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By TOM SHANAHAN

Patrick Surtain II is not alone among 21^st century Alabama football players drinking the Bear Bryant Kool-Aid. So, yes, I know it’s not fair to single out him for criticism.

But Surtain and his fellow football alums featured in a film produced by the University of Alabama, “Barrier Breakers, The Story of Wilbur Jackson and John Mitchell,” need to know they were disingenuously fed talking points to support a myth.

The script hypocritically promotes Bryant as an integration leader simply because Jackson and Mitchell played in a 1971 game as Alabama’s first Black players.

Stop and think about that for a second – this film wants you believe 1971 represented progress. The truth is, Bryant was behind his southern peers on the issue of his time, integration and the Civil Rights movement.

Yet Alabama continues to successfully sell revisionist history. As long as the national media remains silently blinded by Bryant hagiography, there is nothing to stop Alabama fiction from living on. The Kool-Aid flows from the Paul W. Bryant Museum on the Tuscaloosa campus.

Here are the facts: When Jackson signed with Bryant in 1970, Alabama was the seventh of 10 Southeastern Conference football programs to integrate and 33 of 37 major southern programs included Black athletes.

That’s foot dragging, not leading.

So, why am I singling out Surtain II?

Well, the film’s producers overlooked Surtain’s family history, and the irony is too rich to ignore. Patrick Surain Sr. played at Southern Mississippi, 1994-97, and Patrick Sr.’s alma mater was one year ahead of Bryant and Alabama.

At 14:55 mark, Patrick II says this of Jackson and Mitchell: “With those people, the changes and the sacrifices that they made gave us all the opportunities in the world.”

Well, no one from Alabama cleared a road for Willie Heidelburg, a Southern Mississippi running back/return man. He was already rambling down a road of 1970 opportunity.

In the 1970 season, Heidelburg was school’s first Black player as a junior college transfer. On October 17, 1970, Heidelburg scored two touchdowns to lead Southern Mississippi to a 30-14 upset of No. 4-ranked Mississippi’s all-White roster. It’s still considered one of the Golden Eagles’ all-time victories.

In other words, Heidelburg and other schools’ pioneers were on the field before Alabama’s first Black players took the field in 1971. The schools pushed the foot-dragging Bryant and Alabama to finally join the 20^th century.

But in college football lore we don’t hear about Southern Mississippi’s first Black player handing all-White Mississippi a lesson on equality. Bryant sycophants write stories jumping past the true pioneers to Alabama’s two late combers (through no fault of their own), Jackson and Mitchell.

PHOTO: Southern Mississippi’s Willie Heidulburg blazed a trail earlier than Alabama.

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Although Jackson signed with Bryant as a freshman in 1970, the NCAA didn’t permit freshmen eligibility for the varsity until 1972. That meant Jackson didn’t play on the varsity until 1971 when he was sophomore and joined by Mitchell, a junior college transfer.

As I said, I don’t mean to single out Surtain II. Roman Harper, who played at Alabama from 2002 to 2005, served as the narrator and offered several erroneous comments. Here’s one:

“In the late 1950s and 1960s, Alabama played against many teams with African American players.”

Factcheck: Wrong. Bryant limited his schedule to opponents below the segregated South’s Mason Dixon Line. In 100 regular-season games between 1960 and 1969, only two were against a team with Black players. Both times Miami was the southern school opponent in 1968 and 1969.

Alabama played five bowl games against integrated opponents in the time span: Oklahoma, 1963 Orange Bowl; Nebraska, 1966 Orange Bowl; Nebraska, 1967 Sugar Bowl; Missouri, 1968 Gator Bowl; and Colorado, 1969 Liberty Bowl. In other words, 94 percent (103 of 110) of Alabama’s opponents in the 1960s were segregated teams.

The UA film also contributes to the 1970 USC-Alabama game’s false narrative as a ground-breaking moment. Although USC’s integrated roster beat all-White Alabama 42-21 on September 12, 1970, at Legion Field in Birmingham, the facts stop with the final score.

In real time, the game was considered a simple one-sided romp, but two decades later a myth was spread that Bryant scheduled USC as a game to lose. He wanted to shock his bigoted fanbase into allowing him to recruit Black players. The false narrative, of course, ignores Jackson had already signed before USC arrived.

By the 1970 season, college football integration was a fait accompli. There were many genuine 1960s transformative milestones, including integrated Tennessee routing Alabama 41-14 on October 18, 1969, at Legion Field.

History also reveals the USC-Alabama game wasn’t a singular moment. That same night integrated Stanford beat No. 4-ranked Arkansas at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock. Also on that same date, Georgia Tech sophomore Eddie McAshan was the first starting Black quarterback in the Deep South. He led the Yellowjackets to win over an integrated South Carolina roster.

Jackson’s hazy memory (it happens to all of us) accounts for the first correction that needs to be pointed out in the film. As a freshman in 1970 he watched the 1970 USC-Alabama game from the stands with the freshmen team. In the film he says he was rooting for Alabama but proud of USC for having “40 to 50 percent” Black players.

However, USC’s actual number of 18 on a 100-man roster was less than 20 percent and only four of the 18 Black players were starters. USC was one of the schools that followed an unwritten quota limiting Black athletes to a half-dozen or so and was still shedding its past. USC numbered only five Black players on its 1962 national title team and only seven on its 1967 national championship team. Of USC’s 18 Black players in the 1970 season, 11 arrived in 1969 or 1970 as junior college transfers (nine) or a four-year school transfer (two).

Here is more fact checking:

— George Pugh (Alabama player, 1972-75): He was one of Jackson’s teammates as a wide receiver. Pugh says in the film, “When coach Bryant took a chance on those two, America woke up and realized the opportunities that had been denied. And when coach Bryant did it, most of America thought if it was good enough for coach Bryant, it’s good enough for us.”

FACTS: America and Bryant’s southern peers woke up long before Bryant. An honest study of a 1960s timeline points to many figures above and below the Mason Dixon Line forced change step-by-step throughout the 1960s.

In the segregated South, they include Maryland and Wake Forest of the Atlantic Coast Conference. Maryland’s Darryl Hill was the South’s first Black player in a major conference as a senior transfer, in 1963. A year later Wake Forest was the first to sign Black players out of high school, with Bob Grant and Butch Henry among three freshmen.

The dominos of “firsts” falling continued with Houston’s Warren McVea, the first Black player to sign at a major Texas school, 1964. Players from the two remaining major southern conferences signing were Southern Methodist’s Jerry LeVias in the Southwest Conference (1965) and Kentucky’s Nate Northington and Greg Page in the SEC (1966).

SEC progress continued as Tennessee signed Lester McClain in 1967. In the fall of 1969, conference rivals Auburn, Florida, Mississippi State and Vanderbilt signed their first Black players. Alabama was the seventh of 10 SEC schools to recruit its first Black players. Seventh place isn’t leading. No one followed Bryant. Bryant followed others.

Slow and painful change historically has been the only American path to racial progress. Rosa Parks launched Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955, but the U.S. Congress didn’t pass Civil Rights Acts for President Lyndon Johnson to sign until 1964 and 1965.

— Chris Owens (Alabama player, 2017-21): He was an Alabama offensive lineman who says in the film, “Their struggles have paved the way not just us but for a lot of people around the country.”

FACTS: They paved the way at Alabama and only at Alabama. The rest of the South and the nation were ahead of Bryant and Alabama.

— Alex Leatherwood (Alabama player, 2017-20): The offensive lineman said, “I’m extremely grateful for what they did. They were like the pioneers.”

FACTS: The true pioneers as listed above made their marks in the 1960s. Jackson and Mitchell were pioneers only at Alabama – not for the nation.

To be fair, the above Alabama players weren’t dishonest selling Alabama revisionist history. It’s the version Alabama fed them. Even former Alabama coach Nick Saban fell for the company line when the film was shown to his team.

“These guys were people who did something that nobody else was really willing to do that created so many opportunities and changed the lives of so many people and changed the mindset of a lot of other people and was a big step in desegregating the South,” Saban said. “And I think Coach Bryant should be commended for what he did to make that happen.”

This is how Pulitzer Prize-winner David Halberstam summed of Bryant’s impact on integration in a 2002 story he wrote for ESPN’s website:

“But the Bear was very late to the dance, especially because people are always talking about football coaches as leader. In this case, he did not lead very well.”

Who are you going to believe — Alabama sycophants misleading Alabama players and coaches or a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian?

I’ll debate these points with anybody, anytime, anywhere.

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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.