SPDS: Leonard tells Paper that White RBs under more pressure

superpunk

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White RBs face more pressure than their African-American counterparts, Brian Leonard revealed in an interview given to the SP Daily Satire last Sunday, and scheduled to air sometime in the late 16th century on Peter Griffin TV.

Leonard, in a controversial interview tells interviewer Ray Sistass that white running backs such as himself face added pressure because there are fewer white RBs - and because some still don't want white athletes playing the position.

"There's not that many white starting running-backs - really it's just me, so we have to do a little bit extra," Leonard tells Sistass. "Because the percentage of us playing this position, which people didn't want us to play ... is low, so we do a little extra." In just-completed Week 3, one of the 32 teams (3.1 percent) had white starting runningbacks. Later in the interview, Sistass presses Leonard on criticism of his performance -- and if white RBs are graded more harshly.

"I rush for 8 billion yards, our team wins by seven, [mimicking] 'Ah, he could've made this cut, they would have scored if he did this,' " Leonard tells Sistass.

"Doesn't every runningback go through that?" Sistass asks.

"Not everybody," Leonard replies.

Brown then asks if the media is tougher on him than on African-American runningbacks, such as LaDainian Tomlinson and Larry Johnson.

"Let me start by saying I love those guys," Leonard tells Sistass. "But they don't get criticized as much as we do. They don't."

In the interview, Leonard also talks to Sistass about playing in St. Louis, a city known for Budweiser and it's Budweiser drinking fans - who aren't afraid to get loud an belligerent if they're liquored up enough, or if they're shown a picture of Brenda Warner 3 times in 15 minutes.

"Every year it seems I have to deal with something like this because the color of my skin," Leonard tells Sistass. "Alot of people don't understand how difficult it was to be white and non-Italian in New Jersey. So I've already faced alot of adversity. Us white RBs - we're leapers, and people don't want us to be. I try to handle myself with class. I try to handle myself with dignity. I think sometimes people see me leap, and think 'LT would never do that' and it would be easy for me to get frustrated at people who look to players to act out, speak loudly, pretty much be an idiot. But that's not me."
 

Doomsday101

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Why can't these guys put the color BS behind them. If you are playing in the NFL you are under pressure to perform period white or black or what ever. The only color most are interested in is the color of the uniform and if you are wearing a Cowboys uniform you are expected to produce as far as I'm concerned.
 

peplaw06

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94WARE94;1674616 said:
this is a joke right???

If you had to ask you may want to re-read it.

superpunk;1674611 said:
White RBs face more pressure than their African-American counterparts, Brian Leonard revealed in an interview given to the SP Daily Satire last Sunday, and scheduled to air sometime in the late 16th century on Peter Griffin TV.


Holy cow... Guess you have to have "HUMOR" in the title punk for anyone to get it.
 

WoodysGirl

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Maybe I'm the only one who got the spin off the Donovan McNabb story. On a side note, here's a real article from sportsline.com.
-----

Draft preview: White men can't run? Don't tell Rutgers' Leonard

April 15, 2007
By Pete Prisco
CBS SportsLine.com Senior Writer
Tell Pete your opinion!





Brian Leonard is not your ordinary running back.

He is white.

That might sound blunt and racially insensitive, but it's also true. There are plenty of white fullbacks on NFL rosters, but there is not one white running back who received carries -- other than fullbacks -- last season.

Leonard, a running back/fullback from Rutgers, hopes to change that.


Brian Leonard's looking to make the leap from college fullback to NFL running back. (US Presswire)
"I'm trying to dispel the stereotype about white running backs," Leonard said. "You don't see a lot of white running backs. I would work my butt off to make sure I earned the respect of playing the position."

As Leonard prepares for the April 28 NFL Draft, he does so with the hope that teams aren't just pigeonholing him as a fullback. Even though he played that position the past two years, he's hoping teams see him more as a feature back.

"I don't consider myself just a fullback," he said. "I'm best with the ball in my hands. I can run it and catch it. Just using me as a lead blocker isn't getting the best out of me. I'll do it if that's what teams want, but it won't be getting the most out of me."

Fullbacks are rarely drafted high. So Leonard did something before the Senior Bowl to show scouts he wasn't just a fullback. He shed weight, showed up at 225 pounds, and proved that he was much more than just a linebacker-crunching blocker. The scouts said he had a good week in Mobile.

"He was much more explosive than I expected," said an AFC scout.

Fullbacks perform a thankless job, their car-crash blocks in the hole what helps to give all the glory to the running backs.

Who wouldn't want to be a running back then?

Leonard would like the chance. But the problem is white running backs have gone the way of the vinyl records and the Twist: prominent things of the 1960s that have faded away over time.

They're disappearing. They're as extinct as the New Zealand Laughing Owl.

Since 1980, there have been 90 running backs taken in the first round of the NFL Draft, not counting fullbacks. All 90 were black. There were two white fullbacks selected in the first round since 1980. Brad Muster in 1988 by the Chicago Bears and the other, Tommy Vardell, by the Cleveland Browns in 1992.

Advertisement





So who was the last white running back picked in the first round? It was John Cappelletti, who was picked 11th by the Los Angeles Rams in 1974, which means it's been 33 years. Since Leonard is not projected as a first-round pick, the trend should continue.

Leonard is 6-feet-1½, 235 pounds, runs the 40 in 4.52 and has the versatility to run inside the tackles, outside the end and catch the ball out of the backfield. But last year he was a fullback at Rutgers, leading the way for Ray Rice to run through holes.

When he was coming out of high school in New York, Leonard was recruited as a linebacker, safety and running back. Most schools saw him on defense. But Leonard wanted to play running back.

He considered Syracuse, but Rutgers made him a promise to keep him at running back. He was buried on the Rutgers depth chart as a redshirt freshman in camp in 2003, but during a practice that next summer the coaching staff was angry with the way the backs were running.

"Get in there, Leonard," one of them yelled.

"I ran for 30 yards on one play and then 40 the next," Leonard said. "They wanted somebody to run downhill, and I was that guy."

He ran for 880 yards and caught 53 passes as a freshman. He moved to fullback the next season, but still got carries as a runner, getting 192 for 733 yards. In 2005, he became a full-time fullback, with Rice moving in as the feature back. It stayed that way in 2006 when he carried just 93 times.

"I didn't get as many carries, and I could have come out after my junior season, but I felt that I wanted to go back and help Rutgers become a championship program," Leonard said. "The scouts know that I can carry the football as well as catch it and block it, even if I didn't carry it as much last season."

Some scouts think Leonard has the durability and skill to be effective as a single back. Other scouts say he will be at his best as a fullback.

"I will do whatever the team wants, but to just say I'm a fullback isn't right," Leonard said.

In the 1960s and 1970s, black quarterbacks were often told to move to other positions if they wanted a chance to play. Who knows how many potentially great quarterbacks were lost in that stupidity.

Now some 40 years after those mistakes, are teams making them again when it comes to white running backs? We're talking about high schools moving them to other positions, therefore never letting them get the chance to play running back on the next level, which means never making it to the NFL.

The last white running back to lead the NFL in rushing was Jim Taylor of the Green Bay Packers in 1962. Taylor, by the way, was a fullback.

Brian Leonard hopes to someday change that.

http://www.sportsline.com/nfl/story/10129176
 

Idgit

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I was hoping so much that he'd really said that to a local paper.
 

superpunk

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peplaw06;1674622 said:
If you had to ask you may want to re-read it.

Holy cow... Guess you have to have "HUMOR" in the title punk for anyone to get it.

It's upsetting, really. (Altho also unintentionally hilarious seeing people deliver their opinion after reading the thread title.)

Guess it wasn't as funny as I thought it was. :( Oh well - back to the drawing board, lol.





I thought the interviewer's name that I gave him was awesome.
 

peplaw06

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superpunk;1674650 said:
It's upsetting, really. (Altho also unintentionally hilarious seeing people deliver their opinion after reading the thread title.)

Guess it wasn't as funny as I thought it was. :( Oh well - back to the drawing board, lol.
Did you write this?!?! Bravo... I thought you pulled it from somewhere else.









Yes the Racist *** was greatness
 

smarta5150

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Chocolate Lab;1674662 said:
Tune up your humor meters, people!

That was good, SP. :)

SP said it... too much title reading and not enough article reading.
 

burmafrd

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Super- consider this: Look at how many truly STUPID things players are saying these days. Look at how really LOUSY so many so called journalists are- and how many of them love to write inflammatory garbage. So it is not unreasonable to think that many would take this seriously.
 

TheCount

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I wish we could just get over the McNabb thing, it's old already.
 

morieeel

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Had me until the third paragraph. Then the light went on that this sounded awful familiar. :)
 

Chocolate Lab

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burmafrd;1674678 said:
Super- consider this: Look at how many truly STUPID things players are saying these days. Look at how really LOUSY so many so called journalists are- and how many of them love to write inflammatory garbage. So it is not unreasonable to think that many would take this seriously.

Even in, as the first sentence says, the SP Daily Satire? :eek::
 

boysfanindc

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There was also a article I believe on Fox Sports yesterday about Jason Sehorn and white conerbacks. How Jason might be the last one you see, because they are steared to saftey or LB.
 

burmafrd

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Just one or two words like Satire do not register with a lot of people. Sad but true. And maybe many also rush through reading it- skimming it. I stand by my post that the tone and tenor and content is NOT unusual in the real thing in this day and age.
 

Stash

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It's still as funny hearing it again as it was the first time!

:laugh2:
 
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