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player ready...There’s a reason most football fans don’t hear about South-western Athletic Conference stars until they have reached the NFL.
“SWAC schools don’t have football budgets, they have football players,” said former Grambling State and NFL star Doug Williams.
Most SWAC teams struggle financially because they have no major television contract and because they play in front of relatively small crowds (only one SWAC school, Jackson State, has a stadium that seats more than 25,000).
That means SWAC schools have to spend football revenues on such basics as equipment, transportation and staff salaries. There’s not much left over for the sort of publicity cranked out by Division I-A schools.
But don’t be deceived by the lack of hype. SWAC products have gone on to become some of the most productive professionals at their respective positions. They include:
– Walter Payton, from Jackson State to the Bears. All-time leading rusher in NFL history.
– Jerry Rice, from Mississippi Valley State to the San Francisco 49ers. All-time NFL leader in touchdown passes.
– Doug Williams, from Grambling State to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Washington Redskins. Set four Super Bowl single-game records (most passing yards, most passing yards in a quarter, most touchdown passes and longest completion) in Washington’s 42-10 rout of Denver in Super Bowl XXII.
– Mel Blount, from Southern University to the Pittsburgh Steelers. NFL Hall of Fame defensive back.
– Paul “Tank” Younger, a bruising running back from Grambling State who broke the NFL’s color barrier with the Los Angeles Rams in 1949.
– Other big names include Buck Buchanan of Grambling State, Harold Carmichael of Southern, Ken Houston of Prairie View A & M and John Thierry of Alcorn State, who was the Bears’ top pick in the 1994 draft.