Jim Bibbs and Jimmy Raye join THE END GAME, Episode 36
PHOTO: Jim Bibbs with Marshall Dill (L) and Herb Washington.
***
Visit my homepage: TomShanahan.Report
— Click here for review and purchase link: THE RIGHT THING TO DO, The True Pioneers of College Football Integration in the 1960s and here for a purchase link to RAYE OF LIGHT, Jimmy Raye, Duffy Daugherty, the Integration of College Football and the 1965-66 Michigan State Spartans.
— Learn about our documentary at the fundraising stage, GAME CHANGERS OF THE CENTURY, and the Investment Deck.
***
By TOM SHANAHAN
Episode 36 of THE END GAME, our podcast on race and sports, features two Michigan State Hall of Famers, Jim Bibbs and Jimmy Raye.
Bibbs, 96, was the school’s first Black head coach. After winning state track and field titles at Ecorse High in 1966 and 1967, Bibbs was hired as a Spartans assistant coach by athletic director Biggie Munn. He later was promoted to head coach before he retired after the 1995 season.
Raye’s Michigan State legend spans his athletic and coaching days. Michigan State coach Duffy Daugherty recruited him aboard his Underground Railroad out the Spartans’ famed Underground Railroad in 1964 out of segregated Fayetteville, N.C. Raye was the South’s first Black quarterback to win a national title on the 1965 and 1966 teams.
***
Click here:
***
Daugherty’s influence continued when he promoted Raye from a part-time assistant coach to full-time in 1972. Daugherty had previously hired Don Coleman, a College Football Hall of Famer for the Spartans, as his first Black assistant coach in 1968. After a year, Coleman decided college coaching demands weren’t in his blood and he went into a long-time career as an MSU administrator.
PHOTO: Michigan State sprinter Randy Smith.
Daugherty replaced Coleman with Sherman Lewis, Michigan State’s first All-American Underground Railroad player. Lewis, a senior halfback from Louisville, Kentucky, was third in the Heisman Trophy voting to Navy quarterback Roger Staubach.
With Lewis and Raye on Daugherty’s 1972 staff, Michigan State numbered two Black assistants at a time many schools were hiring their first Black assistant.
Coaching is an old-boys network, so with all the coaches White into the 1960s, the status quo remained. it took the conscious search for the early Black coaches to eventually extend the old-boys network to include candidates of color.
Click here for the full archive of 36 episodes of THE END GAME
Bibbs discusses coaching world-class sprinters Herb Washington, Marshall Dill and Randy Smith and 1984 Olympic silver medalist Judi Brown Clark (formerly Brown-King). Washington also won a 1974 World Series ring when the Oakland A’s signed him as a designated runner.
Raye discussed Daugherty opening doors for Lewis and him as athletes and coaches. Both moved on to long-time NFL careers, including as pioneer Black offensive coordinators.
Raye correctly noted Lewis was the first Black offensive coordinator to earn a Super Bowl ring as the Green Bay Packers OC in Super Bowl XXXI (the 1996 season). Ray Rhodes was the first Black defensive coordinator with a Super Bowl ring in Super Bowl XXIX (1994 season) while with the San Francisco 49ers.
Raye was honored by the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2022 in its inaugural NFL Awards of Excellence class. Lewis was honored in the second class, in 2023.
-30-
Tom Shanahan is an award-winning sportswriter with two books on college football integration, “RAYE OF LIGHT, Jimmy Raye, Duffy Daugherty, the Integration of College Football and the 1965-66 Michigan State Spartans,” and “THE RIGHT THING TO DO, The True Pioneers of College Football Integration in the 1960s,” and a children’s book, “DUFFY’S COLLEGE FOOTBALL UNDERGROUND RAILROAD.” Shanahan’s 2022 story on the 1962 Rose Bowl, Alabama and segregation was awarded first place for Enterprise from the Football Writers Association of America.
***
I invite you to follow me on Twitter @shanny4055
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.
***
***
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
***
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.
