TRUE GRID

If only "Jefferson Street Joe" Gilliam could see them now. Gilliam, as knowledgeable fans will recall, was the first black quarterback on a Super Bowl team (1975)— a spectacularly inconsistent bomber who played for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Now Gilliam is an almost mythic figure, thanks to the sudden emergence of the black quarterback, a long-overdue trend that has shattered one of professional sports' last racial barriers. For years, lily-white coaches, convinced that blacks didn't have the mental "essentials" to be great quarterbacks, nudged would-be passers toward other, less "challenging" positions. Sure, the occasional black quarterback made his mark—one wistfully recalls Doug Williams's four touchdown passes in Super Bowl XXII, not to mention Warren Moon's 49,097 career passing yards—but only recently have they become the prototype, equally adept at passing and rushing: the Vikings' Randall Cunningham was named the league's Player of the Year last season, the Steelers' Kordell Stewart became a Nike-fueled superstar, the Lions' unheralded rookie Charlie Batch turned into an overnight sensation, and two of the first three rookies drafted this year were black quarterbacks. In other words, Thanks, Joe.

NED ZEMAN