Johnny Bright
Bright depicted in a 1959 football card | |||||||||
| No. 24 | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Positions | Fullback • linebacker | ||||||||
| Personal information | |||||||||
| Born | June 11, 1930 Fort Wayne, Indiana, U.S. | ||||||||
| Died | December 14, 1983 (aged 53) Edmonton, Alberta, Canada | ||||||||
| Listed height | 6 ft 1 in (1.85 m) | ||||||||
| Listed weight | 217 lb (98 kg) | ||||||||
| Career information | |||||||||
| High school | Central (Fort Wayne) | ||||||||
| College | Drake (1949–1951) | ||||||||
| NFL draft | 1952: 1st round, 5th overall pick | ||||||||
| Career history | |||||||||
| 1952–1954 | Calgary Stampeders | ||||||||
| 1954–1964 | Edmonton Eskimos | ||||||||
| Awards and highlights | |||||||||
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| Career CFL statistics | |||||||||
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Canadian Football Hall of Fame (Class of 1970) | |||||||||
College Football Hall of Fame (Class of 1984) | |||||||||
John Dee Bright (June 11, 1930 – December 14, 1983) was an American professional football player in the Canadian Football League (CFL). A troubling racist incident he endured as a college football player in the U.S. caused rule changes in the National Collegiate Athletic Association. After his emigration to Canada, he played a starring role as an Edmonton Eskimo and also became a school principal and an important role model for Black Canadians and aspiring athletes in Edmonton.
Bright played college football for the Drake Bulldogs. He is a member of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame, the College Football Hall of Fame, the Missouri Valley Conference Hall of Fame, the Edmonton Eskimos Wall of Honour, the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame, and the Des Moines Register's Iowa Sports Hall of Fame.
In 1951, Bright was named a first-team All-American, and was awarded the Nils V. "Swede" Nelson Sportsmanship Award. In 1969, Bright was named Drake University's greatest football player of all time. Bright is the only Drake football player to have his jersey number (No. 43) retired by the school, and in June 2006, received honorable mention from ESPN.com senior writer Ivan Maisel, as one of the best college football players to ever wear No. 43. In February 2006, the football field at Drake Stadium was named in his honor. In November 2006, Bright was voted one of the CFL's Top 50 players (No. 19) of the league's modern era by Canadian sports network TSN.
On October 20, 1951, Bright was the victim of an intentional, racially motivated, on-field assault by an opposing college football player from the Oklahoma A&M Cowboys that was captured in a widely disseminated and Pulitzer Prize-winning photo sequence, and eventually came to be known as the "Johnny Bright incident".