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HBCU Football: The life and legacy of Bill Nunn Jr.

By Dante Pryor

NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE - OCTOBER 25: A helmet of the Pittsburgh Steelers rests on the sideline during a game against the Tennessee Titans at Nissan Stadium on October 25, 2020 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Frederick Breedon/Getty Images)
NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE - OCTOBER 25: A helmet of the Pittsburgh Steelers rests on the sideline during a game against the Tennessee Titans at Nissan Stadium on October 25, 2020 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Frederick Breedon/Getty Images) /
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American professional football player Joe Morrison #40 (1937 – 1989), of the New York Giants, rushes through the Philadelphia Eagles as teammates Jack Stroud #66, Phil King #24, and Roosevelt Brown #79 (1932 – 2004), block from both uproght and prone positions, Philadelphia, late 1950s or early 1960s. (Photo by Robert Riger/Getty Images)
American professional football player Joe Morrison #40 (1937 – 1989), of the New York Giants, rushes through the Philadelphia Eagles as teammates Jack Stroud #66, Phil King #24, and Roosevelt Brown #79 (1932 – 2004), block from both uproght and prone positions, Philadelphia, late 1950s or early 1960s. (Photo by Robert Riger/Getty Images) /

Nunn would continue tradition of Black College Football All-American list

Ironically, Bill Nunn would a spotlight on football, considering he was a great college basketball player. However, Nunn was a newspaperman at heart. Nunn’s decision to go and work alongside his father at the Pittsburgh Courier as a sportswriter.

Nunn’s work with the Courier’s HBCU All-American’s list is legendary because he was often a scouting department of one. Nunn would travel to the marquee HBCU football games all over the country to scout players for his list.

Nunn scouted and complied the players, and he also made sure those young men had an annual banquet. Started in 1930, Nunn put together the All-American list from 1950-1974. The All-American list was a who’s who of great HBCU players from a bygone era.

Roosevelt Brown, Art Shell, Elvin Bethea are three of the hundreds of names to grace the Pittsburgh Courier’s All-American team.

The impact of Nunn’s work at the Courier and with the HBCU All-American team cannot be understated. During Nunn’s time, the Pittsburgh-based paper had a circulation of over 400,000.

That All-American team put a spotlight on players who would have never received their just due otherwise. Even in the1970s, when the SEC had desegregated, HBCUs still recruited the lion’s share of elite black football players.

Nunn’s work with the All-American team proved his eye for talent and put him on the radar of one of the worst teams in the NFL, the Pittsburgh Steelers.

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