USC athletic director Jess Hill was two years ahead of the 1970 USC-Alabama game’s myths
PHOTO: Jess Hill serviced as USC’s athletic director from 1957 to 1972. He signed a home-and-home series with Alabama’s Bear Bryant in 1968, two years prior to 1970 USC-Alabama myths of Bryant orchestrated a secret plan in 1970.
By TOM SHANAHAN
This comes as a surprise to USC mythmakers, Bear Bryant sycophants and fans duped by 1970 USC-Alabama myths – a roll call including a compliant media – but when the game was scheduled in the winter of 1970, it was old news.
The myths — successfully crafted and spread two decades after the game was played — overlooked USC athletic director Jess Hill signed a deal in 1968 with Bryant, Alabama’s coach and athletic director. They agreed to have Alabama play at USC in 1977 and USC at Alabama in 1978 (in those days games were typically scheduled five to 10 years in advance).
We know how Hill and Bryant felt in 1968 through the reporting of the late Sam Skinner, a sportswriter for the San Francisco Sun Reporter, a Black newspaper, who went onto a long career in the Bay Area.
Skinner wrote a story in his paper on February 14, 1970, responding to a report that USC and Alabama agreed to play a 1970 and 1971 home-and-home series. Skinner’s story recalled his 1968 conversation with Hill during the Pac-8 Skywriters Tour – an annual media tour of campuses in those days replaced in the late 1970s with convention-styled media days.
Hill told Skinner that before signing for the 1977 and 1978 games, USC warned Alabama “if there was discrimination of any type concerning the games with Alabama, USC would have the right to cancel the series.” Skinner’s account added Bryant assured Hill “that Alabama was changing and by that time people would hardly realize there had been black or white problems.”
I’ve made it my business to expose holes in the 1970 USC-Alabama folklore that co-opted the place in college football history that belongs to the true pioneers of college football integration in the 1960s. They were the ones who paid a pirce, playing through death threats, while clearing a road to make the 1970 USC-Alabama and 1970 Stanford-Arkansas games.
The media, Raye of Light and The Right Thing To Do – Tom Shanahan Report
You should feel the same way about the true pioneers rather than gilding the image of Alabama coach Bear Bryant, the seventh of SEC coaches to recruit Black players, and USC, which followed an unwritten quota in the 1960s that limited Black athletes to a half-dozen or so.
I’ve researched this subject the past dozen years and will debate anybody, anytime, anywhere.
History has proven Bryant’s Pollyanna wrong, but his point was race was no longer prevented scheduling integrated teams to travel to southern stadiums. Michigan State was the first fully integrated team to play in the South in 1964 at North Carolina. Among several other examples was UCLA faced Tennessee in 1965 at the Memphis Liberty Bowl. USC played at Texas in 1966.
By 1968, Bryant also knew Southeastern Conference opponents were integrated. Tennessee, Alabama’s traditional “Third Saturday of October” rival, hosted Alabama in 1968 and routed Alabama 41-14 in 1969 at Legion Field in Birmingham.
Clint Jones and his 1964 touchdown at North Carolina that history ignored – Tom Shanahan Report
So, why is the two-year gap between the 1968 and 1970 deals significant to note?
Well, Bryant’s 1968 comments are a direct conflict with USC myths. The claim was Bryant orchestrated the 1970 game behind the scenes to avoid the wrath of Alabama bigots. The myth also ignores prior to 1970, six of 10 Southeastern Conferences football programs were integrated. Alabama was the seventh in 1970. In addition, 33 of 37 major southern programs included Black players by 1970. Bryant wasn’t a leader by any measure.
Did the USC mythmakers know these facts?
When the LA Times reported the 1970 game on February 1, 1970, the story wasn’t judged as front-page news. It was only six paragraphs tucked inside (back in the days when people held newspapers in their hands and turned the pages).
Of the six paragraphs, two were devoted to the history of the schools having met only twice previously – in 1938 and the 1946 Rose Bowl. Race wasn’t mentioned. The final graph was about UCLA not having yet scheduled an 11th game.
There was one quote.
“We wanted to schedule an outstanding intersectional opponent for our 11th game, and we feel we have done so in reaching a home-and-home agreement with Alabama,” said athletic director Jess Hill.
That was it.
In fact, while USC played an undermanned Alabama team at Legion Field on September 12, 1970, the same night No. 10-ranked Stanford, USC’s Pac-8 rival, played at a Jim Crow school. Stanford upset No. 4 Arkansas in the ABC-TV national game of the week at War Memorial Stadium in Fayetteville. USC-Alabama was limited to local radio networks.
September 12, 1970: STANFORD vs. ARKANSAS at LITTLE ROCK – Tom Shanahan Report
Whatever racial concerns USC had about a deal signed in 1968 didn’t appear to be an issue by the time USC boarded its 1970 flight to Birmingham indicates. The headline to a September 6 story in the LA Times, six days before the game stated: “Clarence Davis Foresees No Racial Problems for USC-Alabama Game.”
“We’re all college players, and college kids understand the racial problems,” Davis said. “I don’t expect to hear anybody saying ‘Hey, nigger’ to me across the line there.”
Checking the archives – something the media failed to do while bending at the knee to Bear Bryant hagiography – tells a different story than the 1970 USC-Alabama’s false narrative.
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Click here for why Tom Selleck should have sent the Showtime script back for rewrite: Part IV: College football integration lore, in the form of traffic, was steered down a fairy tale exit – Tom Shanahan Report
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A 2013 Showtime documentary based on the myth claims Bryant scheduled USC in 1970 coming off a 1969 record of 6-5 because he no longer believed he could win with an all-White program.
But in 1968, when Bryant scheduled USC, Alabama was two years removed from an 11-0 season and had finished 1967 with an 8-2-1 record ranked No. 8 in the nation. Alabama posted another winning season in 1968 with an 8-3 record ranked No. 17.
Sam Skinner’s story sheds new light on the USC-Alabama games. As was often the case in the 1960s when White sportswriters in the mainstream media avoided race, it was left to the Black press to acknowledge Black athletic milestones.
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THE RIGHT THING TO DO
The True Pioneers of College Football Integration in the 1960s
Foreword by Ruffin McNeill
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RAYE OF LIGHT
Jimmy Raye, Duffy Daugherty, the 1ntegration of College Football and the 1965-66 Michigan State Spartans
Foreword by Tony Dungy
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