PHOTO: Colorado freshman wide receiver Dre’lon Miller turned in impactful freshman season.

By TOM SHANAHAN

I watched a Colorado football game when I learned about Dre’lon Miller. HIs play grew in my eyes upon reading the CU website bio of the impactful freshman wide receiver: He won the Willie Ray Smith Award while playing for Silsbee High, a school near Houston.

There’s a chapter in my book, “THE RIGHT THING TO DO, The True Pioneers of College Football Integration in the 1960s,” on Willie Ray Smith’s career and his son Bubba, a Michigan State College Football Hall of Famer. I also have a children’s book, “BUBBA’S DAD, DUFFY AND COLLEGE FOOTBALL’S UNDERGROUND RAILROAD.”

Where Miller grew up, kids dream about winning the Willie Ray Smith Offensive and Defensive Player of the Year Awards. They consider it the “Heisman Trophy of Southeast Texas.” The 33^rd annual recipients will be honored in the New Year by the sponsor, the Beaumont (Texas) Founders Lions Club.

“Drelon was emotional when he won,” said Randy Smith, Miller’s coach at Silsbee. “It was a big deal to him. This is an award all kids in the area set as a goal. The club does it up like a Heisman Trophy show. When Drelon won, he was prepared to get up there and talk. He mentioned how important it was to him, and he gave credit to his family.”

PHOTO: Silsbee High teammates Drelon Miller (right, Colorado) and Jayron Williams (Lamar University) swept the Willie Raye Smith Offensive and Defensive Player of the Year Awards.

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Smith, while coaching in segregated Texas, won 235 games and two Black state titles. Later, he served as a liaison for Beaumont schools during the difficult desegregation years. Instead of the normal career recognition of naming a football field for a high school coaching legend, the Beaumont Unified School District honored him with a middle school: The Willie Ray Smith Magnet Middle School.

Yes, the Smith Awards are a local high school prize unknown outside its boundaries. But there is much more to Willie Ray Smith’s story. Unfairly, most of it has gone unappreciated by history.

Willie Ray Smith, who died in 1992, was one of the most important figures advancing college football desegregation in the 1960s.

If crediting him with such national stature raises an eyebrow, it’s only because you don’t know college football integration’s true story. Smith and Michigan State coach Duffy Daugherty played an influential role developing the Underground Railroad that delivered talent to East Lansing.

If you’re unfamiliar with this narrative, you’re not alone. The 1960s sports media avoided race. As a consequence to history, the vacuum was filled in the 1990s by fairytales claiming Alabama coach Bear Bryant orchestrated the 1970 USC-Alabama game as a tipping point. The myth spread in the 1990s through sloppily researched sports writing. It grew into an overstory that blocks out the true pioneers.

Facts matter, don’t they? I’ll debate these points with anybody, anytime, anywhere.

Miller, by winning Smith’s award and playing for Colorado coach Deion Sanders, has connected two ground-breaking African American coaching careers. The difference respective to their places in our sports culture was Smith coached in Jim Crow segregation obscurity and Sanders coaches under the microscope of the modern media.

PHOTO: Willie Ray Smith at the 1992 banquet with his sons Bubba (L), Willie Ray Jr. (middle) and Tody (Right).

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The Smith story that Miller won’t learn if sticks to the college football lore, though, is that Michigan State’s Underground Railroad traveled parallel tracks to the Civil Rights movements and spurred change above and beneath the Mason Dixon Line.

Smith’s influence began in 1963 when he called Daugherty and asked him to take his son, Bubba. Smith’s older son, Willie Ray Smith Jr., had an unhappy experience playing for Iowa. Willie Ray Jr. dealt with injuries and isolation on a predominantly White campus.

Willie Ray Sr. understood Daugherty’s 1960s teams were college football’s first fully integrated rosters. Smith and Daugherty met at a clinic in the South, and it wasn’t possible to meet the affable Daugherty without liking him and trusting him.

Smith eventually boarded nine passengers from the Houston area during segregation. They attracted attention through he Spartans’ success winning back-to-back Big Ten titles and shares of the 1965 and 1966 national titles.

A record TV audience of 33 million watched Notre Dame and Michigan State play to a 10-10 tie on November 19, 1966. The contrast spurred change on two Mason Dixon Line levels:

— 1) Schools above it began to follow Daugherty’s example of abandoning quota limitations of a half-dozen or so Black players. USC, for example, numbered only five Black players on its 1962 national title team – 1.25 per year — and seven on its 1967 national championship roster. USC coach John McKay didn’t change his recruiting approach to reach double figures until 1969 and 1970.

— 2) Schools below it in the Jim Crow South began to open their doors to southern Black players to keep talent home. There was so much change by the 1970 season, Alabama was the seventh of 10 SEC schools to recruit Black players and 33 of 37 major southern programs were integrated.

The Underground Railroad passengers Smith boarded were two future College Football Hall of Famers, Bubba Smith and Gene Washington, among three future NFL players, Bubba, Washington and Jess Phillips.

Without Smith and Daugherty working together, all three Spartans players from the Houston area would have played at an HBCU. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s the awareness they created at a major college football school playing before large television audiences that helped open doors for future Black athletes.

In the 1966 Game of the Century matching Notre Dame at Michigan State, Bubba, Washington and Phillips represented three of Michigan State’s 11 Black starters at a time other schools followed quota limits. Willie Ray Smith’s contribution tripled Notre Dame’s number of Black players — one, Alan Page.

The contrast led to schools subsequently abandoning the quotas. Similar to USC, Minnesota, which won the 1960 national title with five Black players, grew to double figures.

Integration below the Mason Dixon began with Maryland, 1963; Wake Forest, 1964; Houston, 1964; Southern Methodist, 1965; and Kentucky, 1966. Tennessee and North Carolina led a 1967 wave and Auburn, Florida and Mississippi State led a 1969 wave.

As previously stated, the modern media and Bryant biographers prefer to celebrate revisionist history centered on Bryant launching change. But the facts are it wasn’t until 1970 that Bryant joined the 20^th century at with Alabama’s first Black player, Wilbur Jackson.

Miller’s connection to history would have been limited to Willie Ray Smith if he had attended Texas A&M, where he originally committed. But Miller reopened recruiting after Texas A&M fired Jimbo Fisher at the end of the 2023 season.

Miller’s high school coach says LSU and USC pursued Miller hard before Colorado and Sanders offered him a recruiting trip.

“Toward the end before signing day, he took a trip to Colorado,” Randy Smith said. “When he came back, he told me that’s where he’s going. He said he liked how Coach Prime talked to him. He felt everything was first class. He was fired up about going there.”

Sanders coveted Miller as a 4-star prospect, but highly touted recruits don’t all produce as freshmen. Miller caught 31 balls for 277 yards and three touchdowns.

“He gives you a variety pack every time you put him out there,” said Sanders after Miller caught six balls for 108 yards and a 47-yard touchdown against Utah. “He can play slot, he can play out wide, he can get in the backfield, he can go wildcat. The kid is talented, and he’s a freshman, and I thought we didn’t recruit those.”

PHOTO: Sports Illustrated recognized Deion Sanders for his game-changing season at Colorado.

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That was Sanders’ dig at the media for criticism he relied on the transfer portal without emphasizing freshmen recruits.

Another way to look at Miller’s impactful freshman season was helping flip the national conversation on Sanders from last year’s 4-8 record to a 9-3 season and Valero Alamo Bowl bid. Colorado’s success has largely silenced Sanders’ critics.

Willie Ray Smith’s success boarding passengers to the Underground Railroad opened the doors to future college Black athletes playing major college football, even though the story is untold outside of my books and website.

Deion Sanders’ success as the first HBCU coach to make the jump from an HBCU to a Power 5 school hasn’t yet opened doors for the second Black HBCU coach, but his career nevertheless represents progress.

“From what I’ve seen and understand about Coach Prime,” said Randy Smith, “he has the same great love for his kids that Willie Ray had for his kids. At the Willie Ray Smith Award dinner, a film is shown about his career. Coach Smith was a ground-breaking coach for African American kids getting noticed.”

Drelon Miller, through the Willie Ray Smith Award he brought home from a banquet ceremony and through Saturdays playing for Deion Sanders, has been touched by transformative figures decades apart in history.

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We hope to tell more of Sanders’ story in a four-part documentary in development: Game (Changers) of the Century. The stories are based on my book, THE RIGHT THING TO DO.

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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.

Tags: Alabama, Bear Bryant, Duffy Daugherty, Michigan State