Team Colors
Marlin Briscoe broke pro football’s color barriers.
Now he’s breaking into Hollywood with his life story
By Kevin Warneke
Even the president knows what Marlin Briscoe did.
POTUS and the Magician exchanged pleasantries last year — “history maker to history maker “ — when President Obama invited members of the 1972 Miami Dolphins to visit the White House to recognize their undefeated season and Super Bowl championship — 40 years after the fact.
Briscoe was one of the last in line to greet the president. The two shook hands.
“You’re the trailblazer,” Briscoe recalls the president saying. “You set the tone for black quarterbacks.”
That he did.
Just five months after graduating from the University of Omaha, Briscoe on Sept. 29, 1968, found himself under center for the Denver Broncos — the first black man to start at quarterback in a modern-day professional football game.
He completed his first pass that day and later scored on a 12-yard run as Denver fell to the Boston Patriots 20-17. Briscoe started four more games that season, and finished with 1,589 yards passing and 14 touchdowns — rookie records that still stand. Yep, not even hall-of-famer John Elway could top that.
Briscoe left Denver confident that he would have an opportunity to compete for the starting quarterback position the following season.
But he never played another down for the Broncos.
It would become one of several life-defining moments for Briscoe, whose life story is headed for the big screen.
Three Times as Good
Some day soon, Hollywood will share Briscoe’s message of perseverance. A movie about his life — from Omaha University standout, to NFL All-Pro to recovering drug addict — soon will be going into production, says Terry Hanna, UNO graduate and co-producer.
West Omaha Films — which includes Briscoe, Hanna, Omaha actor and former OU student John Beasley, and David Clark — has been working with the NFL the past six months to receive its endorsement of the movie, which is titled “The Magician.” Funding and distribution are in place and West Omaha Films has a production partner in Los Angeles. The group engaged Gregory Allen Howard — “Remember The Titans” and “Ali” — to write the screenplay.
The president called Briscoe a pioneer in the fight against racism. Briscoe also can carry the moniker of Super Bowl champion (twice) and All-Pro Receiver.
He’d rather be described as a man who refused to give up. Refused to allow one coach’s racism end his professional football career. Rather, Briscoe reinvented himself by learning a new position. Refused to allow cocaine dictate his life — though it did for a while. Rather, he overcame his addiction and now shares a message of hope with anyone who will listen.
Briscoe grew up in Omaha during the turbulent ’60s. Make no mistake: Omaha was no Birmingham, Ala., or Jackson, Miss. Still, Briscoe faced discrimination. He recalled he wasn’t welcome to swim at Peony Park, although one time he and some friends bullied their way in. He was careful where he went and with whom he spent time.
Perhaps growing up in South Omaha, rather than on Omaha’s north side, sheltered him. South Omaha, he says, was a melting pot — and Briscoe’s neighbors bore different colors. He learned from his mother that he’d have to be three times as good because of his race. “I always wondered why it had to be three times,” he says. “It proved to be true. You couldn’t be as good or twice as good.”
Briscoe, a standout for Omaha South, could have gone elsewhere to play collegiate ball. But he knew if he did, he’d be playing a different position. Blacks didn’t play quarterback in those days.
They did at Omaha University because Coach Al Caniglia was a man of his word. He promised Briscoe could play quarterback, and he kept to it. More poignant than his promise was his pledge to Briscoe’s mother that her son would receive his education.
Five years later, which included a season on the sidelines with a medical hardship, Briscoe left as an All-American after setting 21 records and having led the then-Indians to the Central intercollegiate Championship in 1965, 1967 and 1968.
At OU, Briscoe earned the nickname “Marlin the Magician” — for which Omaha actor and former teammate John Beasley takes credit. Beasley, an OU offensive lineman who played with Briscoe one season, recalls being in the stands and watching Briscoe and OU fall behind their opponent. So he and former teammate Terry Williams left early — only to be brought back by the roar of the crowd. Briscoe had engineered a comeback.
“It was magical,” Beasley says.
OU didn’t venture into the South for competition back then, which meant Briscoe never faced the possibility of being told he wasn’t welcome at the team hotel or a restaurant where his teammates were eating. Just two decades previous several OU players were prohibited — by a Missouri state Jim Crow law — from playing in a game against Missouri State Teachers College.
Yet Briscoe can’t remember a time when he, Briscoe and other black players on the OU team faced overt racism. Neither can Beasley.
And one of the things Briscoe remembers about his time with the Broncos was that his lineman had his back — though four starters came from the South and had never played for a black quarterback, let alone had a black teammate. But they rallied behind Briscoe, he says, when they realized he could play the game.
“I had to earn their trust,” Briscoe says. “Sports bring people together. You’re fighting for a common cause and can put aside the negativity that comes with racism.”
Lows a Mile High
Still, Briscoe was put aside after his promising rookie season. He had finished the 1968 campaign confident he’d be given an opportunity to compete for the starting job the next season. When the team began preparing for that season, Briscoe learned that Saban was meeting with his quarterbacks in Denver — but left Briscoe off the invitation list.
Briscoe later returned to Denver and waited to join the competition. “He (Saban) wouldn’t even look me in the eye,” he says.
Briscoe asked for and was granted his release. He headed to Canada — where blacks played quarterback. In the meantime, he learned that Buffalo wanted the Magician — but as a wide receiver. He had three weeks to learn the position. His contract stipulated that the Bills couldn’t release him until the final rounds of cuts. “I just needed time,” he says.
Ironically, Buffalo quarterbacks Jack Kemp, Tom Flores and James Harris were injured and Briscoe initially found himself at quarterback. He didn’t see action at receiver until the last preseason game.
“Jack Kemp was my roommate on the road. He said ‘I’m coming at you.’ He kept throwing me the ball and I kept catching it.”
Briscoe made the team, a testament to his athleticism that got him on the court to play for the OU basketball team. He would make All-Pro as a receiver for the Bills.
During his time in Buffalo, Briscoe mentored Harris, a black quarterback from Grambling who had never played against whites. Harris received death threats, Briscoe recalls, but he doesn’t recall receiving any during his time in the spotlight in Denver. Perhaps the Broncos kept them private.
Later, Briscoe would catch passes for the Dolphins. He’d win two Super Bowl rings. He’d also get into drugs and nearly ruin his life. He fought back and recovered.
There’s a lot more to his tale, of course. Soon, you’ll see it all on the big screen.