WATCH MY SMOKE

The Hall of Fame running back writes critically of a sport that, in the end, “made me hate it.”

“The sport that defines me, that gave me some of the best moments of my life and the privilege my kids enjoy now, has also made me so unhappy, and feeling so mistreated.” So writes Dickerson, who played 11 seasons for the Rams, Colts, and Falcons, acquiring a reputation as “the angry Black guy” in the process. Born in a small Texas town at the tail end of Jim Crow, Dickerson had good reason to be angry. In an early episode, a White high school classmate called him Kunta Kinte, and when Dickerson responded with a slap, he was meted a punishment greater than the aggressor’s. So it was at every step. “You’ll hear a lot of athletes talk about what a positive influence their high school coach was, but that obviously wasn’t the case with mine,” writes the author, admitting that he developed a habit of ignoring his coaches thenceforth. Like many pro players, he came up through a college machine that fed him to the pros while giving him an inadequate education: “Young, Black men do physical labor for free while old white men make the money. Sound familiar?” Dickerson’s grievances accumulated in the NFL. He once told a Sports Illustrated writer that “football isn’t a game, it’s a business”—a business that characteristically pays Black players less than White players, so that when he demanded $1.4 million per season in the mid-1980s, the counteroffer from the Rams was $200,000, “which wasn’t even in the top 15 among running backs.” Small wonder that Dickerson’s pages are peppered with bile—and justifiably so, though it’s satisfying that he has channeled his ire into philanthropic efforts to provide guidance and financial support for low-income children hoping to attend college.

Dickerson scores points in his takedown of a system, then and now, that chews players up and spits them out.