John Mitchell Jr. (born October 14, 1951) is a former American football coach and collegiate player. Over the course of his career, Mitchell has broken several racial barriers, one of which was being the first black player for the Alabama Crimson Tide. He served on the staff of the Pittsburgh Steelers from until his retirement following the season.
As a player, Mitchell was the first African-American to play football for the storied Alabama Crimson Tide. In his second year with the program he became the first African-American co-captain at the school. The next year, he became the team's first black assistant coach and also the youngest coach to have ever been hired at Alabama. Later he would break another barrier by becoming the first black defensive coordinator in the Southeastern Conference.
His coaching career has spanned nearly 40 years during which time he has worked with several icons of the football coaching pantheon, including college coaching greats Bear Bryant and Lou Holtz as well as Bill Belichick, Bill Cowher, and Mike Tomlin in the pros. Teams he has coached have won championships at both the college and professional levels.
Early life
Mitchell was born in Mobile, Alabama, on October 14, 1951; the third of five children of Helen and John Mitchell, Sr. His father worked as a civil engineer for the United States Coast Guard.
At Williamson High School in Mobile, which was an all-black school, Mitchell played football and basketball. As a senior, he played on the offensive line. Though standing , he weighed just , which major colleges considered too light for the position. His lack of size explains why he was not offered a football scholarship out of high school by any major colleges in his home state. He did, however, field football scholarship offers from historically black powerhouses like Grambling State University and Tennessee State University.
Sports were not everything for Mitchell; he finished third in the nation in a science fair with a group of classmates. All five members of the science fair team were offered academic scholarships by the University of Alabama and Auburn University. Although these were the two schools Mitchell had dreamed of playing football for, neither was recruiting black football players at the time, and Mitchell very much wanted to play "big-time college football".
Mitchell determined that his best chance of eventually playing Division I football was by going the junior college route. He accepted a football scholarship from Eastern Arizona Junior College in Thatcher, Arizona.
Playing career
Mitchell played on both the offensive and defensive lines at Eastern Arizona. He was named a Junior College All-American in each of his two years in the program. More significantly, he added of muscle to his frame in the school's weight training program, which was an amenity his high school lacked. Even with the added bulk, he showed no appreciable loss of speed. He also earned an associate's degree in social work from Eastern Arizona.
Based on his junior college performance and increased bulk, Mitchell was recruited by several major college programs, but he originally committed to John McKay at the University of Southern California. While on the golf course with University of Alabama coach Paul "Bear" Bryant, McKay casually mentioned that he had received a commitment from an Alabama native. McKay assumed that Bryant would not be interested in Mitchell because he was black and Alabama had no black players on their roster. Bryant swooped in and recruited Mitchell aggressively. Although Mitchell originally was a bit nervous about the reception he would receive at Alabama, as well as the amount of playing time he could garner, his family encouraged him to return home and accept Bryant's scholarship offer. Besides his family's encouragement and Bryant's assurances that his race would not be a problem, Mitchell's opinion that Alabama's School of Social Work was an easy route was a big factor in his decision.
In 1971 Mitchell, along with Wilbur Jackson, became the first African-American to play football for the Crimson Tide. He started all 24 games in his two seasons at Alabama, during which time the team compiled a 21–3 record and won two Southeastern Conference championships. In 1972, Mitchell became the first African-American to be named a co-captain at Alabama. The same year he was named an All-American by the American Football Coaches Association. He was selected to the All-SEC team in each of his two seasons at Alabama. Mitchell earned a B.S. in social welfare, completing his degree requirements a semester early.