🏈 Celebrating Marion Motley

Cover reveal for 'Breaking Through the Lines: The Marion Motley Story'

Welcome to this week’s edition of All Sports Books. I have the privilege of sharing the cover of a new 🏈 book publicly for the first time. Breaking Through the Lines: The Marion Motley Story is an upcoming biography of Marion Motley, one of the first four players to break American Football’s unwritten color barrier. I previously reviewed an excellent book on one of the other three, Kenny Washington, last year. I also had the chance to ask author David Lee Morgan Jr. some questions about the book. Breaking Through The Lines comes out on August 1st this year and is available for preorder.

This week also saw the first book giveaway I have done on Twitter. Plenty of followers were interested in winning a free copy of the excellent The Blood and the Guts: How Tight Ends Save Football by Tyler Dunne. Congrats to the lucky winner @Rlblack1Rob.

I also want to re-share the links to my recent review of an excellent book - ‘Brick City Grudge Match: Tony Zale and Rocky Graziano Battle in Newark, 1948’ by Rod Honecker. The book is a fascinating excellent look at the original classic boxing trilogy Be sure to follow me on Twitter to get all my reviews as they are published.

Finally we have the usual list of sports books out recently or coming soon for you to check out. Happy Reading!

🏈 'Breaking Through the Lines: The Marion Motley Story' by David Lee Morgan Jr.

With thanks to Press Box Books, I’m happy to share the cover of the upcoming biography of Marion Motley by photographer Harry Hall/AP Images and designer Karli Kruse. I love the use of the Cleveland Browns colors on the black and white background. The picture also captures Motley’s imposing size!

Breaking Through the Lines: The Marion Motley Story is very much a celebration of Motley and part of efforts to ensure his achievements are remembered. As the focus on the lack of black NFL head coaches continues, it’s always relevant to look back at the league’s past and how black players broke through after 12 years of an unwritten color barrier.

In 1946, Hall of Fame coach Paul Brown, signed two black players as part of the inaugural Cleveland Browns roster and the LA Rams also signed two black players. While Motley was enshrined in the Hall of Fame in 1968, I suspect he is largely unknown to most modern fans. This book tells Motley’s story of adversity, personal tragedy, and triumph.

Breaking the Lines is very much a celebration of Motley and his talents. It’s an enjoyable, interesting read. Through Motley’s story it also captures the American sporting landscape of the 40’s and 50’s and the difficulties faced by black athletes at the time.

I also had the chance to ask author a few questions about the book.

Hi David. What inspired you to write this book about Marion Motley?

What inspired me to write this book? That's a great question, because the inspiration and the idea started with an idea from friends of mine who wanted to find a way to honor Marion Motley’s accomplishments and legacy in his hometown of Canton, where he is a member of the Hall of Fame. My friends who were graduates of Canton McKinley High School, always felt that Marion Morley wasn't adequately regarded in his hometown. We got together at my house one summer afternoon about five years ago to try to start a grassroots effort to raise money for a statue to be put somewhere near the Hall of Fame because the only other likeness of Marion Motley was his bust inside the Hall of Fame.

As we started to try to raise money, we started to do research and we decided that we wanted to do a documentary about the life of Marion Motley. So, while another group of friends continued to raise money for the statue, we worked on this documentary. It was a 30-minute documentary called “Lines Broken: The Story of Marion Motley” and when we completed the documentary, it aired on PBS Western Reserve in Northeast Ohio. It did so well, and it was such an intriguing story that PBS Western Reserve pitched it to air nationally on PBS stations, which it did through the distribution of American Public Television. We won a regional Emmy in the category of Best Documentary Historical at the National Academy of Television Arts and Science Central Great Lakes ceremony at the Lucas Oil Estate in Indianapolis in June of 2022.

In the meantime, we had so much research and so much information that me being a print guy, I wanted to tell more of the story, more of the story that was not included in the 30-minute documentary. So as a result, that's how the book idea came about. I know that was a long-winded, roundabout way to answer the question. That's how I came up with the idea of writing the book. More needed to be told.

Is there anything you learned during your research that really surprised you?

I had known about Marion Motley being a sportswriter in northeast Ohio with the Akron Beacon Journal, and my dad went to high school and grew up with Hall of Fame wide receiver, Paul Warfield, who played for the Browns, and played for the Miami Dolphins when they had their undefeated season in 1972. So, growing up, I knew all about the Browns, and I kind of knew somewhat of who Marion Motley was, but I didn't really know his history or what he had accomplished, or the significance of him breaking the color barrier. I didn't know any of that until I started working on the documentary and the book.

I started to learn more about the AAFC- the All-America Football Conference and how the Browns were so dominant in that league and then joined the NFL in 1950. I also learned how the American Football League, which played its inaugural season in 1960, merged with the NFL in 1970. Those AFL teams were placed in the American Football Conference (AFC) and the original NFL teams were placed in the NFC, the two conferences we have now in the NFL. I didn’t really know any of that history.

Are there any other amazing Black athletes whose legacies you feel have been lost or aren't fully appreciated?  For me, I think Paul Robeson should be one of the most famous figures in American cultural and sporting history, but I suspect a huge number of people have no idea who he was.

I guess the biggest thing that I didn't realize was just how brutal and how the game was so much stacked against players like Motley and Willis, to the point that I'm in awe of how they were able to keep their composure in a sport that was such a brutal sport. At any moment, any of those players of color could have decided they had enough and fought back, which obviously would've just completely ruined any opportunities they had going forward. It also would have definitely set black players back who were going to come after them. They were very much trailblazers in their own rights because what they stood for and what they did, and what they did NOT do. They laid the groundwork for all of the players of color who came after them.

As far as other amazing black athletes whose legacies I feel have been lost or maybe not fully appreciated, I guess that's a great question because there are so many that I learned of. But I would just say that Larry Doby kind of jumps out to me because he was an African-American player with the Cleveland Indians, who are the Cleveland Guardians now. Doby was the second Black player to break the color barrier in Major League Baseball (and the first in the American League) after Jackie Robinson did it in the National League with the Los Angeles Dodgers three months earlier. To have the Cleveland Browns sign Motley and Willis in 1946, then the Cleveland Indians sign Larry Doby a year later, I feel that was a historical set of circumstances for the sports landscaped here of Northeast Ohio. They were proud moments, in the scope of the racial climate at the time, to hang your helmet and cap on.

Sports books out now or coming very soon:

⚽ A Nation Again: The Inside Story of Scotland’s Journey to the European Championships

⚽The Derby Game: A History of Local Rivalries by Ian Collis

⚽The Social One: Why Jurgen Klopp was a Perfect Fit for Liverpool by Marios Mantzos

🏀 The Education of Kendrick Perkins: A Memoir by Kendrick Perkins and Seth Rogoff

🏅 The Hard Parts: A Memoir of Courage and Triumph by Oksana Masters and Cassidy Randall

🥊 Last On His Feet: Jack Johnson and the Battle of the Century by Youssef Daoudi and Adrian Matejka

🏀 Role of a Lifetime: Larry Farmer and the UCLA Bruins by Larry Farmer and Tracy Dodds

Thanks for reading. Let me know your thoughts, opinions, any improvements I can make etc. Catch me on Twitter. More books next week!