Vince Young – 2007 Athlete of the Year

My editor wants my column to be more "newsy" this year. He wants me to scoop the competition rather than saving the good stuff for my blog, Ballers, Gamers and Scoundrels

Well, here's some news: The 2007 Athlete of the Year - the Baller of the Year - will be… Vince Young. That's right. Young, the Tennessee Titans' rookie quarterback, will be the most significant sports figure of the year.

Not Tiger Woods, who'll be so giddy over the impending birth of his first child this summer, he'll win three majors and pretty much put the cabash on Ernie Els's three-year plan to supplant Woods as golf's No. 1 player.

Not Roger Federer, Tiger's new best bud, who'll continue showing why he just may be the best tennis player ever.

Not LeBron James, who still won't lead the Cleveland Cavaliers to an NBA title. Not even Brett Favre, who'll probably play one more season then amble into the NFL sunset, leaving a legacy worthy of comparisons to Johnny U.

Nope, Vince Young will be the most vital sports figure in '07.

How can this be when he can do little more than get a ticket to the Super Bowl? Guided by Young to within a Nicole-Richie-thin chance of the playoffs after an 0-5 start, the Titans were eliminated from postseason contention on Sunday by Tom Brady and the New England Patriots. So how can I know Young will be The Man in '07?

Call it journalistic gut, culled from nearly three decades covering sports. Call it a wild hunch, or even just a guess, if you like. Call it whatever you want. I'm calling it a done deal. Some of my colleagues say he deserved to be the Athlete of the Year in 2006. Though I don't agree, I wouldn't have been made at the choice.

In January Young led Texas to a thrilling upset of USC in college football's national title game. Then, after he was snubbed by his hometown Houston Texans, who had the first pick in the NFL draft, Young transformed the woebegone Tennessee Titans into the most exciting team in the second half of the season, winning six straight before the Patriots loss. In '07, Young will build on that success and the Titans will be a viable playoff contender, at minimum.

But more than that, the young QB was emblematic of what I call the NFL's Transition Season -- a year when an array of talented veterans gave way to a stampede of young bloods who belied the notion that it takes several seasons to master the pro game. Especially at QB, where rookies were typically given a headset and a clipboard and told to make sure the Gatorade tub is filled. Not anymore. Young headlined a gang of precocious signal-callers who got their shot this season and made the best of it.

Jay Cutler of Denver and Arizona's Matt Leinart were Young's Class of '06 compadres in prime time. But they weren't the only newbies who started under center this season. Career backup David Garrard started nine games for Jacksonville, more than he'd started during his prior four seasons in the league. And San Francisco's second-year QB Alex Smith led the 49ers back to respectability after a woeful '05.

Miami pulled Cleo Lemon - a veteran of NFL Europe, Arenaball2 and once a fourth-string QB - out of obscurity to start the Dolphins final game of the season. Minnesota started Alabama State rookie Tavaris Jackson in its final game. And when Seattle starter Matt Hasselbeck missed four games due to injury in the middle of the season, little-known Seneca Wallace got the starts and performed well.

And, of course, there was Romomania. Dallas QB Tony Romo displaced veteran Drew Bledsoe six games into the season and immediately stirred hearts and passions. The second generation Mexican American led Dallas to six wins in its final ten games and led the gossip columns in celebrity-date sightings.

Call them all Brothers of Young, products of an evolutionary time when youth is steeled by experience, not just observation, and when most NFL fans finally stopped seeing the color of the men who lead their teams and rather than how those men play and think about the game.

It was some time coming, taking at least two, if not three, prior generations of QBs labeled as "black QBs" rather than simply QBs. Now, don't get me wrong. I still cheer for my brothers and feel a sense of pride when play well and win, and feel a bit of their pain when they struggle and lose. But from the earliest weeks of the season when I began to realize there were African-American QBs in the league I'd never even heard of, I sensed the season would be different.

It was.

One brother (Gerrard) replaced another (Byron Leftwhich) in Jacksonville. Wallace played well enough in Seattle for a small few to wonder whether he should keep the starting gig. Minnesota fans pined for Jackson to replace starter Brad Johnson. Newspaper columnists in Miami prodded Dolphin coach Nick Saban to kick starter Joey Harrington to the curb in favor of Lemon. And in almost all cases, the term African-American QB was hardly mentioned, if at all.

We're still counting the number of blacks in many high-profile positions -- from corporate America to the sports arena: he number of black CEOs; the number of black head coaches and coordinators; the number black GMs, owners and commissioners.

And we should keep counting until the numbers are so great we run out of fingers and toes. Or when someone's success makes any argument against their hiring mute, null and void of intelligence. Vince Young has led that evolution. He finished what Fritz Pollard, Marion Motley, Willie Thrower, Marlin Brisco, Joe Gilliam, Doug Williams, Donovan McNabb and many others started and nurtured through more than half a century. He endured criticism about his throwing motion and snickering about his low Wonderlick score, and has come out the other side as the league's most exciting player, one of the most coveted in America's most popular game.

And he's only just begun.