NFL keeping watch on return of HBCUs to national prominence

— During their original heyday in the 1960s, when much of the nation was still coming to grips with the end of Jim Crow, the Kansas City Chiefs and their visionary coach, Hank Stram, realized more quickly than perhaps any team in the AFL or NFL that players from historically Black colleges and universities were good. “I’m very proud of where I came from,” said Williams, who went seven spots before the Los Angeles Rams picked South Carolina State defensive back Decobie Durant. That’s when Eddie Robinson’s Grambling State juggernaut produced future Packers star Willie Davis, Bears offensive tackle Ernie Ladd and Buchanan, whom the Chiefs picked first overall in the 1963 AFL draft. “I was determined,” Buchanan said years later, “to prove that players from small schools could play in the big leagues.” Indeed, during a five-year period in the late ‘60s, about 70 players from HBCUs were drafted each year, though that figure is somewhat inflated compared to today’s standard by the dueling AFL and NFL drafts and the fact that each had more rounds than today. “I’m a firm believer what you put in you’re going to get out of it,” said Ibrahim, who would be the first Alabama A&M draft pick since Frank Kearse in 2011.