PHOTO: Michigan State president Kevin Guskiewicz with athletic director J Batt and his family upon Batt taking the helm of the Spartans’ athletic future.

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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.

— Watch a three-minute video to learn about our documentary at the fundraising stage, GAME CHANGERS OF THE CENTURY, and the Investment Deck.

— Documentary synopsis: Duffy documentary snynopsis.pdf – Google Drive

— How Duffy Daugherty and the MSU Team Changed College Football History

— My FWAA first-place story on the 1962 Rose Bowl and segregation

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“The past is the present, isn’t it? It’s the future, too.”

— Eugene O’Neill from a “Long Day’s Journey into Night.”

By TOM SHANAHAN

Michigan State football is back where it was in 1980. The Spartans suffered through another season without a bowl game and have gone a half-century without properly celebrating College Football Hall of Fame coach Duffy Daugherty’s identity at Michigan State.

If you’re asking what’s Duffy’s Michigan State identity, that’s my point. No coach or school did more for college football integration than Daugherty’s 1960s teams. But the nation doesn’t know it. And too many Spartans and Michigan State administrators over the years don’t understand it, either.

If you don’t want to believe me, listen to Oklahoma’s Barry Switzer, who served as offensive coordinator under Duffy Disciple Chuck Fairbanks (1967-71) and later earned an identity for his 1970s teams as a model of integration.

“Duffy did more for integration than any other coach in college football,” said Switzer, Page 1 of ‘THE RIGHT THING TO DO, The True Pioneers of College Football Integration in the 1960s.’ “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’s football identity preceded the Oklahoma’s 1970s teams and should match or surpass the established national identity of North Carolina basketball coach Dean Smith’s 1960s teams for leading integration in the South. I say surpass Smith because college football’s popularity and TV ratings far exceeded college basketball in those days.

Smith’s reputation grew with time once the 1970s media began highlighting his basketball leadership. Switzer’s identity grew in real time because the 1970s sports media addressed race more than it did in the 1960s.

Meanwhile, Michigan State squandered Duffy’s legacy through negligence. As a consequence, the media overlooked his role and allowed fairytales about Alabama coach Bear Bryant and the 1970 USC-Alabama game and sloppy journalism regurgitating the myth to shove Daugherty and the true 1960s pioneers in the South into the shadows.

Let’s hope Michigan State’s past isn’t the present moving forward under President Kevin Guskiewicz, on the job for a year or so, and athletic director J batt, on the job for six months.

The difference between now and then is Darryl Rogers, Michigan State’s coach from 1976 to 1979, foresaw a dim future without the players he inherited from Denny Stolz. Rogers jumped ship for Arizona State after the 1979 Spartans lost six of their last eight games to finish 5-6. He wasn’t sticking around to feel the hot seat due to further decline in 1980.

In 2025, no one yet knows if Michigan State head coach Jonathan Smith will return for a third year. Credit Guskiewicz and Batt for remaining in sync. They have so far prevented credible speculation from appearing in the media.

They’re making the decision – not mob rule like at Penn State or LSU. Modern college football, having lost its dignity, has shifted to being driven by donors and players earning NFL-like money.

Long gone are simpler times when a coach was granted time to implement his program. This story won’t identify Michigan State’s coach a week from now, but it’s worth looking back at how times have not necessarily changed for the better.

A prime example to cite is Colorado coach Bill McCartney, whose story includes a Michigan State twist of cruel irony. I’ll explain the irony related to the Spartans later. First, let establish McCartney getting off the hot seat in 1984 to enshrinement in the College Football Hall of Fame, in 2013.

In 1985, Colorado granted McCartney a fourth season despite a 1-10 record in 1984 that was a regression from 2-8-1 and 4-7 his first two years. Colorado and McCartney rebounded in that 1985 season to 7-5.

PHOTO: Colorado coach Bill McCartney rebounded from a 1-10 record in 1984 to win a national title in 1991.

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By 1989, Colorado was 11-0 and ranked No. 1 before losing to No. 4 Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl. Notre Dame coach Lou Holtz was so stunned by Colorado’s turnaround a hot mic picked him up telling his players Colorado was a fraud.

A year later McCartney’s Buffaloes (11-1-1) shared the 1991 national title with Georgia Tech.

I spent time around those Colorado teams chasing national titles in my San Diego newspaper days, traveling to Boulder. The draw was two San Diegans from the area’s famed Samoan football talent pool.

Sal Aunese was the Buffaloes’ quarterback until he was stricken with stomach cancer and died in 1989. Okland Salavea was a starting defensive lineman, who returned to American Samoa as a teacher and coach.

The late Junior Seau wanted to join his Samoan friends, but the future Pro Football Hall of Famer’s father preferred he stay closer to home. Seau played up the freeway at USC, 77 miles from Oceanside.

This gets me to explaining how McCartney’s story crossed paths with Michigan State. Who knows how the 1980s would have differed for both Colorado and Michigan State without Michigan head coach Bo Schembechler sabotaging McCartney pursuing the Spartans’ vacant job in 1980.

McCartney, who was then a Michigan assistant coach (1974-76) and defensive coordinator (1977-81), expressed interest, according to a 2013 book, “Go Blue! Michigan’s Greatest Football Stories.”

But Bo feared McCartney was another Biggie Munn, who was a former Michigan assistant (1938-45). Munn was the head coach at Syracuse (1946) before Michigan State president John Hannah lured him back to the Big Ten. Munn (1947-53) turned the Spartans into a national power. Munn’s 1952 team won AP and UPI national titles.

McCartney is quoted in the book: “I was asked if I was interested in the Michigan State job that Muddy Waters ended up getting. I said, ‘Sure.’ A Detroit sports columnist then wrote about how Michigan State ought to go after me. Bo said they shouldn’t, though, and I was happy to be where I was.”

Bo was right (you won’t read me writing that often). McCartney turned out to be another Biggie Munn — but in Boulder, Colorado.

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— PART II: Past is prelude, and Michigan State is back to 1980 – Tom Shanahan Report

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I invite you to follow me on Twitter @shanny4055

I’ll put my facts on the true pioneers of college football integration versus Bear Bryant fairytales against anybody, anytime, anywhere. Watch here.

Click here for my story on the 1962 Rose Bowl and Segregation and Alabama.

— 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.” They are the most accurate accounts of college football integration in the 1950s and 1960s. They also debunk myths about the 1970 USC-Alabama game. The false narrative co-opted the stories of the true pioneers who stood up to Jim Crow and the KKK.

— Two children’s books also explain Michigan State College Football Hall of Fame coach Duffy Daugherty’s impact on integration through the Underground Railroad and the Hawaiian Pipeline: “DUFFY’S COLLEGE FOOTBALL UNDERGROUND RAILROAD” and “HOW DUFFY PUT HAWAII ON AMERICA’S FOOTBALL MAP.”

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PURCHASE LINKS, non-fiction books

— RAYE OF LIGHT, August Publications or on Amazon.

— THE RIGHT THING TO DO, August Publications or on Amazon.

PURCHASE LINKS, children’s books

— DUFFY’S COLLEGE FOOTBALL UNDERGROUND RAILROAD, Order from Barnes and Noble here and Amazon here. 

— HOW DUFFY PUT HAWAII ON AMERICA’S FOOTBALL MAP, coming soon on Barnes and Noble and Amazon.