By TOM SHANAHAN
Jack Ebling, host of The Drive with Jack, announced on Monday a 19-part series on Michigan State football history. The series begins July 21 and continues through November, marking the 66th anniversary of the 1966 Game of the Century matching No. 1 Notre Dame and No. 2 Michigan State on November 19 at Spartan Stadium. The game was a seminal moment in college football, drawing a record TV audience of 33 million.
Michigan State coach Duffy Daugherty assembled college football’s first fully integrated rosters in the 1960s. The Spartans lined up 20 Black players, 11 Black starters, two Black team captains, College Football Hall of Famers George Webster and Clinton Jones, and the South’s first Black quarterback to win a national title, Jimmy Raye of segregated Fayetteville, N.C.
Daugherty’s teams smashed the quotas in place since World War II of limiting Black players to a half-dozen or so on a roster. Notre Dame’s 1966 team had only one Black player on its roster, Alan Page.
I will share the hosting duties with Jack along with Con Demos, a team manager in the 1960s and author of the book, “The Tradition Continues.”
Jack introduces the series at the 12-minute mark.
Click here for “The Drive with Jack” summer series
