Marlin Briscoe, who grew to become the primary Black beginning quarterback within the American Soccer League greater than 50 years in the past, died Monday.
His daughter, Angela Marriott, instructed The Related Press that Briscoe, 76, died of pneumonia at a hospital in Norwalk, California. He had been hospitalized with circulation points in his legs.
Briscoe, an Omaha, Nebraska, native, was a star quarterback for Omaha College earlier than the Denver Broncos drafted him as a cornerback within the 14th spherical in 1968. Briscoe instructed the workforce he’d return house to turn out to be a trainer if he couldn’t get a tryout at quarterback. Denver agreed to an audition, and the 5-foot-10 dynamo nicknamed “The Magician” practically rallied the Broncos to victory as a reserve in opposition to the Boston Patriots on Sept. 29 earlier than incomes the historic begin on Oct. 6.
“He’s made an immense contribution to the game,” Marriott stated. “I hope that he continues to get acknowledged for the contributions that he made. He was so happy with that achievement.”
Briscoe began 5 video games that season. He was runner-up for AFL rookie of the 12 months after passing for 1,589 yards and 14 touchdowns and dashing for 308 yards and three scores.
In a begin in opposition to the Buffalo Payments, Briscoe handed for 335 yards and 4 touchdowns. Booker Edgerson, a Payments cornerback on the time, remembers getting burned for a kind of touchdowns. The previous AFL All-Star and member of the Payments’ Wall of Fame believes Briscoe might have been a Corridor of Fame quarterback if not for racism.
“He would have been one of many prime quarterbacks that they’d be speaking about proper now,” Edgerson stated. “He would’ve been one other … he would have been in there earlier than Warren Moon.”
Denver didn’t give Briscoe an opportunity to compete for the quarterback job in 1969, and didn't provide a proof. Edgerson remembers Briscoe telling him he didn’t really feel the Broncos had been prepared to totally decide to a Black quarterback.
Briscoe grew to become Edgerson’s teammate in Buffalo the subsequent 12 months. James Harris was Briscoe’s roommate with the Payments in 1969, and Briscoe helped Harris turn out to be the primary Black quarterback within the AFL to open a season as a starter.
“It was on the time when Black quarterbacks had been being denied, so that you tried to be sure you had been greatest ready for the chance when it got here,” Harris stated. “I used to be so much higher off as a result of Briscoe was my roommate.”
In 1974, Harris performed for the Los Angeles Rams and have become the primary Black quarterback to win an NFL playoff sport. He additionally was Professional Bowl MVP that season.
In the meantime, Briscoe earned a visit to the Professional Bowl as a receiver for Buffalo in 1970 and gained two Tremendous Bowls as a receiver with the Miami Dolphins. He was on the undefeated 1972 Dolphins workforce.
For all he achieved, Briscoe by no means forgot the truth that he misplaced his beginning job in Denver with no likelihood to earn it again.
“It bothered him,” Harris stated. “Though he made the change, he was dissatisfied. With the intention to nonetheless accomplish what he did underneath these circumstances — annoyed, dissatisfied — to be centered sufficient to be a excessive achiever at one other place took a particular make-up, a particular man.”
Briscoe was inducted into the School Soccer Corridor of Fame in 2016, and the Broncos named a range teaching fellowship in his honor earlier than the 2021 season.
Effectively after his enjoying days, Briscoe remained outspoken about racial injustice. He was proud to have moved the needle in 1968, however he instructed The Related Press in 2018 he was dissatisfied that many strides made in his day had been misplaced.
“I grew up within the ’50s and the ’60s, when all that stuff was rampant, however you knew the place you stood,” Briscoe stated. “As we speak, you thought that every one these attitudes had been nonexistent or filtered away to some extent, however with the Trump-isms, his philosophy has introduced out of the woodwork that old-time thought course of. That’s scary — it truly is.”
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