PHOTO: I told Tommy Trojan on the USC campus on April 27 at the LA TIMES Book Festival that the 1970 USC-Alabama game’s impact on college football integration is a fairytale. Supporting me were Michigan State College Football Hall of Famer Clinton Jones (L) and former San Diego Chargers player and NFL Players Association representative Reggie Berry (Middle).

By TOM SHANAHAN

I ventured last weekend into the belly of the beast – the USC campus. I’m happy to report I emerged unscathed.

Why go to such a place? Well, USC was the host for the 30^th annual LA TIMES Book Festival. I was signing books – with an assist from Michigan State College Football Hall of Famer Clinton Jones to attract paying customers. We also promoted our documentary in development, “Game Changers of the Century.” Executive Producers Phil and Tanya Hart, who are MSU grads and Los Angelenos, also were with us in addition to advisory board member Robert Dean.

My books tell untold stories of college football integration:

— RAYE OF LIGHT, Jimmy Raye, Duffy Daugherty, the 1965-66 Michigan State Spartans and the Integration of College Football. Foreword by Tony Dungy.

— THE RIGHT THING TO DO, The True Pioneers of College Football Integration in the 1960s. Foreword by Ruffin McNeill.

The books identify the true pioneers – at Michigan State through College Football Hall of Fame coach Duffy Daugherty’s leadership and others coast to coast — of college football integration in the 1960s. And let me make this clear: NO ONE from the 1970 USC-Alabama game impacted college football integration. The trail was bravely blazed by 1960s pioneers who made it possible to play the 1970 USC-Alabama game before 72,175 fans at Legion Field in Birmingham

USC backers made up the myths two decades after the game. They were so ignorant of events of milestones and advancing the ball throughout the 1960s that the plot they came up with is riddled with holes. The entire premise was Alabama coach Bear Bryant scheduled the game to lose. He wanted the shock of losing to Black athletes — fullback Sam Cunningham ran for 135 yards and two touchdowns — to gain permission from Alabama Gov. George Wallace and bigoted fans to recruit Black athletes.

The trouble with the plot, though, is they didn’t understand the following:

— By 1970, 33 of 37 major southern programs were integrated.

— Alabama was at the back of the line as the seventh of 10 Southeastern Conference schools with a Black player. Wilbur Jackson was a freshman for Bryant in 1970 before USC arrived. Among the six SEC schools ahead of Alabama was in-state rival Auburn in 1969 with James Owens.

— Bryant was never in danger of being fired by racist Alabama Gov. George Wallace if he signed a Black player. Wallace wasn’t in office from 1967 to 1971. No one fired Auburn coach Shug Jordan when he signed Owens in 1969.

— Integrated teams had been playing games in the South since Michigan State was the first fully integrated roster to take a southern field in a 1964 game against North Carolina in segregated Chapel Hill. Michigan State’s Clinton Jones broke off a 42-yard run to become the first Black player to score at Kenan Stadium.

— There was no shock among Alabama fans when USC won 42-21. Alabama’s fans had seen it a year earlier. Integrated Tennessee routed Alabama 41-14 before 72,443 at Legion Field. Tennessee’s Jackie Walker, the SEC’s first Black All-American, intercepted a pass and returned it for a 21-0 first-quarter lead. Bryant considered Tennessee Alabama’s biggest rival, and the Volunteers won the 1969 SEC title.

— Sam Cunningham was one of three fullbacks who scored against Alabama. Charlie Evans, the White starting fullback who went on to play five NFL seasons, scored late in the second quarter for a 22-7 lead after Alabama’s had closed the deficit to 15-7.

— In the Showtime documentary, “Against the Tide,” the Showtime producers gave USC linebacker John Papadakis a free license to spout revisionist history. Papadakis claimed USC ran over Alabama start to finish and Bryant’s team didn’t make a meaningful first down in the first half. The play-by-stat sheet tells a different story. On Alabama’s touchdown drive to trim the deficit to 15-7, one of quarterback Scott Hunter’s three first-down completions was a 7-yard gain on a third-and-6. John Papadakis was listed on the play-by-play sheet as the tackler. You can’t make this stuff up, although Papadakis got away with his version.

— USC mythmakers cast the game as a singular moment. However, the same day Stanford, led by an all-minority backfield, beat No. 4-ranked Arkansas at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock. Stanford’s Hillary Shockley, a Black fullback, scored three touchdowns with 149 total yards in ABC-TV’s national game of the week. No one was talking about the USC-Alabama game until the myths were made up and spread two decades later. The 1970 season ended with Stanford beating USC en route to the Pac-8 title and upset of Ohio State in the Rose Bowl. Despite the myths casting USC in a lofty light, the Trojans were routed by a crosstown rival UCLA, 45-20, and didn’t earn a bowl bid.

PHOTO: Clinton Jones (seated) signing THE RIGHT THING TO DO for a patron (L) at the LA TIMES Book Festival. Also standing are Phil and Tanya Hart, Executive Producers of “GAME CHANGERS OF THE CENTURY.”

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It’s a sports journalism failure that the true pioneers have been written out of history. I thoroughly debunk those 1970 USC-Alabama myths in Chapters 24, 28 and 29 of “THE RIGHT THING TO DO” as well as in various articles and videos found on my website, TomShanahan.Report.

Sam Cunningham didn’t do anything more than Hillary Shockley in 1970 at Little Rock. Or Syracuse’s Ernie Davis in the 1960 Cotton Bowl (1959 season) in Dallas.

A game-changer was Southern Methodist’s Jerry LeVias, the Southwest Conference’s first Black player, who played through death threats in the 1966 season. The FBI escorted LeVias to and from the team bus to the stadium locker room and scanned the stadium for snipers. LeVias’ teammates didn’t stand next to him on the sidelines for fear of being shot by an errant bullet.

Nevertheless, LeVias scored a touchdown and SMU clinched the Southwest title.

The dominos began to tumble. All of eight of the SWC schools had recruited their first Black player by 1969 — one year ahead of Bryant. Don’t try and tell me Sam Cunningham did more for integration in one 1970 game than LeVias courageously managed throughout his first varsity season, in 1966.

Rufus Cormier, LeVias’ high school (Beaumont Hebron) teammate who followed him to SMU year later, said, “What Jerry LeVias went through would have broken a lesser man.”

All Cunningham did was run through massive holes opened by five White offensive linemen (USC only numbered four Black starters in the Alabama game). This story, though, is not criticism of Cunningham. He died believing he had been used as a pawn to sell the myth.

So, with all that stated as background, while I was on the USC campus, I wandered over to the Tommy Trojan statue. I talked to Tommy, educating him that the 1970 USC-Alabama game is a fairytale.

Clint Jones accompanied me along with Reggie Berry, a former player at Long Beach State, for the San Diego Chargers and a long-time NFL Players Association representative. Berry was friends with the late Bob Grant and the late Sam Cunningham when they were retired NFL players living in the LA area. Cunningham and Grant participated in Reggie’s “Goals for Life” program that spoke at underserved schools about education.

Grant was one of the first three Black players at Wake Forest in 1964, and he was the first Black player from a major southern conference drafted by the NFL when the Baltimore Colts took him in 1968. He has been honored with the Wake Forest Trailblazer Award in 2021 and the NCAA Inspiration Award in 2022.

Berry was the one who informed Cunningham about Grant and many other 1960s pioneers written out of history. Cunningham died in 2021 no longer believing the myth and suspecting he was used by the mythmakers.

For the record, visiting Tommy Trojan was Part II of my statue talks.

In September at a book signing on Notre Dame’s campus, I spoke with the statue of Notre Dame coach Dan Devine, whose Irish won the 1977 national title. I assured him we’re trying to straighten out the record.

PHOTO: I told Dan Devine on September 27 prior to the Irish’s game against Miami of Ohio that we’re trying to straighten out the record on college football integration.

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Devine, a Duffy Daugherty Disciple from his time on Daugherty’s staff at Michigan State, knows Daugherty was the true leader. Daugherty assembled the first fully integrated rosters at Michigan State in the 1960s. Devine and other former Daugherty assistants followed Duffy’s blueprint as head coaches. Devine coached at Arizona State, Missouri and Notre Dame.

As for USC fans stopping by my booth, my spiel required full disclosure. To my surprise, about half of the USC fans said they had heard the tale was at least embellished and they wanted more information.

Leo was a big guy wearing a USC T-shirt with bold letters. As Clinton Jones signed Leo’s book, I said, “Leo, you’ve got an open mind.”

Only a couple USC fans scoffed and walked away. One of them barked, “What about C.R. Roberts and the Texas game?”

He referenced USC’s 1956 win at Texas during segregation when Roberts, an African American halfback, ran for 251 yards on only 12 carries. USC fans like to fall back on this story as evidence the school was inclusive in the 1950s.

“Yes,” I started to say, “but many college football teams had two or three Black players in the 1950s.” He was out of ear range before I finished.

Roberts, despite his big night, wasn’t a game-changer. USC and other college teams continued to follow the custom of limiting its Black players to a half-dozen or so into the late 1960s. Despite USC’s campus located in populous and diverse Los Angeles, the Trojans’ 1962 national title team numbered only five Black players. The 1967 national champions roster totaled only seven.

Roberts finished the 10-game 1956 season with 775 yards and five touchdowns. That means in the other nine games, he ran for only 519 – 57.7 per game — and two touchdowns.

PHOTO (L-R): Reggie Berry, Clinton Jones and Tom Shanahan.

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USC’s Jon Arnett rushed for 625 yards and led the Trojans with six touchdowns. Ernie Zampese ran for 500 and four touchdowns.

The awards and recognition went to the golden boy, Arnett. He was an All-Pacific Coast Conference pick in 1955 and 1956, PCC Player of the Year in 1955 and 1956, an All-American in 1955 and enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame, in 2001. Arnett was selected for the 1957 College All-Star game (against the NFL champions), 1957 East-West Shrine Game and 1957 Hula Bowl.

Roberts’ only post-season award was all-conference in 1956. He wasn’t named to any of the all-star games that were far more common and essential to NFL scouts grading talent prior to the days of the NFL Combine.

Roberts isn’t the only example of USC aggrandizing its role. Brice Taylor, a Black lineman, was the Trojans’ first All-American, in 1925. But he wasn’t listed in the USC media guide until Brad Pye of the Los Angeles Sentinel, the city’s Black newspaper, exposed the omission in the 1950s.

I’ve been told by USC writers that USC fans realize the 1970 USC-Alabama game’s impact has been misrepresented, but they don’t want to talk about it.

That reminds me of a comment from Michael Steele, the former Republican National Committee Chairman and an MSNBC commentator. He recently said many Donald Trump supporters regret voting for him, but they remain silent.

“No one wants to realize that they not only bought into a lie, but they bought into the point that it consumed them, and it is all that they know and all that they express back is that same lie,” Steele said. “When that reality comes home, it’s hard for people to admit, “Oh, yeah. I’m sorry.”

The 1970 Alabama-USC game is a fairytale and an injustice to the true pioneers.

I’ll debate this with anyone, anytime, anywhere. I already have in the Belly of the Beast. And lived to write about it.

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Tom Shanahan is an award-winning sportswriter and frequent contributor to Spartanmag.com in addition to posting on his website. 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