Wake Forest’s players appreciate their school’s history leading integration in the South
PHOTO: Wake Forest running back Demond Claiborne celebrates with fans after a win a year ago.
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By TOM SHANAHAN
CHARLOTTE – A month ago, pioneering Wake Forest football coach Bill Tate passed away at age 93. His legacy was he stood up to the Ku Klux Klan and Jim Crow in the South while his colleagues waited on time.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. admonished good White southerners who remained silent and waited on time to solve the South’s racial problems.
But do Gen Z football athletes throughout the South understand where their school was on the 1960s timeline of college football integration?
Do Wake Forest players know their school was at the forefront in 1964 as the first major southern conference school to desegregate? Although it’s true Maryland played Darryl Hill in 1963 as the ACC’s first Black player, Hill was a senior transfer from Navy. He was a polished product. Wake Forest recruited Black talent out of high school and developed players. Maryland, which was then an ACC member, didn’t recruit another Black player until later in the decade.
Do today’s Demon Deacons understand their Winston-Salem, N.C., school was six years ahead of Alabama and coach Bear Bryant, although the national media negligently regurgitates myths Bryant opened doors in the South through the 1970 USC-Alabama game?
Considering Tate’s recent death, I informally surveyed the four Wake Forest players invited to the ACC Kickoff media days Wednesday at the Hilton Charlotte Uptown. I wanted to learn what they knew about Tate and their alma mater.
Three of the returning players, Nick Anderson, Demond Claiborne and Devaughn Patterson, said they arrived on campus not knowing Wake Forest’s history, but former coach Dave Clawson taught his players before retiring at the end of the 2024 season. The returning trio as well as newcomer Devin Kylany added new head coach Jake Dickert, who arrived from Washington State, has picked up the torch.
“We learned there’s a reason why Wake Forest helped make it so a White person could sit next to a Black person,” said Claiborne, a senior third-team All-ACC running back last year from Aylett, Virginia. “These are things Coach Clawson instilled in us and Coach Dickert continues to teach us. Wake Forest gave (Black players) an opportunity to change their lives. To have all this history tied to this university as a Black man, it is very special to me.”
I stressed to the players these weren’t “gotcha questions.” I understand Gen Z Black and White kids alike don’t understand Jim Crow segregation is recent history, not ancient.
“The more I learn, the more I realize it’s not that long ago – this was from my grandparent’s time,” said Patterson a returning starter as a redshirt sophomore defensive back from Jacksonville, Florida. “I think it’s important for our generation to learn more and that includes myself.”
After all, how can they learn the legacy of Tate, who died on June 23, when there wasn’t a word written in national media outlets. Nothing on ESPN’s website or Sportscenter, in the New York Times sports page run by The Athletic or Sports Illustrated.
The first drafts in history got it wrong in 1964 when the sports media avoided race and failed to record pioneering milestones such at Wake Forest and Houston, both in 1964, desegregating. And the national media continues to fumble history.
Senior defensive back Nick Andersen, a third-team All-ACC pick a year ago, arrived at the Winston-Salem campus from Centreville, Virginia.
PHOTO: Wake Forest’s defensive back Nick Andersen returns as a third-team All-ACC pick.
“Wake Forest has always been a trailblazing school,” Andersen. “Our history is storied. I like having something like (Tate’s legacy) to take pride in and to be happy to call him one of our own.”
In 2021, Wake Forest presented its inaugural Trailblazers Award to Bob Grant and Butch Henry, who were freshmen in Tate’s 1964 recruiting class. He recruited Grant out of Jacksonville, N.C., and Henry out of Greensboro.
PHOTO: Bill Tate (second from lef) attended the 2021 ceremony in a Wake Forest game when Bob Grant (middle) was honored with the school’s inaugural Trailblazer Award.
Of the foursome, redshirt senior Devin Kylany is the newcomer. He followed Dickert from Washington State through the transfer portal.
THE END GAME PODCAST WITH BILL TATE, 2025
“I didn’t know anything about it when I got here, but around our building you see a lot of things about the change that Wake Forest has led. I’m extremely proud to be part of the university that wasn’t scared to take the initiative to incorporate everyone into this great game.”
In addition to national media failing to construct an accurate college football integration narrative carrying over into its lore, the media allowed a myth that Bryant opened doors by orchestrating events around the 1970 USC-Alabama game to be accepted as fact. At Alabama, they teach the myth as if Bryant carried the flag. The media continues to regurgitate the unvetted myth that was crafted two decades after the game was played rather than set the record straight.
Alabama’s players no doubt have no idea their rival Southeastern Conference schools were far ahead of Alabama. Bryant was the seventh of 10 SEC coaches to recruit his first Black player. He trailed Tate by six years and Auburn coach Shug Jordan by one. Auburn, Alabama’s in-state SEC rival, signed James Owens in 1969.
Auburn played host on Alabama turf to integrated Wake Forest in 1966 — four years before USC-Alabama — and integrated Southern Methodist and All-American receiver Jerry LeVias in 1968 — two years before USC-Alabama.
THE END GAME PODCAST WITH BOB GRANT, 2024
The premise of the 1970 USC-Alabama myth was Bryant scheduled USC as a game to lose. He wanted to shock his bigoted fanbase into allowing him to recruit Black players. The denouement was USC’s Sam Cunningham, a sophomore Black fullback, ran over Alabama in a 42-21 rout. But the myth ignores Bryant had already signed Wilbur Jackson as his first Black player in his 1970 class before USC arrived. In fact, Bryant signed Jackson and Bo Matthews to SEC Letters of Intent on December 13, 1969, although Matthews ended up playing at Colorado.
Not surprisingly, the one player of the Wake Forest foursome familiar with the myth was Kylany, who has a Pac-10 background from his Washington State days. USC played in the Pac-10 until 2024.
“I’m not aware of the names (Bryant and Cunningham), but my current understanding is Alabama didn’t allow African American players until it lost to a team with African Americans and they said, ‘Well, we want to win.’”
That simple parable is easier to repeat word of mouth than Wake Forest’s story and helps explain how the Bryant myth grew entrenched.
Claiborne responded, “I didn’t know about that (myth), but I want to learn more about it.”
But it’s discouraging more than refreshing to learn Gen Z athletes may be unaware of the 1970 USC-Alabama game as a myth. Discouraging because outside of Wake Forest’s example, many of today’s athletes don’t learn the courage of the 1960s pioneers who changed the face of the game and by the extension of sports’ influence on society, the country.
Worse, they might turn on ESPN, HBO, Showtime or the SEC Network and watch a film that’s a fairytale casting Bryant as a crusader. The SEC Network released a new one last week ostensibly about the Wishbone offense, but it’s focus slyly shifts to selling the Bryant myth.
That’s how fiction continues to be accepted fact. When Cunningham died in 2021, his obituary was prominent on all the major media outlets, even though Cunningham died learning about the myth versus true 1960s pioneer Black athletes through friend Grant and Reggie Berry while three retired NFL players living in Southern California and worked on Bearry’s Goals-for-Life education charity outreach program. Berry said Cunningham felt he had been used by the mythmakers.
Maybe it’s time for the ACC Network to celebrate Wake Forest, Bill Tate, Bob Grant and Butch Henry. They are pioneers unjustly lost in the shadows of misinformation.
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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
