This is the FCB Podcast Network.

Last Sunday's Super Bowl marked the first time two black quarterbacks faced each other in Super Bowl history.

It was certainly notable, but we definitely take the presence of black men in professional sports for granted these days.

This Black History Month and Super Bowl season, let's take a moment to recognize the nation's first professional black football player, Charles Follis.

Charles Follis was born February 3, 1879 in Cloverdale, Virginia. As a child, his family moved to Worcester,

Ohio, where Follis grew up playing football and even helped form his high school's varsity football

team, a team that posted a perfect winning record in his time there. Follis's six-foot 200-pound

frame was a force to be reckoned with, and eventually

he made his way to play for the Shelby Blues in the Ohio Football League. Discrimination was a daily

part of his career. Follis was even booted out of a segregated Ohio pub while trying to celebrate

a big win with his teammates.

He was greatly respected among his peers for his skill and positivity.

Once, while playing in Toledo, the opposing team's captain stopped the game and refused to

continue until the audience stopped screaming racial slurs at Follas.

Follas wasn't paid, but the Shelby Blues team owner got him a job at a local hardware store

to help support himself.

He played with the Shelby Blues until an injury ended his career in 1906.

Follus went on to play baseball in the negro leagues for a few years but unfortunately died of

pneumonia in 1910 at the age of 31 in 1974 a group of researchers discovered newspaper reports

of fallis's paid contract with the shelby blues in 1904 a couple of years after he joined the team.

That discovery makes Follis the first black professional football player in American history.

It's hard to quantify Follis's influence on the future of professional sports,

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