PHOTO: Nate Smith (44) commented on Army’s open-door media policy in an era when college programs close practice and limit player access.
Tom Shanahan is an author and college football integration historian honored by the FWAA for his story on the 1962 Rose Bowl.
My “West Point Football Report” provides features on Army’s football players. Your subscription fee through Substack and Stripe will be donated, 100 percent, to the Wounded Warriors Project my 501-(c)(3), Books for Sparty. Click on the link below to donate.
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By TOM SHANAHAN
The United States Military Academy, a guarded base known as West Point, dates to 1802. Security is tight in these terrorist-threat times, but sports media members can gain a pass.
And once they’re waved onto base, they can proceed to the football facility to watch practice. Compare that policy toward access at civilian colleges across the country.
Media members can drive freely on campus, but the football gates are locked tighter than Fort Knox. Patton’s Third Army couldn’t get past the henchmen of Nick Saban and his dictatorial ilk.
A military post is open to college football, but public universities funded by tax dollars are closed to the Fourth Estate.
Isn’t that backwards?
Click here for the remainder of the story and the WWP donation link.
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— I tell untold stories of college football integration. Click here to read why.
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Now that @MSU_WGolf freshmen Brooke Biermann and Katie Lu have finished their first season, they did some #NIL work for me before returning home. They discussed their summer reading list. @MSU_Football #True1960sPioneers pic.twitter.com/mNd9bZwRGb— Tom Shanahan (@Shanny4055) May 12, 2022
RAYE of LIGHT story of Duffy Daugherty and southern Black high school coaches, most prominently Bubba Smith’s father Willie Ray Smith, laying tracks to college football’s first fully integrated rosters. This was tipping point — don’t believe Bear Bryant/USC revisionist history. pic.twitter.com/3D8RqjMixO— Tom Shanahan (@Shanny4055) June 8, 2021
