Student-athlete ideal? Black college football seems to fit Bill

Washington, D.C. - Bill Cosby -- yes, that Bill Cosby -- wants to take you back in time. Come along. It'll only take a minute.

It's the 1940s in Washington. The owner of the Redskins, George Preston Marshall, doesn't allow blacks on the team. So some instead choose to follow black college football, and every Thanksgiving Day focus on a historic rivalry: Howard University versus Lincoln University.

When the game was played, people came from around the block and around the country. In Washington, and in black college football, few games were bigger, few games meant more. When the game was played, Griffith Stadium was their stadium. The city was their city.

"The town belonged to the graduates from Howard and Lincoln," Cosby said in a telephone interview. "It was the game. It was a rivalry but there was no hatred. There was respect for the schools, the tradition, and each other."

Fast forward to now, specifically, Sept. 10, when Howard University will play Morehouse College in the inaugural AT&T Nation's Football Classic. Howard and Morehouse have been playing each other in football for 88 years. For people like Cosby and many others -- young and old, wealthy and blue collar -- this game has deep meaning, just as Howard and Lincoln once did.



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