Your Black World: Vince Young’s Episode Documents Pressure On Black Athletes

Last September, Donovan McNabb, the Philadelphia Eagles‘ veteran quarterback, ruffled feathers during an interview on HBO when he said that African-American quarterbacks were held to a different standard than their white colleagues.

“There’s not that many African-American quarterbacks, so we have to do a little bit extra,” he said. “Because the percentage of us playing this position, which people didn’t want us to play, is low, so we do a little extra.”

Then he added in reference to Peyton Manning and Carson Palmer: “Let me start by saying I love those guys. But they don’t get criticized as much as we do. They don’t.”

Shortly after McNabb made his comments, Vince Young, the Tennessee Titans‘ quarterback, was asked for his reaction.

“That is his opinion,” Young said. “I really feel like myself, black or white quarterbacks, we all go through something because that is the life of a quarterback. You have to be able to handle all the pressure, and you have to be able to handle the losses, and you have to be able to handle the media saying this about you. If you can’t handle it, then you have to get off that position and go play something else.”

In light of Young’s bizarre behavior last week, he may want to revisit McNabb’s comments. He’s not handling the pressure so well.

Young was lustily booed last Sunday after throwing his second interception in Tennessee’s 17-10 victory over Jacksonville. It appeared that he didn’t want to return to the game. Coach Jeff Fisher pulled his headset off and talked to him before Young joined the rest of the offense. Four plays later, Young sprained his left medial collateral ligament when Jaguars linebacker Daryl Smith slammed into his knee.

Fisher apparently told Young to have a magnetic resonance imaging exam on Monday to determine the extent of the damage. Young didn’t go but rescheduled the test for Tuesday.

Young didn’t go to the Titans’ headquarters Monday, and Fisher went to Young’s house. The Titans also sent a psychologist and another team official to talk with Young.

The 25-year-old Young said he left the house because he needed space to think. “Let the cloud go away for a minute,” he said, “and that’s what I did. I left.”

Fisher called the Nashville police, who searched for Young for more than four hours.

According to The City Paper of Nashville, which obtained a copy of the police report through a public records request, the Titans called the police Monday because Young’s therapist told Fisher that Young had mentioned suicide several times before driving away from his home with a gun...

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