The auction block was a huge part of slavery and the exploitation of our ancestors. During the time of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, our people were sold at auctions for prices that varied widely based on age, gender, and perceived health. Prices ranged from $19 per person in the state of Maryland to as high as $950 in Georgia.
The health and physical prowess of a slave were very important to the white owners who purchased our captured people from the slave catchers and auctioneers.
When it was time for one of our brothers to be auctioned, the examiner would publicly examine every physical aspect of his body to make sure he was strong, healthy, and good for working and breeding.
The prospective buyers would look and examine his anatomy to ensure a solid return on his new investment. The prospective buyer would be very concerned about the workload that his new investment could muster every single day (yards per carry). The buyers would take note of posture, weight, muscle development, leg and arm length, and the size of the back. During these inhumane auctions, slave catchers would set up strength and endurance tests to showcase the raw talent of certain prisoners of war. The strength, speed, and agility of our brothers were showcased at each auction(Combine).
In 1977, Tex Schram, the President and General Manager of the Dallas Cowboys football team, set up a week-long showcase of exploitation, examination, and testing for prospective NFL players. This showcase would be the place where young college recruits would perform physical and mental tests in front of NFL owners, coaches, managers, team scouts, team physicians, and investors. This week of auctioning would first be called (NIC) National Invitation Camp. Over the years, it would eventually be called the NFL SCOUTING COMBINE
Prior to 1982, all (32) NFL teams would schedule per- sonal individual visits with prospective players.
In 1984, the (NIC) would be renamed to the NFL Scouting Combine. Every year, only 330 invited players are chosen to participate.
Just like the slave auction, the performances of the prospective players determine their draft status, salary, and career. The athlete’s ‘Draft Stock’ increases with superior size, speed, and, of course, strength.
The testing includes the 40-yard dash, bench press (225 pounds), vertical jump, broad jump, 20-yard shuffle, 3-cone drill, and the 60-yard shuffle. Just like slave owners of yesterday, today’s perspective owners also make it quite clear that they must be aware of physical measurements, injury evaluation, Cybex test-joint flexibility movements, and mandatory drug testing.
The NFL Scouting Combine also includes a mental aptitude test to see if the athlete can use his brain. This examination is called the ‘Wonderlic Contemporary Cognitive Ability Test.’ This test requires basic math, English, and comprehension testing.
In 1939, Eldon F. Wonderlic created an intelligent aptitude test for problem-solving in (21) different languages for the purposes of company hiring. In the NFL, the exam was first used by Dallas Cowboys coach Tom Laundry in the early 1970s. It is comprised of (50) multiple-choice questions that must be answered in approximately (12) minutes. The score is calculated by the number of correct answers given in that allotted time period. An example of a question: If Saquan Barkley rushes for 125 yards a game, how many yards will he have at the end of 16 games? Another question would be if a watch lost 1 minute and 12 seconds in 36 days, how many seconds did it lose per day? NFL owners are extremely particular and cautious about who they choose to make rich.
For centuries, traditional slavery made white slave owners very wealthy. That same wealth created from free slave labor has generated billions of dollars for a multitude of white families.
Today, the residue of this exploitive and oppressive period can be found in professional sports and the business relationship between Black professional athletes and white team owners.
Khabyr Hadas is a Pan-African educator, dedicated Garveyite, and the author of Oneness of the Blacks, Afrikan Struggle Inherited, Black Power: Destruction of white supremacy, and U.F.S. Black Nationalist Guideline. He teaches African history and culture at Harambee Institute of Science and Technology Charter School, founded by Baba John Skief in 1972. khabyrhadas@gmail.com
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