QB Evans Made History Before Joining Raiders
Quarterback Vince Evans was not a star for the Los Angeles-Oakland Raiders, but he was there at the times when they needed him in a nine-year stint from 1987-95, mostly as a backup and also as a tutor for young players.
But he made news years before that.
The 6-foot-2, 210-pound Evans was selected in the sixth round (No. 140 overall) of the 1977 National Football League Draft by the Chicago Bears after being named Most Valuable Player of the 1977 Rose Bowl in Pasadena, where he led USC to a 14-6 victory over Michigan.
“It didn’t get much better than that for a college athlete,” Evans said of the Rose Bowl, in which he ran one yard for a touchdown and completed 14-of-20 passes for 181 yards and another score. “Playing in front of 106,000 people in a nationally televised game against Michigan, it doesn’t get much better than that.”
Evans, who was one of the first Black quarterbacks in established college football and the NFL, was inducted into the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame in 2022.
Although he grew up in Greensboro, N.C., Evans became interested in USC when Coach John McKay installed Jimmy Jones as the first Black quarterback for the Trojans in 1969 and he was their starter for three seasons.
That’s why Evans enrolled at Los Angeles City College, and McKay recruited him to play at USC from 1974-76.
“The Trojans didn’t pick (Evans), he picked them,” Jim Murray, the legendary Los Angeles Times, write in a 1988 article. “ … Evans had a choice of going to any one of three all-black colleges when he happened to catch a USC-UCLA game on TV. O.J. Simpson and that white horse were running wild. He knew that was for him. Football and John Wayne in the same wrapping.”
After passing for 2,248 yards and 14 touchdowns for the Trojans, who on offense primarily ran the ball out of their famed I-formation, Evans went on to play pro football for 18 seasons, mostly with the Bears and Raiders although he competed in the United States Football League with the Chicago Blitz in 1984 and the Denver Gold in 1985.
After being the Bears’ first starting Black quarterback and moving on to the USFL for those two seasons, Evans signed with the Raiders in 1987 after sitting out a season. Although he never was a full-time starter for the Silver and Black, he had his moments.
And he was the first Black starting quarterback for the Raiders, because quarterback Eldridge Dickey of Tennessee State, who was drafted by the Silver and Black in the first round (No. 25 overall), was moved to wide receiver and never started at game at quarterback.
“Do I regret not always being a starter?” asked Evans, who passed 1,390 yards and 52 touchdowns in his career, while rushing for 1,129 yards and 14 scores. “That’s the hand I was dealt, and I have no regrets. I dealt with the circumstances that were in front of me, and hopefully I did it with class, grace and a style that the fans appreciated.”
In the next several seasons for the Raiders, despite an ever changing cast at quarterback, Evans remained the back-up, serving as much as a coach as he did a reserve playing on in the final minutes of blowouts one way or the other.
In 1984 at the age of 39, Evans replaced Jeff Hostetler and completed both passes he threw including a six-yard touchdown to Rocket Ismail in a 24-17 victory over the San Diego Chargers at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego.
The next season, the Raiders returned to Oakland and Evans started three games at age 40, compiling a 1-2 record, including a 30-17 victory over the Indianapolis Colts at the Oakland Coliseum—where he passed for 335 yards and two touchdowns.
The was one of Evans’ best games as a pro, but also one of his last.
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