PHOTO above (Houston 1966 yearbook): Houston quarterback Bo Burris rolls out of the Veer offense in a 1965 game at Tennessee. A 2018 Sports Illustrated article credited Houston coach Bill Yeoman for the “the first true triple option” with his Veer offense.

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PART I

By TOM SHANAHAN

The SEC Network debuted a film recently explaining the Texas and Oklahoma Wishbone offenses changed college football. Yes, the triple-option’s influence is widely agreed upon, but it’s a story as old as Texas dominating the Southwest Conference and Oklahoma the Big Eight.

So, why was the film about the triple-option’s history produced and broadcas as fresh material on the Southeastern Conference’s meal ticket network?

Well, if you’re a Bear Bryant apologist, the SWC/Big Eight/SEC intersection provides a convenient detour down an avenue obfuscating the Alabama coach’s abysmal record on integration with revisionist history. The Executive Producer is Keith Dunnavant, who ignores Bryant dragged his feet on integration until the 1970s. The Bryant makeover casts the rest of college football as Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis and Bryant as Branch Rickey.

To paraphrase comedian Shane Gillis on Alabama’s shameful Jim Crow record, we had a man on the moon by the time Bryant signed his first Black recruit, in 1970.

For the record, Alabama was the seventh SEC school to integrate. Among the six SEC coaches ahead of Bryant was Auburn’s Shug Jordan. Alabama’s bitter in-state conference rival signed James Owens in 1969. By the 1970 season, 33 of 37 major southern programs were integrated.

These facts are ignored when HBO, Showtime, ESPN and the SEC Network have previously produced deceptive Bryant documentaries. But the Bryant fealty in this latest SEC Network script may be the most irresponsible.

Historian and author Doris Kearns Goodwin was writing about political giants and moments in history when she said, “What happens in history is often a slippery business. And as ever, depends on who is doing the telling, when they are telling the tale and why.”

Goodwin’s words apply to sports and Bryant fairytales successfully taking root at the expense of the true pioneers in the 1960s. The sports media of the 1960s negligently looked the other way and the modern sports media has failed to take on Bryant mythology in the face of his cult-like following.

The latest SEC Network film combines misinformation on the Wishbone at Texas in 1968 and at Oklahoma in 1970, it stretches the truth of Bryant adopting the Wishbone in 1971, it presents a false narrative on the 1970 USC-Alabama game’s racial impact, and — most egregiously of all — it omits the true pioneers of college football integration in the 1960s who faced down the Jim Crow and the Ku Klux Klan.

The SEC Network film needs a outside recap here to set the record straight on so many levels.

Starting with Wishbone history, the film failed to credit Houston coach Bill Yeoman Sr. as the triple-option originator in 1965. In a Sports Illustrated article published September 27, 2018, Ross Dellinger wrote Yeoman developed “the first true triple option, the split-back Veer, in the mid-1960s.”

The Veer and Wishbone are triple-option schemes, but the Veer has two backs behind the quarterback and the Wishbone three. The Veer also is better suited for passing the ball. Unlike Houston and Oklahoma, Houston’s College Football Hall of Famers includes a receiver, Elmo Wright.

PHOTO: Houston coach Bill Yeoman and All-American receiver Elmo Wright.

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Yeoman debuted his innovative Veer in a midseason game at Tennessee to jump start the season after the Cougars’ 1-4 start. Although Tennessee beat Houston, 17-8, Houston finished the year with a 3-0-1 run for a 4-5-1 record. Of the three season-ending victories, two were over SEC schools — Ole Miss, 17-3, and Kentucky, 17-10 — and the Cougars tied Florida State, 16-16.

But the SEC narrative contends Texas assistant coach Emory Bellard devised the option scheme while winning high school state titles at San Angelo Central in west Texas. Texas head coach Darrell Royal thus hired Bellard to revive the Longhorns’ program. Next, Oklahoma duplicated the Wishbone success in 1970.

That’s the narrative, but the film got ahead of events on the timeline.

Royal hired Bellard in 1967 as a linebackers coach. Texas finished 6-4 in 1967 before Royal switched Bellard to offensive coordinator. In the offseason prior to the 1968 fall season, Bellard visited Yeoman to study the Veer triple option. He modified the X’s and O’s scheme as the Texas Wishbone.

“Bellard learned the triple-option from Dad,” said Bill Yeoman Jr. “There was a fraternity of coaches back then and Dad shared it with him. Emory went back to Texas and put in his version.”

Texas’ 1968 transition started slowly but finished with a nine-game winning streak. The Longhorns opened the season playing underdog Houston to a 20-20 tie in Austin and then lost to Texas Tech. But the Wishbone caught on in the third game. James Street took over at quarterback and led a 31-3 win against Oklahoma State on the way to a 9-1-1 final record. The next season the Longhorns won their 1969 national title with a 11-0-0 record.

The 2018 Sports Illustrated article includes a chart of the triple-option evolution. The diagram shows Yeoman’s Veer followed in descending order by Bellard’s Wishbone.

Yeoman Jr. added Houston Post sportswriter Mickey Herskowitz described the Texas triple-option formation as looking like a wishbone. His triple-option identity was attached to Texas rather than Houston. Yeoman Jr. added Herskowitz reported the triple-option started at Houston.

PART II: OKLAHOMA WISHBONE MISINFORMATION

One part of the SEC Network film that was accurate was Switzer’s 1970s Oklahoma teams were a model of integration, although as a Big Eight member.

Texas ran a plodding wishbone without a 1,000-yard rusher. Fullback Steve Worster and halfback Jim Bertelson split carries. The Longhorns’ 1969 roster was college football’s last all-White national championship team. Neither Worster nor Bertelsen are in the College Football Hall of Fame.

Oklahoma featured speed on the outside with Black halfbacks Greg Pruitt and Joe Washington on their way to the College Football Hall of Fame. Pruitt led the team in rushing in 1971 and 1972 and Washington in 1973 and 1974. The Sooners finished with a No. 2 rankings in 1971 and 1972 and won national titles in 1973 and 1974.

Switzer told me five years ago in an interview for my book “THE RIGHT THING TO DO, The True Pioneers of College Football Integration in the 1960s,” when Chuck Fairbanks took over as head coach in 1967 and promoted him to offensive coordinator, they agreed they weren’t going to limit Black recruits on the roster to a half-dozen or so as was the custom throughout college football. Fairbanks had played for Michigan State coach Duffy Daugherty, whose teams led college football integration in the 1950s and 1960s.

But the film turned a bit hazy when explaining Oklahoma’s transition to installing the Wishbone.

The story claims Switzer learned it from Bellard. But my interview with Switzer included discussing the Wishbone. My impression from him was he tinkered with the Wishbone before the 1970 season while pushing Fairbanks to make the switch. In the SEC Network film, Switzer never said or intimated he learned it from Bellard.

The film accurately notes Oklahoma’s Wishbone transition unfolded around a loss in the season’s third game at home to Oregon State on September 26. With the demoralizing loss followed by a week off, Switzer said it was then Fairbanks agreed to install the Wishbone to save the season.

Oklahoma’s next game was October 10 against Texas in the Red River Rivalry. It’s highly unlikely Bellard was teaching Switzer the Wishbone a week or two before the teams met in one of college football’s storied rivalries. Although Texas beat Oklahoma 41-9, Switzer told me he and Fairbanks were encouraged by flashes of the offense’s potential.

The next week, unranked Oklahoma traveled to No. 13 Colorado and upset the Buffaloes 23-15 on October 17 at Folsom Field. Beating Colorado launched Oklahoma’s 4-1-1 finish for a final record of 7-4-1 and No. 20 national ranking.

At this point — with the pretense established of an SEC film on the Texas and Oklahoma Wishbone — the film’s producers and editors pull off their switcheroo to Alabama/Bryant revisionist history.

The storyline claims Bryant snookered USC before the 1971 season opener at the Los Angeles Coliseum. The No. 16-ranked Crimson Tide upset No. 5 USC 17-10 thanks to Bryant learning the Wishbone from Royal and secretly switching to the offense. The film went to great lengths to credit Bryant for surprising USC.

But one day before the September 10 game, Los Angeles Times sportswriter Dwight Chapin wrote USC coach John McKay was aware of the possible switch. The story’s September 9 headline: “Bama May Spring Wishbone T Attack on Wary Trojans.”

Chapin quoted Bryant: “I’ve run the wishbone in the past. Maybe we’ll run it some more this year.”

In the 1969 season, Alabama lined up in a Wishbone formation in loss to Tennessee at Legion Field (see photo below). The college football 100th anniversary helmet decal schools wore in 1969 dates the photo.

The storyline’s 1971 segment ends with Alabama halfback Joe LaBue chuckling as he says, “They (USC) had no idea.” Although the Trojans may have been caught off guard in the first quarter, USC’s defense shut out Alabama over the final 40 minutes.

PART IIi: ACC AND BIG TEN NETWORKS FUMBLE THEIR OWN STORIES

The ACC Network and Big Ten Network mindlessly ceded leadership from their conferences, particularly at schools in the state of North Carolina and at Michigan State. They’ve allowed the SEC Network to tip college football lore away from the true pioneers toward false narratives surrounding Alabama and Bryant.

Attention ACC Network: Wake Forest, North Carolina State and North Carolina were all ahead of Alabama.

Wake Forest signed three Black players in 1964, including future Super Bowl champion Bob Grant. NC State’s first Black player was in 1966 under Earle Edwards, a former Michigan State assistant. North Carolina’s first Black player was quarterback Ricky Lanier, in 1967. And in 1964, Michigan State was the first fully integrated team to play in the South when the Spartans faced North Carolina in segregated Chapel Hill. The milestone was six years before USC traveled to Alabama.

The Big Ten Network has failed to demonstrate it understands no one did more for integration than Michigan State coach Duffy Daugherty.

From my interview with Switzer, I quoted him on Page 1 of “THE RIGHT THING TO DO, The True Pioneers of College Football Integration in the 1960s.” He said, “Duffy did more for integration than any other coach in college football. He had players from all over the South. There were great Black players in the state of Texas that were passing over Oklahoma to play for Duffy. He had all those players from the Houston area. And Duffy also was the first one to recruit Samoan players.”

Daugherty combined his Midwest recruiting base with his Underground Railroad that boarded talent from the segregated South. Eventually, the southern talent drain led teams in the South to keep talent home.

Daugherty was the initial coach to ignore the unwritten quota limiting Black athletes to half-dozen or so that was the custom at USC and other schools until the late 1960s. USC’s 1962 national title team numbered only five Black players and its 1967 national championship team only seven.

Former acclaimed Chicago Tribune writer Ed Sherman wrote a book commissioned by the Big Ten, “THIS IS BIG,” that was published in 2019. The chapter “Race and the Big Ten” on Page 48 features Daugherty’s pioneering teams.

For that matter, why doesn’t the Big 12 Digitial Network celebrate Houston’s role leading college football integration as well as Yeoman devising the triple-option Veer? Yeoman signed Warren McVea as the first Black player at major Texas school in 1964. The Veer debuted McVea’s sophomore year, his first on the varsity (the NCAA prohibited freshmen eligibility until 1972).

The Bryant/Wishbone theme disingenuously poses Bryant as an integration leader through his supposed orchestration of the 1970 USC-Alabama game. Never mind Bryant’s first Black player, Wilbur Jackson, was recruited in 1970, while Yeoman signed McVea six years earlier.

Yeoman’s acceptance of Black athletes and his willingness to challenge Jim Crow in the South dated to his years as an assistant coach at Michigan State under Daugherty from 1954 to 1961.

PHOTO: Houston’s Warren McVea outside the Astrodome.

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Prior to 1970, Bryant was a segregationist coach at four schools spanning three decades — Maryland, 1945; Kentucky, 1946-53; Texas A&M, 1954-57; and his first 12 Alabama seasons, 1958-69.

Bryant, a master manipulator of rapt media members, floated a comment in a 1980 Time Magazine article that Kentucky wouldn’t let him integrate. The media ran with the claim without asking why Bryant didn’t integrate at Texas A&M or until 1970 at Alabama. In the same article, he claims he sent players to coaches in the North. He didn’t cite names, but the media again ran with the inference.

The 1970 USC-Alabama game’s narrative claims Bryant scheduled USC as a game to lose against a model integration program to enlighten its bigoted fanbase. Considering the Trojans started only four Black players in 1970, that’s an artful dodge.

The denouement was USC’s Sam Cunningham, a sophomore Black fullback, led a 42-21 victory that shocked racist Alabama Gov. George Wallace and Alabama’s bigoted fanbase into allowing Bryant to recruit Black athletes.

Never mind Wilbur Jackson watched the game with the Alabama freshmen recruits and Wallace wasn’t in the governor’s office, 1967-71.

Another USC-Alabama game deception was leading the viewer to believe Black talent in southern stadiums was something new in 1970. But on that same September 12 date of the USC-Alabama game, Stanford upset No. 4-ranked Arkansas at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock and Georgia Tech’s Eddie McAshan, the Deep South’s first Black starting quarterback, led a win over integrated South Carolina at Grant Field in Atlanta.

Between 1965 and 1969, Houston’s integrated rosters played at six SEC stadiums: Tennessee, Kentucky, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Georgia, Florida and Ole Miss again in Memphis’ Memorial Stadium (later renamed the Liberty Bowl). In the same time frame, integrated Houston traveled to six other southern stadiums: Texas A&M, Miami, Florida State, Texas, Memphis and North Carolina State.

In addition to Michigan State’s game at North Carolina in 1964, in the 1965 season, UCLA played Tennessee in Memphis and Michigan played at North Carolina. In 1966, USC and Indiana both played at Texas.

Yet somehow two decades after the USC-Alabama game was played, a myth was crafted and took hold. The fairytale still dominates college football lore.

The 1970 USC-Alabama myth was first exposed in 2003 by Mobile (Alabama) Press Register sportswriter Neal McCready, but Bryant remains the Teflon coach. The national media continues to sell the unvetted tale. By conveniently avoiding the subject, the media doesn’t have to admit it fell for a fairytale. Or maybe the media considers Bryant a sacred cow.

But to the SEC Network film’s credit, long-time Alabama sportswriter Kirk McNair was given camera time. He brought up the “M” word about the 1970 USC-Alabama game.

“There are some myths involved in that,” McNair said. “Coach Bryant had actually signed his first Black player prior to the 1970 season, Wilbur Jackson. And Alabama had played an integrated team before.”

We don’t know what footage was left on the cutting room floor, but McNair’s airtime didn’t include citing Bryant signed both Jackson and Bo Matthews to SEC Letters of Intent on December 13, 1969, although Matthews ended up attending Colorado. The footage also didn’t mention McNair’s comment “played an integrated team before” included Tennessee, Alabama’s bitter Third Saturday of October rivalry.

PART IV: JACKIE WALKER’S SAM CUNNINGHAM MOMENT IGNORED

On October 18, 1969, the No. 7-ranked Volunteers routed No. 20 Alabama 41-14 at Legion Field. Tennessee led 21-0 in the first quarter after Jackie Walker, the SEC’s first Black All-American player, returned an interception for a touchdown.

The 27-point rout undoubtedly dismayed Alabama’s bigots far more than the 21-point non-conference loss a year later to USC. Alabama also lost 47-33 to Colorado in the 1969 Liberty Bowl. By the time USC arrived, Alabama’s fans were accustomed to losses yielding 40-plus points.

As for raising red flags about the USC/Alabama/Cunningham/Bryant myths, McNair is to Alabama media what Steven Travers is to USC media — honest. Travers angered USC mythmakers when he said there was no truth to the tale Bryant took Cunningham into the Alabama locker room following the 1970 game and said, “This is what a football player looks like.”

But before Travers debunked the myth, USC linebacker John Papadakis exploited the perceived humor to propel the myth into accepted college football lore. The story was told in the late 1980s among USC booster circles. The national media regurgitated the unvetted tale in the early 1990s after Loel Schrader of the Long Beach Press Telegram wrote a story.

I hate to use the term “mainstream media” because it sounds Sarah Palian, but it’s another example of the mainstream running with the unvetted story. It has yet to look back.

Later, Cunningham said multiple times before his death in 2021 that he never went in the Alabama locker room. Recently, Charle Young, a USC sophomore in 1970, said the phrase Papadakis exploited was a flippant comment from USC assistant coach Craig Fertig on the team bus after the victory.

Former Long Beach State and NFL Player Reggie Berry, a Cunningham friend when they worked on Berry’s education outreach program at Los Angeles-area schools, said Cunningham felt used by the USC mythmakers for creating the myth around him.

But the myth remains entrenched.

The SEC Network’s Bryant obfuscation includes puzzlingly describing five Alabama Black walk-on players during 1967 spring football as a progressive step from Bryant.

“A giant leap,” said Dunnavant in the film, echoing Neil Armstrong.

But Bryant cutting all five Black players belies Bryant as progressive. Essentially, Bryant concluded the best of the five Black players wasn’t on par with the worst player in an era Bryant typically had a 140-man roster. And what a progressive statement he would have made if he kept one of the five.

The claim was further devalued by a 1967 quote from Bryant when he said in a TV interview, “I haven’t so far found many, if any, qualified academically and athletically both.”

If any coach uttered such a racial trope, it would negatively follow their career. It bounced off Teflon Bryant

The “giant leap” comment also blithely ignores southern school pioneer Black athletes such as Maryland’s Darryl Hill, 1963; Wake Forest’s Bob Grant and Butch Henry, 1964; Houston’s Warren McVea, 1964; Southern Methodist’s Jerry LeVias, 1965; Kentucky’s Nate Northington and Greg Page, 1966; Kentucky’s Wilbur Hackett and Houston Hogg, 1967; Tennessee’s Lester McClain, 1967; and Michigan State’s Tommy Love, a transformational southern recruit in 1967 who turned down Tennessee and North Carolina.

Michigan State recruited southern Black players aboard its Underground Railroad since 1959, but prior to Love’s commitment Daugherty didn’t have southern competition. Love’s recruitment marked a new era of Black players pursued by multiple southern schools. Love’s timing was right for a couple reasons.

One was North Carolina and Tennessee both decided it was time to desegregate. The other was Love’s high school in Sylva, N.C., desegregated earlier than the state’s other districts. The distinction helped him make the 1966 Parade All-American team at a time the media overlooked athletes at Black high schools.

For example, Michigan State Underground Railroad passengers George Webster (Anderson, S.C.), Bubba Smith (Beaumont, Texas) and Gene Washington (La Porte, Texas) didn’t make Parade High School All-American teams as seniors in the 1962 high school season, but they were two-time All-American picks enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame.

Another 1970 USC-Alabama game contradiction was Cunningham’s performance in the 1971 rematch. Cunningham was limited to 76 yards rushing and fumbled away the ball near the goal line. But the 1970 narrative claims Cunningham’s skin color, size and speed intimidated Alabama’s players. He was made out to be a combination of Jim Brown and Ernie Davis.

What happened to him 12 months later?

The myth arguably inflated Cunningham’s career into the College Football Hall of Fame. Cunningham’s lone All-American season was as a senior 1972. But at Tennessee, Walker was a two-time All-American pick in 1970 and 1971 who hasn’t been named to the College Football Hall of Fame. Cunningham was named to only one organization’s All-American team sanctioned by the NCAA. Walker was named to a combined seven for the two seasons.

These points aren’t made to downgrade Cunningham’s talent. They’re to point out the myth was cavalierly created at the expense of many other athletes who played pivotal roles.

When is the SEC Network producing a film on Tennessee and Jackie Walker breaking SEC ground and the Volunteers embarrassing Bryant’s 1969 team? Walker was the first Black player to score at Legion Field. Teammate Lester McClain was the SEC’s first Black player to score touchdowns with six catches in his 1968 sophomore season.

The narrative could include Tennessee quarterback Condredge Holloway (1972-74) of Huntsville, Alabama, left his home state after Bryant told him Alabama wasn’t ready for a Black quarterback.

PHOTO: In a photo taken from the 1970 Tennessee media guide, the Volunteers’ Jackie Walker “integrated” Alabama’s Legion Field end zone with an interception touchdown return. He was the first Black player to score at Legion Field in Tennessee’s 41-14 victory.

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There’s more to understand when considering the 1970 USC-Alabama myth was made up two decades after the game was played.

Bryant and McKay wrote autobiographies in 1974 – “BEAR” and “McKAY: A COACH’S STORY – and neither one cited the 1970 game for racial impact.

When USC won at Alabama in 1978 for a game ABC-TV nationally broadcast, play-by-play man Keith Jackson, the voice of college football, never mentioned a word about the 1970 game enlightening Alabama’s bigots.

When Time magazine published a 5,100-word opus cover story on Bryant in 1980, there wasn’t a single word about the 1970 USC-Alabama game.

But Bryant has a cult-like following that perpetuates the myth. And Bryant apologists know there’s always funding to spin another Bryant book or documentary.

In my time writing for newspapers, I always scoffed at people who said you can’t believe what you read. But now I know what they meant through the sloppily researched articles, books and documentaries crediting Bryant at the expense of the true 1960s pioneers.

When USC joined the Big Ten last year, I braced myself for the Big Ten Network producing a film promoting “Big Ten legends” John McKay and Sam Cunningham leading college football integration. Such a film would be at the expense of Michigan State’s ground-breaking teams, which are already lost in the shadows of Bryant myths.

Thank you, Big Ten Network vice-president Bill Friedman, for not producing such a BTN USC film.

So far, that is.

Michigan State plays September 20 at USC. I hope a young BTN producer hasn’t gotten any ideas from 1970 USC-Alabama mythology. He or she would be slighting both Michigan State and UCLA. USC, it should be noted, trails the diversity record of UCLA, its crosstown rival.

UCLA is the alma mater of Jackie Robinson, Major League’s Baseball’s first Black player in 1947, and Kenny Washington and Woody Strode, the NFL’s first Black players, in 1946. And Kermit Washington was among eight UCLA Black players who backed down the Rose Bowl with a boycott threat when Bryant nearly succeeded sneaking his team through the back door to the 1962 Rose Bowl’s backdoor.

College football lore also doesn’t include threatened boycott against facing Bryant’s 1961 team, does it? The story has been written out of history. The same is true of Colorado’s 1961 team, coached by former Daugherty assistant Sonny Grandelius, threatening to boycott the Orange Bowl in support of the Buffaloes’ five Black players. Miami backed down. That’s another story written out of history.

THE RIGHT THING TO DO includes Colorado in Chapter 6 and UCLA in Chapter 25. You won’t find the stories written elsewhere. The sports media avoided race in the 1960s.

Both Michigan State and UCLA have prouder records than USC, but all it takes is another airing of the 1970 USC-Alabama myths to indoctrinate a new group of fans with a fairytale.

At the end of the SEC Network Wishbone film, Switzer says with football emphasizing spreading out the field, he could still win with a updated version of the Wishbone. He said the same to me four years ago in my interview with him.

The film got that Oklahoma/Switzer part right, too.

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I invite you to follow me on Twitter @shanny4055

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.”

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

DUFFY CHILDREN’S BOOK purchase links: Order from Barnes and Noble here and Amazon here.