Outlined against a blue-gray October sky

"Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell and advertise."

University of Georgia running back Brett Millican (1996-2000): victim of racial stereotyping

So said Ted Turner, and I agree with him. Many of you have asked about the status of the billboard campaign. Consulting with a lawyer, I've found a way to make this happen through various manners that will ensure anonymity.

This is a huge next step and it needs to be done properly. And we are close. There are a number of legal hurdles (fears of suits, etc.) that are still being worked over.

It's time to start advertising SBPDL. I've put out feelers to one of the top Internet advertising companies and will see what type of deal can be worked out for some cost-per-click advertising for the site and for such works as Escape from Detroit:The Collapse of America's Black Metropolis and the soon-to-be released book "Black Mecca Down (Atlanta): The Fall of the City too Busy to Hate."

With that said, if you haven't bought your copy of Escape from Detroit:The Collapse of America's Black Metropolis yet, do so immediately. By November 1st, the current version available will be a collectors item: a new version completely reformatted (new font and spacing) will replace it.

If you haven't done so already, please leave a review at Amazon about the book. Totally understand the anonymity thing, so create a new Amazon account if you have to, to leave a review.

Now, comes the plug for Opiate of America: College Football in Black and White. Haven't done this yet, so it's time to boost this up on Amazon (big thanks to "Mencken" for all he did with the book).

This is a highly important book, and one that needed to be written. So, just like the upcoming books on Atlanta, Birmingham, and Chicago, I decided to do it.

Here's what you get with Opiate of America: College Football in Black and White:

"The faster they run, the Whiter they get." 

 So said an Auburn University Board of Trustee member in the late 1960s regarding the athletic abilities of Black males, in response to the impending fall of the color line in Southeastern Conference (SEC) football. 

Though the SEC produced some of college football's top teams when they boasted all-white lineups, the integration of the all the member teams by 1972 ushered in an epoch that would come to be dominated by Blacks. 

 It is through this contact with Black athletes who represent Predominately White Institutions (PWI) in the South and around the nation at prestigious schools in the Atlanta Coast Conference (ACC), Big Ten, Big 12, and Pac-12, that primarily white alumni formulate their positive impressions of Black males. Representing Florida State, Notre Dame, Ohio State, the University of Southern California, the University of Miami, and especially the now-14 member SEC, the Black athletes at these schools help wash away images of Black dysfunction that would otherwise be the only representation of Black males that white alumni would have. 

 In the pages of Opiate of America, Paul Kersey takes you on a journey into the world of college football, and shows you how programs across the nation recruit primarily Black athletes who only gain acceptance to the school because of their ability to run or catch a football. 

You will learn that white high school football players routinely are discriminated against by recruiters, who believe that only Black athletes can play certain positions like corner back, running back, or receiver at the collegiate level. 

Just as rugby was called the opiate of the Afrikaners in South Africa who watched as their nation went from 1st World to murder capital of the world in the span of 10 years, the Opiate of America has blinded Americans to the problems that Black dysfunction bring to their nation.

 On the heels of the Penn State fiasco, Paul Kersey takes you on a journey into college football that shows that "a culture of reverence for the football program that is ingrained at all levels of the campus community" permeates every campus in America. More importantly, he shows that white athletes are currently undervalued and that an "inefficient market" exists in the way high school athletes are evaluated and ultimately recruited. 

 This is the perfect for your father, brother, brother-in-law, uncle, best-friend, or fantasy football league members that love football. What's crazy is I'm still working on a long article on overlooked white athletes and the Air Force Academy and one on Urban Meyer... point being, this is a hugely important topic.

The problem is that white high school athletes are incredibly undervalued, with certain recruiting Web sites (Rivals.com and Scout.com) dictating how black athletes are evaluated at the expense of white athletes.

An article at the National Football Post put it best [Can JJ Watt change the common perception?
Scouting reports of certain prospects are laughably predictable, by Jack Bechta, 10-17-2012]

One veteran scout I spoke to brought up a great point. He said; “It starts in college”. When we go into a campus to evaluate players many of the white specialty players are described to us in the same way the scouting community writes them up.

There seems to be a natural tendency to underplay white players athletic abilities and overplay their intelligence and efforts.” Another scouting director told me that;” he'd seen way too many promising black college QB’s get moved to DB or receiver before they ever got a chance to compete as a QB”. Whether it is conscientious or not, the stereotypes of color still play a huge part in the evaluation and placement of college players by both scouts and coaches.

Here are some more terms always associated with scouting reports of white players:
Wide receivers: Crafty, disciplined route runner, good hands, tough, quicker than fast, smart.

Defensive backs: The QB of the secondary, can line everyone up, in the box kind of guy, better against the run than pass, a little stiff in the hips.

One director did tell me that he thinks scouts are doing a better job at evaluating white wide receivers. The production and success of second round pick Jordy Nelson and undrafted Wes Welker has brought some attention to the position.

With more than 500 citations (including a bibliography of more than 60 books), Opiate of America: College Football in Black and White is the first of its kind: a book that points out the blatant discrimination against white high school athletes and how individual white athletes have to fight for everything they earn (even it means being a "walk-on") to get a shot at the National Football League.

I first became aware that something wasn't right about the way white high school athletes were evaluated when I read about the struggle that Gwinnett County native Brett Millican - a white running back for Parkview - faced in the mid-1990s. Despite putting up draw-dropping statistics (as a middle school student, I saw him play) Millican was told his "whiteness" was a detriment to being recruited [Running on faith:Millican wants to end career on high note, Red and Black, November 24, 2000]:

The 23-year-old was a first-team all-state player and a USA Today honorable mention All-American as a senior at Parkview in 1995. The 5-foot-11, 196-pound Lilburn native was a four-year prep starter and finished his career with 6,392 yards and 79 touchdowns.

Georgia, under former coach Ray Goff, was recruiting him, but then-recruiting coordinator David Kelly was asking Millican to walk on. Kelly said the Bulldogs had commitments from Torin Kirtsey and James Jackson (who later de-committed) that year and didn't have a scholarship to offer Millican.

   ''You knew Brett was an excellent football player, but you always wonder, 'Is he quite fast enough or is he quite big enough?' '' Kelly said.

   However, Millican heard there was another reason the Bulldogs wouldn't give him a full ride.

   ''Supposedly (Kelly said) he couldn't offer a white running back a scholarship in the SEC,'' Millican said. ''That's hearsay. I don't know if he really said it or not. That's just what I heard.''

   Millican said a friend of his who was being recruited by Georgia told him Kelly said that. Kelly, who is now an assistant at Georgia Tech, denies it.

   ''It's amazing how different things get around,'' Kelly said. ''For me to make a statement like that would be ludicrous and something that never happened, I can promise you that. Anybody that knows David Kelly, knows that's the furthest thing from the truth.''

   Millican believes Kelly and says he doesn't have any hard feelings toward the coach. (''You can't hold anybody to hearsay,'' he said.) Still, Millican knows his race is an issue with some people.

   ''For me, color's not an issue, but there are people out there who for some reason or another doubt that, being a white running back, I could play. And there are other people who see me as the Great White Hope and all this,'' Millican said. ''I'm like, 'Look fellas, I'm just out here to play the game of football with my teammates.' Color doesn't matter.''

   Millican is the first white player to see any significant time in the Georgia backfield since Chris McCarthy in 1982. The last white featured back for the Bulldogs was Glynn Harrison in 1975.

   ''Who cares if I'm black, white, purple, red,'' Millican said. ''Let's just get out there and play the game of football. I think if people can put all those stigmas behind them, race and color, as far as athletic ability and just concentrate on players and what they bring to the table, I think people will enjoy the sport a lot more.

   ''Look at the quarterback situation. A lot of people say a black guy can't be quarterback and a lot of people say a white guy can't play running back. Athletes are athletes, no matter what color their skin is.''

Tre Smith and Heath Evans (both white running backs who started at Auburn University in the past 15 years) encountered the same type of prejudice.

"Black Mecca Down" couldn't be coming out at a better time (November 27), but don't overlook "Opiate of America."

Be sure to leave a review once you've read it.

Thanks.

And thanks for sticking with SBPDL.