PHOTO: Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman.

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More on Notre Dame history and Tyrone Willingham

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“I don’t know what objectivity is. The truth is what’s important.”

— Iconic New York newspaper columnist Jimmy Breslin

By TOM SHANAHAN

Oh, the righteous serendipity.

Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman’s team is playing for the College Football Playoff national championship Monday in Atlanta. On Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day. In King’s hometown. Only 3.2 miles from King’s pulpit at Ebenezar Baptist Church.

Win or lose, Freeman has established history as the first Black coach to advance to the final. A problem, though, is the sports media usually fumbles stories on racial milestones. They’ll no doubt tell only the back end as if Freeman is an overnight success story. They’ll leave fans with the impression the right man finally emerged after 155 years of college football.

That prevailing attitude in American society prompted Georgetown basketball coach John Thompson to bellow at the media in 1984 when he was asked about becoming the first Black basketball coach to win a national title.

“I resent the hell out of that question if it implies I am the first Black coach competent enough to take a team to the Final Four,” Thompson barked.

The media forgets the front end — the grinders who were turned away in past decades. I can trace Monday night to Michigan State’s Duffy Daugherty, Jimmy Raye and Sherman Lewis a half-century ago. They’re not the only pioneers from that era, but they were pivotal.

If you want to dismiss me because I’m a Michigan State graduate, my rejoinder is to borrow a line from Jimmy Breslin, the late New York newspaper columnist known as a truth teller:

“I don’t know what objectivity is. The truth is what’s important.”

The truth is Duffy Daugherty set something in motion with Jimmy Raye. Somebody had to open the door. And Raye, throughout his career that lasted 37 years in the NFL, was always on the lookout for young Black coaches he could help guide through that door of opportunity.

Raye — despite being denied an opportunity as a head coach — was a mentor to many Black coaches, including Tony Dungy. But over the years, we’ve seen the media settle for the brand names:

— Dennis Green, the first Black head coach at a major college, Northwestern, 1981.

— Art Shell, the NFL’s first Black head coach in the modern era, Los Angeles Raiders, 1989.

— Tyrone Willingham, the first Black coach to take a team to the Rose Bowl when Stanford won the 1999 Pac-10 title and the first Black coach in any sport at Notre Dame, 2002-04.

— Tony Dungy, the first Black coach to win a Super Bowl title (the 2006 season) and the first Black coach enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, 2016.

Dungy made it clear when he entered the Pro Football Hall of Fame others blazed a trail.

“Finally, I’d like to say a special thank you to 10 men — Willie Brown, Buck Buchanan, Earnel Durden, Bob Ledbetter, Elijah Pitts, Jimmy Raye, Johnny Roland, Al Tabor, Lionel Taylor, and Allan Webb. Now those names might not be familiar to you, but those were the African American assistant coaches in the NFL in 1977, my first year in the league. It was a small group of men, just 10 of them, if you can believe that — 10 African American assistant coaches in the entire NFL. Many of them never got the chance to move up the coaching ladder like I did, but they were so important to the progress of this league.”

Willingham also mentioned Raye as a mentor. If both Dungy, 69, and Willingham, 71, mention you as pivotal to the ascent of Black football coaches, that’s not to be overlooked. Even if the national sports media doesn’t understand it.

PHOTO: jimmy Raye (L) was a New York Jets assistant when he visited with Tyrone Willingham at a Notre Dame practice.

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Willingham included Lewis, 82, with Raye, 78, as a mentor from his Michigan State playing days. Daugherty led college football integration with its first fully integrated rosters on the field and assistants on the sidelines. Lewis joined Daugherty’s staff in 1969 and Raye in 1972. Michigan State had two Black assistants at a time other schools were hiring their first Black coach.

“They are what you call bricks and mortar for what has happened over the years,” said by phone from Los Gatos, California, where he settled into retirement. “There are other coaches that fit in that category. They didn’t get the glory and recognition of being a head coach, but they were so good and so professional you learned from being around them. I was blessed to be at Michigan State and have two of them right there. They weren’t far removed from their playing careers.”

Willingham adds he’s embarrassed he was a head coach and not Raye and Lewis. Raye was only the second Black coordinator in the NFL when the Los Angeles Rams hired him in 1983 as offensive coordinator. Lewis was OC of the Green Bay Packers when they won the 1996 season Super Bowl title.

The Pro Football Hall of Fame honored both Raye and Lewis with its NFL Awards of Excellence – Raye in the inaugural 2022 class and Lewis in 2023.

“Unfortunately, Jimmy Raye and Sherman Lewis are unknowns,” Willingham said. “People have only a small idea of what they’ve accomplished. I learned from them, and I owed them nothing less than to do my very best.”

Freeman, win or lose, won’t bellow at the media if he wins Monday. He’s not the confrontational type that was Thompson.

The sports media shortchanged the stories of Jimmy Raye, Sherman Lewis and other Black coaches Dungy mentioned who cleared the long road to Atlanta in 2025 on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Those are the facts — as Jimmy Breslin would say – but you won’t read about them in stories celebrating Freeman breaking ground.

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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.