Granger’s Tale: A sit-down with former NFL player /SU football standout

Charlie Granger was a former Southern University football player. A three-year starter at Southern, Granger was apart of the program that beat Grambling three times through 1958-60.
As a two-time All-American and three-year starter for the Jaguars, he won the 1960 Black College National Championship under coach A.W. “Ace’’ Mumford. Portraying how it felt playing under the coach, Granger stated, “It was great playing under him because he was very offensive minded and cautious.”
Not only performing in football, he played as an All-American in track and field.
Catching on quickly, Granger tossed a discus 147 feet on his first attempt, the summer of his freshman year. This lead him to become one of six members of the 2010 SWAC Hall Of Fame Class. Granger remarked,
“I knew that coming into Southern that it would be up to me, and for any athlete looking for an athletic career with Southern you have had to prepare yourself three years earlier before coming.”
Throughout the peak of his career, he overcame and accomplished more than most.
Entering the NFL, Charlie’s first season was spent between two teams, the Dallas Cowboys and the St. Louis Cardinals. Granger was the first black man to start on the cowboys offensive line.
“I didn’t have time to think about it because I knew they had a stop clock on me. I knew that the degree of difficulty would be bad and I was just trying to be the best that I could be and showing how fast I can think, ” Granger reflected on the Cowboys.
Granger played in a time when rules and regulations were less restrictive than current.
“Now in this time, it’s much easier to say the least because when I was playing we were given four seconds to block the man in front of you. The defensive end which was going to be in front of me is offensive tackle. He was going to hit me at least 5 times. BAM!BAM!BAM!BAM!BAM!” Granger remembers.
“ I had sneaky skills. I had speed that nobody knew I had. I could dribble a basketball like a globe trotter and I was strong as an ox,” he bragged.
He also mentioned how he felt about black athletes choosing PWIs (Predominantly White Institutions) rather than HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) for athletic careers.
“I think black women now-a-days are having kids, and I don’t know where they are coming from. I’m wondering how these black women have all these kids that are so tall… It’s one of the greatest wonders of the world. We have told our world, the black world, that we are doing one of the most magnificent things
. But there were so many of us in football and basketball, they can’t do anything about it now.”
Continuing the conversation, Charlie shared his thoughts on Colin Kaepernick’s situation. Discussing how he felt about the boundaries between sports and politics, Granger stated,
“The president knew what he was getting when he got Kaepernick.”
Charlie Granger will be inducted into the Southern Hall Of on Friday November 2nd.