Ollie Matson and the Power of a Simple B&W Image

I read recently that Ollie Matson had died.  The Pro Football Hall of Famer had the kind of career that doesn’t happen anymore…thankfully.  He was the leading college rusher in the nation in 1950 and his University of San Francisco team went undefeated.  But, since he was black, he finished 9^th in the Heisman Trophy voting and the team was not invited to any bowl game.  There were fewer bowl games then and many were in the South, where the bowl organizers and the southern college teams refused to play black players. The squad adopted the slogan – ‘Unbeaten, Untied and Uninvited’.

I might have seen him play before his pro career ended but don’t remember.  However, I still have this impressive memory of one striking photograph that I first saw fifty years ago.  In the winter of 1961, I was hospitalized for over two months and my father’s commercial art studio gave me a copy of Robert Riger’s new book, ‘The Pros – A Documentary of Professional Football in America’.   

Robert Riger was first an artist and illustrator, then a photographer and sports was his beat.  The Pros was published just as pro football was becoming more popular in this country.  It was only two years after ‘The Greatest Game Ever Played’ – the championship game between the Colts and Giants.  Television was just starting to fuel fan interest and Vince Lombardi’s Packers were about to begin their dynasty period.

On one hand, the book has a dated look to it.  There are no color photos and the illustrations included Riger’s fine drawings.  Without the sharp, fast cameras we have today, the full-page shots are often dark and grainy.  The game was different then.  There were no domed stadiums and no artificial turf.  The cleats were high-topped and the goal posts were padded…and on the goal line.  There is a chapter entitled, “Mud”. 

But the images are terrific.  You don’t need color or sharpness to show speed, power and athletic grace.  Color is secondary when the picture shows two lines crashing together and the movement, direction and eyes of the players tell so much about what’s going to happen.  This skinny, sickly kid from the Bronx saw Ollie Matson’s picture and thought he was a titan.  He looked like he was eight feet tall and could run down or through anything in his way.  Images…flat, two-dimensional arrangements of dots [or pixels] on a page, can be very powerful.  The great ones burn themselves into your memory…and stay there forever.

Ollie Matson by Robert Riger from ‘The Pros: A Documentary of Professional Football in America’ (1960)