name as often as it was a female name in the early twentieth century) was Jewish and a native of Maine who originally moved to Washington to study law at Georgetown. He often wrote sentences like “Jim Brown, born ineligible to play for the Redskins, integrated their end zone three times yesterday.” Marshall remained unmoved.

“The Racist Redskins.” — Michael Tomasky, The New York Review of Books

Also by Michael Tomasky: “Something New on the Mall.” The New York Review of Books, Oct. 22, 2009

As the 1950s arrived, more teams starting signing African-Americans. A turning point came when the great Jim Brown, from Syracuse, joined the Cleveland Browns in 1957. Brown’s domination on the field was so thorough that all questions about the skills of black players were erased—except in the nation’s capital, whose team, Marshall said, would “start signing Negroes when the Harlem Globetrotters start signing whites.”

Washingtonians, it must be said, did not simply let all this go unremarked. Redskins fans, then as now, were among the most passionate in the league, and many ardent supporters among both the Georgetown set and the hoi polloi urged Marshall to rethink matters. Their view was given its strongest expression by Shirley Povich, the star Washington Post sportswriter. Povich (a man—Shirley was a male name as often as it was a female name in the early twentieth century) was Jewish and a native of Maine who originally moved to Washington to study law at Georgetown. He often wrote sentences like “Jim Brown, born ineligible to play for the Redskins, integrated their end zone three times yesterday.” Marshall remained unmoved.

“The Racist Redskins.” — Michael Tomasky, The New York Review of Books

Also by Michael Tomasky: “Something New on the Mall.” The New York Review of Books, Oct. 22, 2009

The Racist Redskins

Longreads Pick

As the 1950s arrived, more teams starting signing African-Americans. A turning point came when the great Jim Brown, from Syracuse, joined the Cleveland Browns in 1957. Brown’s domination on the field was so thorough that all questions about the skills of black players were erased—except in the nation’s capital, whose team, Marshall said, would “start signing Negroes when the Harlem Globetrotters start signing whites.”

Washingtonians, it must be said, did not simply let all this go unremarked. Redskins fans, then as now, were among the most passionate in the league, and many ardent supporters among both the Georgetown set and the hoi polloi urged Marshall to rethink matters. Their view was given its strongest expression by Shirley Povich, the star Washington Post sportswriter. Povich (a man—Shirley was a male name as often as it was a female name in the early twentieth century) was Jewish and a native of Maine who originally moved to Washington to study law at Georgetown. He often wrote sentences like “Jim Brown, born ineligible to play for the Redskins, integrated their end zone three times yesterday.” Marshall remained unmoved.

Published: Nov 10, 2011
Length: 10 minutes (2,731 words)

It’s been two autumns now since Russell last played a down of organized football. This fall, when capable quarterbacks have been in high demand and short supply, he’s gotten no calls. The Raiders lost his successor, Jason Campbell, to a broken collarbone on Oct. 16, and last week they acquired 31-year-old Carson Palmer, who had chosen to retire rather than play for the Bengals. Oakland sent Cincinnati a first-round pick in 2012 and a conditional second-rounder in ‘13, and will pay him a guaranteed $7.5 million over the next two years. Yet Russell still counts himself among Mobile’s legion of unemployed.

“The Man Who Isn’t There.” — L. Jon Wertheim, Sports Illustrated

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The Green Bay Packers are a historical, cultural, and geographical anomaly, a publicly traded corporation in a league that doesn’t allow them, an immensely profitable company whose shareholders are forbidden by the corporate bylaws to receive a penny of that profit, a franchise that has flourished despite being in the smallest market in the NFL—with a population of 102,000, it would be small for a Triple A baseball franchise. Of all the original NFL franchises—located in places like Muncie, Ind., Rochester, N.Y., Massillon and Canton, Ohio, and Rock Island, Ill.—Green Bay is the only small-town team still in existence. The Packers have managed not merely to survive but to become the NFL’s dominant organization, named by ESPN in 2011 as the best franchise in all of sports.

“The Green Bay Packers Have the Best Owners in Football.” — Karl Taro Greenfeld, Bloomberg Businessweek

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The Green Bay Packers Have the Best Owners in Football

Longreads Pick

The Green Bay Packers are a historical, cultural, and geographical anomaly, a publicly traded corporation in a league that doesn’t allow them, an immensely profitable company whose shareholders are forbidden by the corporate bylaws to receive a penny of that profit, a franchise that has flourished despite being in the smallest market in the NFL—with a population of 102,000, it would be small for a Triple A baseball franchise. Of all the original NFL franchises—located in places like Muncie, Ind., Rochester, N.Y., Massillon and Canton, Ohio, and Rock Island, Ill.—Green Bay is the only small-town team still in existence. The Packers have managed not merely to survive but to become the NFL’s dominant organization, named by ESPN in 2011 as the best franchise in all of sports.

Source: Businessweek
Published: Oct 20, 2011
Length: 16 minutes (4,218 words)

Featured Longreader: RJ Young, sportswriter. See his story picks from Grantland, Slate.com, McSweeney’s and more on his #Longreads page.