Joe Profit

Sport: Football

Induction Year: 1999

University: UL-Monroe

Induction Year: 1999

By Bob Anderson Retired NLU SID

Before Anthony McFarland, before Kevin Faulk, before Shaun King and Troy Edwards, there was Joe Profit.

There were many outstanding black performers playing college football in Louisiana before 1967 but all of them played for Grambling or Southern. None played for the state’s traditionally white colleges.

The man who broke the state’s color barrier in college football and paved the way for modern stars like McFarland, Faulk, King and Edwards and hundreds of African-American players before them was Profit, a running back and track standout at Northeast Louisiana University.

Profit will be one of seven former athletic greats inducted into the Louisiana Hall of Fame on June 26.

“It’s a wonderful honor to go into the Hall of Fame with great athletic figures like these and others,” says Profit. “I remember when I was a kid hearing about players like Y.A. Tittle, Jimmy Taylor and Billy Cannon and listening to their games on the radio. To be together with them in the State Hall of Fame is a great thrill for me.”

Although he is best remembered today in Louisiana for being a racial pioneer, Profit has plenty of other qualifications for fame, both during and after his sports career.

As an athlete, he was an All-American, the all-time leading rusher in the old Gulf States Conference, NLU’s career yardage champ until the 1990’s, and the seventh player selected in the 1971 NFL draft.

Back in 1967, the name Joe Profit meant nothing to most sports fans in his native Monroe. The main reason was that Profit attended Richwood, an all-black high school on the outskirts of town, and the local newspapers and television stations rarely mentioned the area’s black prep teams.

The color line in Louisiana college athletics had been broken the year before when Elvin Ivory joined the University of Southwestern Louisiana basketball team.

But nobody had crossed the line in the state’s premier sport, football until Profit arranged a tryout for the Northeast football team, under the direction of Dixie White.

Profit ran for only 172 yards his freshman year. But the next season he ran for 884, a school record, and set another record with 1,027 as a junior.

He finished his career with 2,818 yards for school and conference records, and 23 touchdowns, another Northeast standard. He was all-Gulf States Conference three years, the league’s Athlete of the Year for 1970-71, Outstanding Back in the Senior Bowl, and Associated Press first team college division all-America as a senior.

He was the seventh player selected in the 1971 NFL draft, being chosen by the Atlanta Falcons and Coach Norm Van Brocklin.

Profit got off to a good start in the NFL and he was the Falcons’ leading rusher before suffering a serious knee injury in game four that ended his 1971 season.

After the 1972 season, he moved to the New Orleans Saints. In 1974, Profit signed a lucrative contract with the Birmingham franchise of the new World Football League. Highlights of Profit’s WFL career included setting the Legion Field game rushing record, scoring the first touchdown in the World Bowl and being the leading rusher in the final WFL championship game.

When his football career ended, Profit was ready to succeed in an even more competitive arena, business.

Some of Profit’s achievements and honors include service on the Federal Communications Commission’s Small Business Advisory Committee and appointment by five presidents to serve on the International Trade Board Subcommittee for Policy.

Among his latest enterprises, he has been spearheading the creation of the new website for the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame. Profit’s company, Enhanced Service Providers Corp., produced the www.lasportshof.com site.

That’s Joe Profit, ever the trailblazer.