49ers' Arik Armstead reveals he was racially profiled by police as teen

Programming note: Tune in to "Race in America: A Candid Conversation" Friday night at 8 p.m. on NBC Sports Bay Area.

Unlike many of my African American brothers, I have no personal tale of being racially profiled by police. Which is not say it hasn’t happened but, rather, that it was too subtle to notice if it did.

There was, however, a late night on a deserted stretch of highway in Texas when I spent a few moments visualizing the worst. More on that later.

Meanwhile, 49ers defensive lineman Arik Armstead and San Jose State assistant coach Alonzo Carter – guests on NBC Sports Bay Area’s “Race in America: A Candid Conversation” televised Friday night at 8 p.m. – have real stories to share.

“The moment that always sticks out for me was when I was in high school,” Armstead says.

Armstead and two other black teenagers were on the way to the home of a friend who lived not far from Pleasant Grove High, the newest, toniest and most accredited school in the Elk Grove Unified School District. They were within a block of the home when ...

“A cop gets behind us, pulls us over,” Armstead recalls. “‘What y’all doing? Where y’all going?’”

The boys explained they were going to the home of a classmate. They pointed to the house, but the cop sought proof and requested they knock on the door. Told them he’d stand by.

Once the friend opened the door, the cop asked if he was acquainted with the boys. Told that he was, the cop was satisfied.

“That was the situation that always stuck out to me, just being racially profiled,” Armstead recalls. “Plenty other instances, too, but that was the main one.

“Being 14, 15 years old, just trying mind your business. Never been in trouble in my life. And you’re just going to assume that since I’m in this neighborhood, I don’t have the right to be here, that I have no business being here. You feel you can check my right to be in this neighborhood?”

Eleven years later, Armstead is an NFL star. He recently signed a five-year contract for a reported $85 million. He also went shopping for a home in that same neighborhood and conceded that the incident was on his mind.

He realizes his status affords a certain amount of privilege. He can inform local police that he is moving into the area, but ...

“Is my family going to get bothered when they come to visit?” he wonders. “Are they going to get pulled over?’”

It’s often part of the experience. And it’s something with which Carter is familiar.

[RACE IN AMERICA: Listen to the latest episode]

Living in the East Bay while coaching football first at McClymonds High in Oakland, then at Berkeley High and Contra Costa College in San Pablo, Carter moved to San Jose shortly after joining the staff assembled by head coach Brent Brennan. Not just San Jose, but the city’s prestigious Communications Hill community, where homes upward of $1 million are the norm.

When one of his sons came to visit recently, a neighbor turned watchdog and began lobbing questions that implied she was uncertain the young man belonged. This unnerved Carter.

“When people come visit you, do you have to worry about them calling the police on your family?” Carter says. “For nothing?”

That incident, however, is much less of a concern than the night Carter’s home alarm went off and, wondering if somebody had broken in, he phoned police.

Officers responded, three in total. When Carter opened the door, there was a pause that conveyed a measure of discomfort. Sensing this, Coach Zo explained that he was the resident. That he had called. He also leaned into his identity.

“I had to start talking about football,” he recalls.

Tension scaled back when the cops recognized Carter, 51, as the “dancing coach.” A video of the former MC Hammer tour dancer’s footwork on the field went viral in 2017 and earned the SJSU football program an appearance on Ellen DeGeneres’ talk show.

Carter also shares a story of his 10-year-old daughter being traumatized by a racial comment on the bus to her elementary school. And another story about taking a walk in the neighborhood with his wife in which the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, the Georgia jogger run down and shot to death earlier this year by vigilantes claiming suspicion, lingered in his mind.

“It’s our reality,” he says. “And it’s what we deal with.”

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Which brings me to that 1990s night in Texas. I’d been out to dinner with a group of colleagues and was driving back to my hotel maybe 12 miles away when flashing lights appear in my rear-view mirror. It’s around 1:30 a.m. I pull over and put both hands on the steering wheel.

A trooper comes out of his car and approaches. Asks for my license, which I carefully hand over. Asks if I’d been drinking. I had, but not much. Asks where I’m headed. To my hotel, one exit away.

The trooper returns to his car for less than five minutes, then again approaches the driver’s side door. Asks what brings me to Texas. I tell him an upcoming Cowboys-49ers game. He grins. Returns my license. Says be careful the rest of the way.

There was no raising of voices. No confrontation. No dispute. I felt lucky. As if I’d escaped a potentially dangerous situation – even though, in a just world, there would be no threat at all.