Marion Motley (June 5, 1920 – June 27, 1999) was an American professional football fullback and linebacker who played for the Cleveland Browns in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC) and the National Football League (NFL). He was a leading pass-blocker and rusher in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and ended his career with an average of 5.7 yards per carry, a record for running backs that still stands. A versatile player who possessed both quickness and size, Motley was a force on both offense and defense. Fellow Hall of Fame fullback Joe Perry once called Motley "the greatest all-around football player there ever was".
Motley was also one of the first two African-Americans to play professional football in the modern era, breaking the color barrier along with teammate Bill Willis in September 1946, when the two played their first game for the Browns.
Motley grew up in Canton, Ohio. He played football through high school and at Nevada from 1940 to 1942, before enlisting in the military during World War II. While training in the U.S. Navy in 1944, he played for a service team coached by Paul Brown. Following the war, he then went back to work in Canton. Paul Brown invited Motley to try out for the Cleveland Browns, a team he was coaching in the newly formed AAFC pro football league. Motley made the Browns in 1946, and became a cornerstone of Cleveland's success in the late 1940s. The team won four AAFC championships before the league dissolved, and the Browns were absorbed by the more established NFL. Motley was the AAFC's leading rusher in 1948, and the NFL leader in 1950, when the Browns won another championship.
Motley and fellow black teammate Bill Willis contended with racism throughout their careers. Although the color barrier was broken in all major American sports by 1950, the men endured shouted insults on the field and racial discrimination off of it. "They found out that while they were calling us niggers and alligator bait, I was running for touchdowns and Willis was knocking the shit out of them", Motley once said. "So they stopped calling us names and started trying to catch up with us." Focused exclusively on winning, Brown did not tolerate racism within the team.
Slowed by knee injuries, Motley left the Browns after the 1953 season. He attempted a comeback in 1955 as a linebacker for the Pittsburgh Steelers but was released before the end of the year. He then pursued a coaching career, but was turned away by the Browns and other teams he approached. He attributed his trouble finding a job in football to racial discrimination, questioning whether teams were ready to hire a black coach. Motley was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1968.
Early years and college career
Motley was born in Leesburg, Georgia, and raised in Canton, Ohio, where his family moved when he was three years old. After going to elementary and junior high schools in Canton, Motley attended Canton McKinley High School, where he played on the football and basketball teams. He was especially good as a football fullback, and the McKinley Bulldogs posted a win–loss record of 25–3 during his tenure there. The team's three losses all came against Canton's chief rivals, a Massillon Washington High School team led by coach Paul Brown.
After he graduated, Motley enrolled in 1939 at South Carolina State College, a historically black school in Orangeburg, South Carolina. He transferred before his sophomore year to the University of Nevada, where he was a star on the football team between 1941 and 1943. As a punishing fullback for the Wolf Pack, Motley played against powerful West Coast teams including USF, Santa Clara, and St. Mary's. He suffered a knee injury in 1943 and returned to Canton to work after dropping out of school.
Military and professional career
As United States involvement in World War II intensified, Motley joined the U.S. Navy in 1944 and was sent to the Great Lakes Naval Training Station. There he played for the Great Lakes Navy Bluejackets, a military team coached by Paul Brown, who was serving in the Navy during an extended leave from his job as head coach of Ohio State University's football team. Motley played fullback and linebacker at Great Lakes, and was an important component of the team's offense and defense. The highlight of his time at Great Lakes was a 39–7 victory over Notre Dame in 1945. Motley was eligible for discharge before the game – it was the final match of the season and the last military game of World War II – but he stayed on to play. Motley put up an impressive performance, thanks in part to Brown's experimentation with a new play: a delayed handoff later called the draw play.
After the war, Motley went back to Canton and began working at a steel mill, planning to return to Reno in 1946 to finish his college degree. That summer, however, Paul Brown was coaching a team in the new All-America Football Conference (AAFC) called the Cleveland Browns. Motley wrote to Brown asking for a tryout, but Brown declined, saying he already had all the fullbacks he needed. At the beginning of August, however, Brown invited Bill Willis, another African-American star, to try out for the team at its training camp in Bowling Green, Ohio. Ten days later, Brown invited Motley to come, too. "I think they felt [Willis] needed a roommate," Motley later said. "I don't think they felt I'd make the team. I'm glad I was able to fool them."
Both Motley and Willis made the team and became two of the first African-Americans to play professional football in the modern era. The Los Angeles Rams of the National Football League had signed the only other black players in pro football earlier that year: Kenny Washington and Woody Strode. The four men broke football's color barrier a seven months before Jackie Robinson was promoted from the Class AAA Montreal Royals to join the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. Motley felt the Browns would likely be his only opportunity to make a career of football. "I knew this was the one big chance in my life to rise above the steel mill existence, and I really wanted to take it," he said.
Motley was signed to a contract worth $4,500 a year ($74,296 in 2025 dollars). With the Browns, he joined a potent offense led by quarterback Otto Graham, tackle and placekicker Lou Groza and receivers Dante Lavelli and Mac Speedie. He was a force to be reckoned with in the AAFC, and helped the team win every championship in the league's four years of existence between 1946 and 1949. He had a combination of quickness and power – he was listed at 238 pounds – that helped him plow through tacklers. He was also an able pass blocker and played on defense as a linebacker. Motley rushed for an average of 8.2 yards per carry in his first season. His forte was the trap play, a scheme where a defensive lineman was allowed to come across the line of scrimmage unblocked, opening up space for Motley to run. He led the league in rushing in 1948 as the Browns posted a perfect 15–0 record. He was the AAFC's all-time rushing leader when the league folded after the 1949 season and the Browns were absorbed into the more established National Football League (NFL). The Browns had a 47–4–3 overall regular-season win-loss-tie record during the AAFC years as Motley rushed for a total of 3,024 yards. In five AAFC playoff games for the Browns (all victories), Motley ran for a combined total of 453 yards with five touchdowns, recording 100-yard games in the Championship twice.
Like other black players in the 1940s and 1950s, Motley faced racist attitudes both on and off the field. Paul Brown would not tolerate discrimination within the team; he wanted to win and would not let anything get in his way. Motley and Willis, however, were sometimes stepped on and called names during games. "Sometimes I wanted to just kill some of those guys, and the officials would just stand right there," Motley said many years later. "They'd see those guys stepping on us and heard them saying things and just turn their backs. That kind of crap went on for two or three years until they found out what kind of players we were." Motley and Willis did not travel to one game against the Miami Seahawks in the Browns' early years after they received threatening letters. Another time in Miami, Motley and Willis were told they were not welcome at the hotel where the team was staying. Brown threatened to relocate the entire team, and the hotel's management backed down.