Bear Bryant’s Civil Rights wake-up call was 55 years ago this week — one year before 1970 USC-Alabama fairytale
PHOTO: Tennessee’s Jackie Walker returned a first-quarter interception for a 21-0 lead en route to a 41-14 victory.
By TOM SHANAHAN
Bear Bryant was behind the times when integrated Tennessee arrived to play all-White Alabama at Legion Field in 1969. He was further behind when USC arrived at the same Birmngham stadium in 1970, even though college football lore has fed us a steady diet of 1970 USC-Alabama myths.
This week marks the 55th anniversary of Bear Bryant receiving a 20th-century wakeup call from Tennessee’s integrated roster. Alabama’s coach learned from Jackie Walker — the Southeastern Conference’s first Black All-American — he was on the wrong side of history.
The Tennessee-Alabama rivalry is known as the “Third Saturday of October.” No one Down South overlooked the result on October 18, 1969, when No. 7-ranked Tennessee routed No. 20 Alabama’s all-White roster 41-14 before 72,443 fans at Legion Field in Birmingham, Alabama.
Walker intercepted a first-quarter pass and returned it for a 21-0 lead. The Volunteers led 34-0 in the third quarter before Alabama scored. Jackie Walker was Jim Crow’s kryptonite.
But college football lore and tells us Alabama’s bigoted fanbase was shocked by the USC’s 42-21 win over all-White Alabama in 1970 at Legion Field — one year after Tennessee embarrassed Alabama.
The Jackie Walker game is unjustly lost to history as one of many untold stories on the long 1960s march to college football integration. Bear Bryant didn’t awaken the south with the 1970 USC-Alabama game. Tennessee, a southern rival, was one of many 1960s stories to awaken Bryant.
“I’ve watched those documentaries and other things on ESPN,” said Lester McClain, Tennessee’s first Black player in 1967 who was a junior receiver in 1969 game. “Listening to those stories, I’m thinking, ‘I guess we didn’t play in the same conference as Alabama. They don’t say anything about our game.’”
ESPN, The Athletic, New York Times, Sports Illustrated, Forbes, various books and films et al. have instead fed college football lore a fairytale. The popular misconception worked its way into the national folklore with the aid of poorly researched sports writing.
It’s a sports journalism failure of the 1960s the milestones weren’t reported and modern sports journalism failure the media can’t resist spinning Bryant folklore at the expense of facts.
I’ll debate anybody anytime anywhere about the 1970 USC-Alabama myths. So far, no takers.
I’ve learned through a dozen years of researching college football integration, writing three books (one a children’s book) and winning a Football Writers Association America first-place award for a story about Bryant trying to manipulate the 1962 Rose Bowl plenty of people are troubled by the 1970 USC-Alabama myths denying them their place in history.
Curiously, the national media pooh-poohs their stories running parallel to the Civil Rights movement in deference to Bear Bryant hagiography.
Bryant myths are hard to knock down a lot like lies from Donald Trump. In an election year, that’s a good analogy. The difference is the Bryant myths have the cooperation of the mainstream media. Only the right-wing media perpetuates Trump lies.
Racial progress in America is always a long process. It never happens overnight. Here’s a link to a 1960s timeline of progress: The South’s 1960s timeline made college football integration a fait accompli by 1970 – Tom Shanahan Report
Wake Forest and Houston integrated in 1964 and played games throughout the South the remainder of the decade.
Michigan State was the first fully integrated team to play in the South in a 1964 game against North Carolina on September 26, 1964 at Kenan Stadium.
Clint Jones and his 1964 touchdown at North Carolina that history ignored – Tom Shanahan Report
Southern Methodist integrated in 1965 with College Football Hall of Famer Jerry LeVias. SMU played throughout the South, including a win at Auburn in 1968.
Kentucky integrated in 1966. Wilbur Hackett was the SEC’s first Black team captain as a senior in 1970. Georgia Tech’s Eddie McAshan was a sophomore starting quarterback, in 1970.
In 2020, ESPN, The Athletic and Forbes marked the 50th anniversary of the 1970 USC-Alabama game with Sam Cunningham leading USC to a 42-21 rout as the moment segregation’s tipping point. HBO, Showtime and ESPN have produced films perpetuating the false narrative that ignores the footsteps of the true pioneers in the 1960s.
More on Jackie Walker: Why is Sam Cunningham in the College Football Hall of Fame but not Jackie Walker?
The 1970 myth credited Bryant with a secret plan. He scheduled USC as a game to lose to gain permission from his bigoted fanbase to recruit Black players. The Forbes article headlined Bryant as a “genius” for manipulating his bigots.
This was the same Bryant “genius” who once said as integration in the SEC appeared inevitable in the mid-1960s that he may not be the first to integrate but he wouldn’t be the third. He was right. He was the seventh when he signed Wilbur Jackson as his first Black player in 1970 – before USC arrived.
Actually, Bryant had also signed Bo Matthews of Huntsville, Alabama, to Southeastern Conference letters of intent on December 13, 1969, along with Jackson in the 1970 class.
Ahead of Alabama desegregating their programs were Kentucky, 1966; Tennessee, 1967; and four schools in 1969, Mississippi State, Florida, Vanderbilt and Auburn. By then 33 of 37 major southern programs included Black players. College football integration was a fait accompli by 1970.
In fact, USC wasn’t the only integrated Pac-8 team to open the 1970 at a venerable southern stadium. The same day, Stanford, with an all-minority backfield, upset No. 4-ranked Arkansas at War Memorial Stadium in Fayetteville. Stanford-Arkansas was the ABC-TV national game of the week. USC and Alabama were limited to local radio networks.
Stanford’s star that night that night was Hillary Shockley, a Black fullback who scored three touchdowns with 149 total yards. He outdid Cunningham’s totals of two touchdowns and 125 rushing.
Nobody did a 50th anniversary story on Stanford-Arkansas, even though Stanford won the Pac-8 and upset No. 2-ranked Ohio State in the Rose Bowl. USC’s disappointing season finished without a bowl game. USC lost to UCLA 45-20.
Stanford featured an all-minority backfield. USC did not. Cunningham came off the bench behind returning senior starter Charlie Evans, a White player. USC started only four Black players at Alabama as a result of shedding a decade of following an unwritten quota limiting Black athletes to a half dozen or so. The Trojans’ 1962 national title team number only five Black players and its 1967 national championship only seven.
It’s true USC’s 1970 roster included 18 Black players, but 11 of them arrived as a junior college transfers (nine) or four-year school transfers (two) in 1969 or 1970. USC was not a representative integrated program of the 1960s.
Here’s what else you don’t hear from the media:
— In Bryant’ 1974 book, BEAR, he made no mention of the 1970 USC-Alabama game as a tipping point – let alone a secret plan to create one.
— In USC coach John McKay’s 1974 book, “McKay: A Coach’s Story,” he made no mention of the game or of a secret plan.
— In USC’s 1978 return to Legion Field to face Alabama, the ABC national broadcast with Keith Jackson behind the microphone made no mention of the 1970 game as integration tipping point. USC’s victory and Cunningham’s statistics were mentioned, but he wasn’t referenced as altering history.
— In the 1978 Sports Illustrated story on the game, John Underwood wrote that USC’s Charles White, the star of the game, was joining the company of Mike Garrett, O.J. Simpson, Anthony Davis and Ricky Bell. He made no mention of Cunningham.
— The 1991 documentary “The Legacy Lives” was produced and written by Bryant’s close friend, Al Browning. There was no mention of the 1970 USC-Alabama game.
I’ve recited many of these facts in interviews I’ve done debunking the myths. My hosts are always surprised to learn there are so many untold stories.
The media, Raye of Light and The Right Thing To Do – Tom Shanahan Report
In Jackie Walker’s 1971 senior season, he was named team captain: (L-R) head coach Bill Battle, Walker, Gary Theiler and Philip Fulmer.
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Tom Shanahan is an award-winning sportswriter and frequent contributor to Spartanamag.com. His new book on Michigan State leading college football integration is, “THE RIGHT THING TO DO, The True Pioneers of College Football Integration in the 1960s.” His first book was “RAYE OF LIGHT, Jimmy Raye, Duffy Daugherty, the Integration of College Football and the 1965-66 Michigan State Spartans.”
I invite you to follow me on Twitter @shanny4055
Below are links to click on to purchase my books focused.
My books tell the true story of college football integration in the 1960s and address the myths and fiction that allowed a false narrative surrounding the 1970 USC-Alabama game to usurp the credit from the true pioneers. As I said when I spoke at the National Sports Media Association book festival, no two books provide an accurate portrayal more than RAYE OF LIGHT and THE RIGHT THING TO DO.
I’ll put my facts up against anybody, anytime, anywhere. Watch here.
Click here for my story on the 1962 Rose Bowl and Segregation awarded first place by the Football Writers Association of America. I tell untold stories on Michigan State’s leading role and the true pioneers of college football integration. Click here to read the summary as a first-place story.
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Click here to purchase The Right Thing To Do
THE RIGHT THING TO DO
The True Pioneers of College Football Integration in the 1960s
Foreword by Ruffin McNeill
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Click here to purchase Raye of Light.
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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Click here to purchase my children’s book, Bubba’s Dad, Duffy and College Football’s Underground Railroad
The book for now is only a Kindle version on Amazon. Print and audio platforms available soon.
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My next children’s book coming soon: How Duffy Put Hawaii on the Football Map
