TWO GREAT POINT GUARDS

PHOTO: Jimmy Raye (L) and Phil Ford, the University of North Carolina All-American guard (1977 and 1978) and seven-year NBA veteran, met at the NC Hall of Fame dinner. As a high school athlete E.E. Smith, Raye was known for his basketball play as well as football. Michigan State legend has it Raye scored 50 points in an intramural game at IM West, and a note was left in MSU basketball coach John Benington’s mailbox to invite Raye to try out for the team. But when the football coaches got wind of the note, they removed it from Benington’s mailbox and threw it in the trash.

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— Video: Michigan State defensive end David Santiago of Raleigh, N.C., congratulates Jimmy Raye.

— Radio interview: Adam Gold of WRAL in Raleigh, NC, hosted Jimmy Raye on his show the day of the NC Sports Hall of Fame ceremony. Gold is one of the few media members in the nation not duped by Bear Bryant 1970 USC-Alabama game myths. The Raye segment begins at the 27:50 mark to the above link.

— Learn about our documentary at the fundraising stage, GAME CHANGERS OF THE CENTURY, and the Investment Deck.

— Click here for video: ESPN’s Debbie Antonelli interviews Jimmy Raye on stage before the North Carolina Hall of Fame dinner audience.

— Radio interview: Jack Ebling of The Drive with Jack in Lansing, Michigan, hosted Jimmy Raye to dicuss his NC Hall of Fame induction.

By TOM SHANAHAN

GREENSBORO, N.C. — The North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame inducted its 2025 class on Friday, May 2 at the Sheraton Khoury Convention Center in Greensboro, N.C. Jimmy Raye, a pioneering Black quarterback at Michigan State and ground-breaking Black coach in college and the NFL, was among the 11 inductees.

ESPN basketball broadcaster Debbie Antonelli, herself an NC Hall of Fame member for her broadcasting days and playing careers at North Carolina State and Cary High, interviewed all 11 inductees on stage. Antonelli brought out Raye’s pioneering career that can’t be overstated.

My sense was the numerous people making an effort to meet Raye after the ceremony were unaware of his pioneering career and wanted to congratulate him. In the 1960s, the sports media avoided race for fear of alienating advertisers and subscribers. Raye’s career was largely played in the shadows, and his prime years at a head coach candidate proceeded the time when NFL owners granted Black coaches a legitimate opportunity.

TWO NORTH CAROLINA GIANTS

Jimmy Raye and 7-foot-4 Tom Burleson, a North Carolina Sports Hall of Famer from NC State, met at the 2025 enshrinement ceremonies in Greensboro. Burleson and the great David Thompson led NC State to the 1974 NCAA title, beating Bill Walton’s UCLA team to end the Bruins’ streak of seven straight national titles. Burleson earned All-American honors and played seven NBA seasons.

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Raye’s career began at E.E. Smith High in Fayetteville as a three-sport star in football, basketball and baseball. He departed the segregated South in 1964 aboard Michigan State coach Duffy Daugherty’s Underground Railroad.

Daugherty assembled college football’s first fully integrated rosters in the 1960s, mixing Black and White players from a Midwest recruiting base along with pioneering Black players from the Jim Crow South and ground-breaking Samoans and Polynesians from Hawaii. The 1964 Spartans were the first fully integrated team to play in the South when Michigan State faced North Carolina at Kenan Stadium in segregated Chapel Hill.

Raye was the South’s first Black quarterback to win a national title on the Spartans’ 1965 and 1966 teams. He was enshrined in the Michigan State Hall of Fame, in 2018.

THREE FAYETTEVILLE E.E. SMITH HIGH LEGENDS (AND A WRITER)

PHOTO (L-R) E.E. Smith legends Joseph Harris, Charles Baggett and Jimmy Raye pose with a guy who just writes about legends (me) at the NC Sports Hall of Fame induction. Baggett, whose family lived next door to Raye’s family in Fayetteville, NC, was recruited to Michigan State by Raye. Baggett was a three-year starter who led a 1974 upset of No. 1-ranked Ohio State with Raye on the sidelines as an assistant coach. Baggett went onto his own long college and NFL coaching career. Harris, who was Baggett’s teammate at E.E. Smith, played at Georgia Tech and six years in the NFL, including Super Bowl XIII with the Los Angeles Rams. He wrote a memoir on his career, “THE STARS THAT NEVER SHINE, The Making of a Super Bowl Player.” Raye graduated from E.E. Smith in 1964 during segregation when it was still a segregated school. By the time Baggett and Harris graduated from Smith in 1971, the campus was desegregated. E.E. Smith is one of only five Black schools in the state that remained open upon desegregation. The facilities at other all-Black high schools were inadequate, despite the “separate but equal” doctrine that ruled the Jim Crow South since the Supreme Court ruling Plessy v. Ferguson, in 1896.

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The 1965 Spartans (10-1) were crowned national champion in the poll era by United Press International (coaches, the National Football Foundation and co-champion with Alabama (9-1-1) by the Football Writers Association of America. The Associated Press (sportswriters) voted for Alabama’s segregated roster that never played a game above the Mason Dixon Line.

AP, UPI, NFF and FWAA are the four bodies the NCAA recognized as crowning official national champions in the era prior to the Bowl Championship Series and the College Football Playoff.

Michigan State’s 1966 team, which faced Notre Dame in the Game of the Century before a record TV audience of 33 million and an over-capacity crowd of 80,011 at Spartan Stadium, was crowned co-champion with Notre Dame by the NFF. However, AP, UPI and FWAA voted for Notre Dame as champion, although the teams tied 10-10 on the field and finished with identical 9-0-1 records.

NORTH CAROLINA LEADERS

Que Tucker, President of the North Carolina High School Athletic Association, poses with Jimmy Raye at the NC Hall of Fame ceremonies. Tucker was a long-time high school coach before joining the NCHSAA administration office. She is the NCHSAA’s first Black president, serving in the role since 2015. Raye’s career took place during segregation when Black schools were governed by North Carolina Athletic High School Conference.

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Without a winner, the 1966 Game of the Century has lived on longer in American sports lore than if a single champion emerged from an overtime decision. Raye once commented he thinks he has met all 80,011 people who claimed to be at the game. Notre Dame quarterback Terry Hanratty replied, “Tell Jimmy I’ve got him beat. It’s Woodstock.”

Raye was a sophomore backup who played frequently on the 1965 team and a starter on the 1966 and 1967 teams. As a junior in 1966, his first career start was against North Carolina State, which was coached by Earle Edwards, a former Michigan State assistant with Duffy Daugherty. Raye led the Spartans to a 28-10 win and Daugherty awarded Raye the game ball. The prize still sits in Raye’s home office in Pinehurst.

NORTH CAROLINA CHAMPIONS

PHOTO: Jimmy Raye signs autographs for players from a Pop Warner championship team who attended the NC Hall of Fame dinner.

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Daugherty later hired Raye as an assistant coach in 1972, launching a pioneering career among Black college and NFL coaches. When he jumped to the NFL in 1977 with the San Francisco 49ers, he was one of only 10 Black assistants in a 28-team league. By 1983, he was the NFL’s second Black coordinator when Los Angeles Rams’ head coach John Robinson named him the team’s offensive coordinator, in 1983.

He went onto a 37-year career in the NFL, although is prime years as a head coach candidate were lost in a time when NFL owners resisted hiring Black head coaches. Raye’s impact on the NFL was still felt through mentoring many coaches along the way, including Tony Dungy, the NFL’s first Black head coach to win a Super Bowl. Dungy mentioned Raye when Dungy was enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Former East Carolina coach Ruffin McNeill says, who grew up in Lumberton, says Raye’s carer inspired him to enter coaching.

Dungy wrote the Foreword to “RAYE OF LIGHT, Jimmy Raye, Duffy Daugherty, the Integration of College Football and the 1965-66 Michigan State Spartans” and McNeill wrote the Foreword to “THE RIGHT THING TO DO, The True Pioneers of College Football Integration in the 1960s.”

In 2022, Raye was named to the inaugural class of the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s NFL Awards of Execellence Class.

NATIONAL PEERS

PHOTO: Dave Goren, President of the National Sports Media Association based in Winston-Salem, with Jimmy Raye at the NC Sports Hall of Fame dinner.

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PHOTO: Michigan State sponsored an advertisement congratulating Jimmy Raye in the 61sth North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame induction program.

PHOTO: The 61st North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame program cover. The 11 inductees are listed at the bottom.

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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