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John Mitchell, the defensive line coach for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

By Hannah Gordon

Daily Bruin Reporter

Bear Bryant politely excused himself. USC’s head coach had just mentioned he was recruiting an African-American player from Mobile, Ala. named John Mitchell. The Bear left to phone his recruiters at Alabama.

“All I know is his name is John Mitchell and he’s from Mobile,” Bryant said. “Find him.”

Three days after Bryant’s phone call, coaches arrived at Mitchell’s home. Growing up in Alabama, Mitchell watched the Tide win national championships.

But for Mitchell, whose parents never had the opportunity to see their son play during his two years at at Eastern Arizona Junior College, there was a stronger deciding factor in choosing Alabama over USC than boyhood memories.

“It was so special for my mom,” Mitchell said “And to come out on to the field and see the smile on her face, it was a Kodak moment The kind you keep with you your whole life.”

Before Southern football teams integrated, talented African-American players had to either play at historically black colleges or migrate to the North and West. Although the University of Alabama integrated in 1963, the football team’s color barrier was not broken until 1970 by Wilbur Jackson, and Mitchell was the first to actually play for the team in 1971.

“I wouldn’t say everyone accepted me, but Coach Bryant was fair so the players all treated me the same,” Mitchell said.

While Mitchell seems nonchalant, perhaps it is because he has grown so used to being the first to do many things. At Alabama, he was also the first African-American student athlete to room with a white student. His roommate Robert Stanford and he are still best friends.

“They could not have picked a better person to be the first African-American to be on the team because John was there to play football and get an education,” Stanford said. “He didn’t expect any special treatment and he didn’t get any, but he was treated fairly. He was a great person and a heck of a ballplayer.”

Because Mitchell was outgoing and always went along when other players went into Tuscaloosa, he unintentionally became the first African-American in many establishments in town.

“Everybody stopped and looked, then somebody said, ‘He’s a football player,’ and they all went back to what they were doing,” Mitchell recalled.

Mitchell even became the first African-American co-captain of the football team.

“I didn’t go to the meeting,” Mitchell said because he and the other five African-Americans figured they were so few, they would never be nominated. Until they added Bryant was mad that he had not gone to the meeting, Mitchell didn’t even believe his white teammates who told him he’d been selected as co-captain.

Although Mitchell was an All-American at Alabama and was drafted by the National Football League’s San Francisco 49ers, he wanted to attend graduate school rather than enter the pro ranks.

So Mitchell asked his former coach if he could get him a job in the athletic department so that he could make some money while he went to school. Instead, Bryant offered him a full-time position as an assistant coach.

At 20 years old, Mitchell again stood out, this time as the youngest coach in college football at the time, as well as Alabama’s first African-American assistant coach.

Mitchell’s coaching talents led him to Arkansas under Lou Holtz and later to the USFL, Temple University and Lousiana State University before moving on to the NFL where he is currently a defensive line coach for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

“He’s a lot like Coach Bryant,” Stanford said, “because he knows (players) are not going to play football forever. He coaches them not only in football, but in more than that.”

At LSU, Mitchell became the first African-American defensive coordinator in the SEC when former head coach Mike Archer promoted him in 1990.

“At that time, living in the South, it was met by some mixed reviews,” said Archer, who received death threats, “but when you do the right thing, you don’t doubt yourself.”

Ironically, Mitchell’s accomplishments expose the dearth of diversity in professional and collegiate football. Only five of the 117 Division I-A football programs have African-American head coaches. Similarly, there are only two African-American head coaches in the NFL’s 32 franchises.

Mitchell was interested in the Alabama head coaching position when it became open this past season, but the university was looking for a “proven head coach.”

“You tell me what coach came out of the womb as a head coach,” Mitchell said.

Mitchell’s lifetime of firsts proves the importance of taking a risk on talent rather than recycling the status quo.

His name is John Mitchell. Find him.