Editor’s note: This is the Wednesday Nov. 2 edition of the “Game Day with Kevin Modesti” newsletter. To receive the newsletter in your inbox, sign up here.
Seventy-five years ago today, Rams halfback Kenny Washington cut, burst, angled, faked and stiff-armed his way to a 92-yard touchdown that is still the longest run from scrimmage in the team’s history.
First, the sports news:
USC is No. 9, UCLA No. 12 in the season’s first rankings of College Football Playoff contenders, and columnist Mirjam Swanson says this is a victory in itself.
The vibe is less positive from Bill Walton as the UCLA basketball great blasted the Bruins’ planned move to the Big Ten.
Teammates love what they’re seeing from USC redshirt freshman offensive lineman Mason Murphy.
Dodgers right fielder Mookie Betts won a Gold Glove Award for the sixth time.
The Ducks won in a shootout at San Jose.
And here’s something to save: the updated CIF Southern Section first-round football playoff schedule.
Someday, somebody will break the record Washington set on Sunday, Nov. 2, 1947, against the then-Chicago Cardinals at Comiskey Park.
But Washington’s impact will never be erased.
“Walking Alone,” by Dan Taylor (Rowman & Littlefield, $36), published this year, traces Washington’s rise from Lincoln High School, in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, to UCLA, where he was a baseball and football teammate of Jackie Robinson, and later to the NFL, where he played a Robinson-like role by reintegrating the league that had barred Black players for the previous 12 years.
Last year marked the 75th anniversary of Washington signing a Rams contract, followed two months later by fellow Bruin Woody Strode. The Rams honored Washington during the 2021 season by establishing a college scholarship in his name for 13 (his uniform number) students. They spotlighted his daughter Karen at the regular-season finale at SoFi Stadium, and wore a “KW” emblem on their helmets.
But for several reasons, the memory of Washington, who died of heart and lung disease in 1971, is rarely honored as Robinson’s is.
That’s ironic, because, as Taylor establishes in “Walking Alone,” baseball was Washington’s preferred and better sport, and had he not already committed to playing football for the Rams after their move from Cleveland to L.A., he could have followed recommendations by Robinson and others and joined Jackie in signing with the minor-league Montreal Royals and then the major-league Brooklyn Dodgers.
Taylor, speaking by phone from Fresno, where the veteran broadcaster calls play-by-play for the minor-league Fresno Grizzlies, said one reason Washington generally isn’t remembered as vividly as Robinson is that baseball was so much bigger than football in the 1940s.
“When he signed, it got just a simple sentence or two in papers, while Jackie’s signing got huge headlines, really because of the popularity of baseball at the time,” Taylor said. “I think it’s unfortunate that what Kenny achieved is, I don’t want to say dismissed, but devalued.”
Another reason for that might be that while Robinson came to the major leagues at 28 at his athletic peak and was able to have a Hall of Fame career with the Dodgers, Washington came to the NFL at 28 with damaged knees and played only three seasons with the Rams.
Washington wasn’t the same player as a rookie in 1946 that fans had come to expect from the high points of his years at UCLA and with the minor-league Hollywood Bears.
“The rookie year, he was terrible, to be blunt,” Taylor said. “He spent that offseason doing really remarkable rehab. The things he did, from the exercise bike, playing handball with (quarterback) Bob Waterfield, taking up golf to walk the undulating courses, showed the incredible work ethic he had.
“The 92-yard run was a great product of all the work he had done, wanting to not just succeed but really excel in the National Football League.”
Later in that game, a 17-10 loss, Washington was tackled on a run and piled on by Cardinals players.
“When he was under piles, he took a lot of abuse,” Taylor said. “And in this particular case they really yanked and twisted his leg, and he reinjured the knee and missed most of the rest of the season.”
Second in the NFL in rushing yards behind the Philadelphia Eagles’ Steve Van Buren at the time of the new injury, Washington finished ’47 fourth in that category (444 in 11 games), fifth in rushing touchdowns (seven) – and first in the longest run.
The run shouldn’t have been eye-popping to teammates who were used to seeing his high-kneed power running (a style comparable, Taylor said, to Eric Dickerson’s). But one young Rams player watched the run and leaped from the bench in glee, landed awkwardly and injured a knee. Rams line coach George Trafton, saying Washington had gone through a hole “no bigger than my car key,” proclaimed him “the greatest football runner I’ve ever seen.”
The anniversary of Washington’s greatest moment in the NFL comes as football and baseball deal with issues surrounding the lack of roles for Black players, coaches and executives. The NFL, whose playing rosters are mostly Black, has comparatively few minority head coaches and top executives. In baseball, the decline in participation by Black players is such that the World Series, going on now between the Houston Astros and Philadelphia Phillies, has no U.S.-born Black players on the field for the first time since 1950.
Taylor believes it’s “essential” that people know the history of sports desegregation efforts in order to address today’s issues, and hopes the stories of Washington and his contemporaries in “Walking Alone” will help.
“The opportunities denied, can you equate that to coaching and executive opportunities overlooked?” Taylor said. “The things they had to go through, the abuse they had to fight through in order to succeed. You can argue that their accomplishments mean a lot more than accomplishments of today given everything that they had to endure.”
TODAY
Clippers visit the Rockets (5 p.m., BSSC) after beating the Western Conference’s last-place team in L.A. on Monday. It’s John Wall’s return to Houston. Read Jim Alexander’s early assessment of the Clippers.
Lakers try to build their first winning streak of the season when they host the Pelicans at Crypto.com Arena (7:30 p.m., SPSN). Anthony Davis is questionable.
READERS REACT
More answers came in to the question: If you’re a Rams fan, what’s your reaction to seeing 49ers fans pack SoFi Stadium for recent games in the rivalry?
Rene Cassiano replied: “I was a Rams fan until they left for St. Louis. Because of that void, I became a 49ers fan. The Rams are the ex-gf who left you and now wants to come back into town and demands (your) love and attention. Umm no.”
PVBruin86 said: “They left for 20 years and left a void that was filled by other teams who locals supported instead.”
Who Gonna said: “Guys can sell their tickets for the Niners and Cowboys game for a huge profit and pay for the entire season ticket package with that. I ain’t mad at ‘em.”
Gary Bishop said: “I think it’s humorous that NoCals are getting scalped.”
And Patrick Hagen remembered what came before SoFi Stadium: “Can we have Hollywood Park back?”
NEXT QUESTION
Do you agree with Bill Walton that moving to the Big Ten would not be in the best interests of UCLA athletics? Respond by email KModesti@scng.com or on Twitter (@KevinModesti).
280 CHARACTERS
“Seeing Pau Gasol at practice, I asked Russ today if he had said last year that Pau was one of his favorite Lakers. ‘My favorite player,’ Russ corrected me.” – Lakers writer Kyle Goon (@kylegoon) after talking with Russell Westbrook.
1,000 WORDS
Catching on: Matt Vierling feels Philadelphia fans’ affection after gloving a fly ball in foul territory for the second out in the ninth inning as the Phillies beat the Astros 7-0 last night to take a 2-1 lead in the World Series. Photo is by Elsa Garrison for Getty Images.
TALK TO ME
Thanks for reading the newsletter. Send suggestions, comments and questions by email at KModesti@scng.com and via Twitter @KevinModesti.
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