Hey, nice guy. What's easy now? Rambo 59. Get on the ball Rambo. Welcome to the Forgotten quarterbacks, hosted by W Earl Kitchens. Our podcast is dedicated to preserving the legacies of black quarterbacks who've. Played the game of American football, and now here's your host, w Earl Kitchens. Hello again, and welcome to another edition of the Forgotten Quarterbacks. I'm your host W Earl Kitchens, and as we like to tell you, we are here to bring you historical information stories about black quarterbacks who have played this game of American football from years gone by even till today. And we always like to keep you well informed about some of the great and some of the outstanding black quarterbacks who have played this game at all levels. We are, we have expanded our scope to include middle school, high school, college, and professional. So we will do our very, very best. To always bring you some historical information, stories, news, whatever we can find to make sure you are fully educated and aware of these outstanding men who have put it on the line, who have been on that grid, Aaron, and given all, they've got to make sure that they themselves and their teams were successful. Today we want to delve into one of the historical black conferences. This one at the Division two level, really known more as a basketball conference than a football conference, but the fact that they have had football in that conference for many, many years. As a matter of fact, black college football. Has been basically said to have started in the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association, AKA. The CIAA way back in the late 18 hundreds, Biddle and Living Stone played probably the first game between black colleges to ever be done. And that rivalry, uh, has continued over the years. Bill, of course, changed his name, but we wanna just talk about the fact that the CIAA has had many outstanding players, many outstanding football teams and coaches, and today is no different. As we would like to bring you this story about a guy who. Made his mark actually becoming the first ever quarterback in the CIAA to throw for 2000 plus yards in one regular season. Now, I know that may sound like that's not a lot. However, you gotta keep in mind that during the days of football from its inception really. Through the seventies, pretty much forward passing or passing at it. As we know, it was not the primary way of moving teams up and down the football field. The running game was always the main staple for taking advantage of a defense. But when you add the fact that nowadays. Passing has become one of the most deadly and prevalent ways of attacking defenses. And scoring 2000 yards really doesn't sound like a lot, but when we talk about the days of just running the football and you had many, many, many outstanding running backs, the quarterback's basic job was to direct the team and basically hand off and in certain situations through a pass. And if you start developing a receiver core, you could throw the ball a lot more. And as we identify quarterbacks who have done that, you can see the the evolving of how quarterbacks became more astute at throwing that ball down the field. Well, this gentleman, as I indicated, the first quarterback. In the CIAA to throw four, 2000 yards, plus his name, Alfred Tyler. One common thread that occurred at colleges around the country during the early years was the, again, the passing game was just not a strategic means of scoring. And the fact is obvious because of the low statistical records that we have compiled at times to, to show you that, you know. 800 yards, 900 yards, a thousand yards. That was pretty much common in average. But at Living Stone College up in North Carolina, Alfred Tyler used his arm to establish dominance on the grid iron. During his career, he taught for a combined 4,630 yards. And 54 touchdowns between 1964 and 1966, and while the bad bears had only one winning season in those years, Tyler's proudness and ability to spin the football against other CIAA opponents pose many problems on Saturday. Now, Tyler hailed from. Clifton Valley Forge, Virginia. He was a 195 pound quarterback, and in 1966, just to show you how good he was while he was playing at Living Stone, he was the 1966 small college player of the year, as recognized by the Washington DC Touchdown Club. And I would just like to read you a quote from the article. That was placed in the Carolinian in 1966 that attested to Tyler skills as a quarterback. And again, when you were talking about a guy who you know, in high school probably wasn't much different than colleges, they weren't throwing football a lot. But when you've got a guy who can spin it, you gotta take advantage of it. So here's what the Carolinian had in their article. And I quote Alfred Tyler continues to set a Tory pace in the central intercollegiate athletic association's total offense race. The sensational senior quarterback chalked up 364 yards in Lemmy stone's 43 36, victory over Winston-Salem State, and ran his yardage total to 1003 for four GA for four games for an average of 252 yards per game. Four games and he's already at a thousand yards. So his coach definitely gave him the green light to throw the football. And of course you can throw it, but you gotta have somebody to catch it. At the time. Tyler's closest rival at the quarterback position was Winston State, Salem State's, Joseph Talley, who after four games only had 515 yards. Tyler also leads the CIAA in passing with 74 completions and 13 touchdowns. Sandy Bowers, a 170 pound halfback from Hampton Institute leads in rushing with 332 yards and 53 carries for an average of 5.7. So you can kinda see that. Whereas he was making his name known by throwing. Running backs still, were doing the brunt of most of the work. Uh, also in this article it says it's too early, uh, to tell if Living Stone would be invited to the Orange Bowl. Per fam MU Court, uh, head coach Jay Gaither we're only four games. Deep in a nine game SIAC schedule. Gaither says that already has produced our first conference defeat in 14 years, and that was an age of three loss to South Carolina State. So what Jake was really saying was, is too early. We are aware of what Living Stone is doing, but we just don't know yet as a junior. Tyler threw for 1,472 yards and 16 touchdowns, setting a new living stone and CIAA record and becoming the first quarterback in school in conference history to pass over a thousand yards in a single season. But then in his senior year, he threw for 2,461 yards and 29 touchdowns while leading the NAIA in passing setting. CIAA. And school records, again, as the first quarterback to pass for over 2000 yards in a single year. During that time, Tyler was named the C-I-A-A-M-V-P in 1965 and selected to the 1966 all CIAA team and the NC Collegiate, uh, team that they had at that time. His Jersey number 17 was retired. In 1967, so just think about the fact that here's a guy comes to living Stone College, not well known, well known enough by his college coach to bring him in and within a matter of his final two years, puts the conference on notice and puts other HBC UK. Football programs on notice that this guy is a legitimate passing weapon, and Alfred Tyler went on to just do a good job. Although the records, the team records don't bear that out. In 65, the team went three and five, and overall in three and five in the conference the next year they went six, three and one. And had a five, one and one record in the CIAA, but still just was not enough to put them in some type of position to potentially be looked at as a team to play Florida a and m in the Orange Blossom. Classic it. But all in all, we would like to salute this gentleman for his spectacular career. At Living Stone College Plan for the Living Stone College bears the Blue Bears as they're known. In 1987, Alfred Tyler would be inducted into the CIAA Hall of Fame, and in 2002 he was honored with an induction into the Living Stone College's Sports Hall of Fame. Alfred Tyler, one of the names of the CIAA that many of you had not heard about unless you were at Living Stone along those 60 years. But here at the Forgotten quarterbacks, we want you to know that this guy was a phenomenal talent. So if you ever run across guys in the CIAA, you're talking about quarterbacks and you know. You throw out that name and you mention that name, make sure you let them know that he was the first to throw for a thousand yards and then again repeat that 2000 yards the following season. The first guy in the CIAA to ever have done that and accomplish that, and he did it in back to back years. And although the teams were not that good based on their records, he. Was a phenomenal quarterback. Once again, we salute Mr. Alfred Tyler for what he did for not only living stone and the CIAA, but what he's done as a black quarterback playing the game of American football. We anticipate, because we know we have him on the list of wanting to bring him in and make him a member. Of the fraternity known as quarter five back, the preeminent fraternity for black quarterback. So we hope that we can catch up with him. We, we've made efforts, but we have yet to get any notification back. Uh, and if Mr. Tyler has passed, we will recognize him posthumously as a member of quarter five back. Well, that's going to be my time for today. We hope that this has been another nugget for you to know more about black quarterbacks who've played this game until the next time. I'm w Earl Kitchens for the Forgotten quarterbacks, which is proudly a production of Quarter five Back and the Mentors Foundation. Till next time, take care everybody. Thank you for joining us here on the Forgotten quarterbacks with Host w Earl Kitchen. Join us as we discuss more about the legacies of black quarterbacks who've played the game of American football.