Johnny Bright

John Dee Bright (June 11, 1930 – December 14, 1983) was an American professional football player in the Canadian Football League (CFL).

He played college football for the Drake Bulldogs.

He is a member of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame, the College Football Hall of Fame, the Missouri Valley Conference Hall of Fame, the Edmonton Eskimos Wall of Honour, the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame, and the Des Moines Register's Iowa Sports Hall of Fame.

Born in Fort Wayne, Indiana on June 11, 1930, Bright was the second oldest of five brothers.

Bright lived with his mother and step father Daniel Bates, brothers, Homer Bright, the eldest, Alfred, Milton, and Nate Bates, in a working class, predominantly African-American neighborhood in Fort Wayne.

Bright was a three-sport (football, basketball, track and field) star at Fort Wayne's Central High School.

Bright, who also was an accomplished softball pitcher and boxer, led Central High's football team to a City title in 1945, and helped the basketball team to two state tournament Final Four appearances.

Following his graduation from Central High in 1947, Bright initially accepted a football scholarship at Michigan State University, but, apparently unhappy with the direction of the Spartans football program, transferred to Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, where he accepted a track and field scholarship, that allowed him to try out for the football and basketball squads.

Bright eventually lettered in football, track, and basketball, during his collegiate career at Drake.

Following a mandatory freshman redshirt year, Bright began his collegiate football career in 1949, rushing for 975 yards and throwing for another 975, to lead the nation in total offense during his sophomore year, as the Drake Bulldogs finished their season at 6–2–1.

In Bright's junior year, the halfback/quarterback rushed for 1,232 yards and passed for 1,168 yards, setting an NCAA record for total offense (2,400 yards) in 1950, and again led the Bulldogs to a 6–2–1 record.

Bright's senior year began with great promise.

In 1951, Bright was named a first-team All-American, and was awarded the Nils V. "Swede" Nelson Sportsmanship Award.

On October 20, 1951, Bright was the victim of an intentional, racially motivated, on-field assault by an opposing college football player from the Oklahoma A&M Cowboys that was captured in a widely disseminated and Pulitzer Prize-winning photo sequence, and eventually came to be known as the "Johnny Bright incident".

Bright was considered a pre-season Heisman Trophy candidate, and was leading the nation in both rushing and total offense with 821 and 1,349 yards respectively, when the Drake Bulldogs, winners of their previous five games, faced Missouri Valley Conference foe Oklahoma A&M, at Lewis Field (now Boone Pickens Stadium) in Stillwater, Oklahoma, on October 20, 1951.

Bright's participation as a halfback/quarterback in Drake's game against Oklahoma A&M on October 20, 1951, was controversial, as it marked the first time that such a prominent African-American athlete, with national fame (Bright was a pre-season Heisman Trophy candidate, and led the nation in total offense going into the game) and of critical importance to the success of his team (Drake was undefeated and carried a five-game winning streak into the contest, due in large part to his rushing and passing), played against Oklahoma A&M in a home game at Lewis Field, in Stillwater.

During the first seven minutes of the game, Bright had been knocked unconscious three times by blows from Oklahoma A&M defensive tackle Wilbanks Smith.

While the final, elbow blow from Smith broke Bright's jaw, Bright was able to complete a 61-yard touchdown pass to halfback Jim Pilkington a few plays later, before the injury finally forced Bright to leave the game.

Bright finished the game with 75 yards (14 yards rushing and 61 yards passing), the first time he had finished a game, with less than 100 yards in his three-year collegiate career at Drake.

Oklahoma A&M eventually won the game 27–14.

A photographic sequence by Des Moines Register cameramen Don Ultang and John Robinson clearly showed that Smith's jaw-breaking blow to Bright had occurred well after Bright had handed off the ball to fullback Gene Macomber, and that the blow was delivered well behind the play.

Years later, Ultang said that he and Robinson were lucky to capture the incident when they did; they'd only planned to stay through the first quarter so they could get the film developed in time for the next day's edition.

It had been an open secret before the game that A&M was planning to target Bright.

Even though A&M had integrated two years earlier, the Jim Crow spirit was still very much alive in Stillwater.

Both Oklahoma A&M's student newspaper, The Daily O'Collegian, and the local newspaper, The News Press, reported that Bright was a marked man, and several A&M students were openly claiming that Bright "would not be around at the end of the game."

Ultang and Robinson had actually set up their camera after rumors of Bright being targeted became too loud to ignore.

Following his final football season at Drake (1951), Bright was named a first-team All-American and finished fifth in the balloting for the 1951 Heisman Trophy.

Bright was also awarded the Nils V. "Swede" Nelson Sportsmanship Award, and played in both the post-season East–West Shrine Game and the Hula Bowl.

He graduated from Drake with a Bachelor of Science in Education, with a specialization in physical education, in 1952.

Fellow member Bradley University pulled out of the league as well in solidarity with Drake; while it returned for non-football sports in 1955, Bradley never played another down of football in the MVC (it dropped football in 1970).

The "Johnny Bright Incident", as it became widely known, eventually provoked changes in NCAA football rules regarding illegal blocking, and mandated the use of more protective helmets with face guards.

When it became apparent that neither Oklahoma A&M nor the MVC would take any disciplinary action against Smith, Drake withdrew from the MVC in protest and stayed out until 1956 (though it didn't return for football until 1971).

In 1969, Bright was named Drake University's greatest football player of all time.

In 1969, Bright was named Drake University's greatest football player of all time.

Recalling the incident without apparent bitterness in a 1980 Des Moines Register interview three years before his death, Bright commented: "There's no way it couldn't have been racially motivated... . ..What I like about the whole deal now, and what I'm smug enough to say, is that getting a broken jaw has somehow made college athletics better. It made the NCAA take a hard look and clean up some things that were bad."

Bright's jaw injury limited his effectiveness for the remainder of his senior season at Drake, but he finished his college career with 5,983 yards in total offense, averaging better than 236 yards per game in total offense, and scored 384 points in 25 games.

As a senior, Bright earned 70 percent of the yards Drake gained and scored 70 percent of the Bulldogs' points, despite missing the better part of the final three games of the season.

Bright is the only Drake football player to have his jersey number (No. 43) retired by the school, and in June 2006, received honorable mention from ESPN.com senior writer Ivan Maisel, as one of the best college football players to ever wear No. 43.

In February 2006, the football field at Drake Stadium was named in his honor.

In November 2006, Bright was voted one of the CFL's Top 50 players (No. 19) of the league's modern era by Canadian sports network TSN.