Hopefully, Nick Sheridan learned Duffy’s story from Willie Taggart and resisted, unlike Nick Saban, Alabama’s Bear Bryant indoctrination
PHOTO: Nick Sheridan spent the past two years coaching at Alabama.
***
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
— I will debate anybody, anytime, anywhere Duffy Daugherty led college football integration
— My FWAA first-place story on the 1962 Rose Bowl and segregation
— I’ll debate anybody, anytime, anywhere on the true timeline of college football integration in the 1960s. Don’t believe the Bear Bryant/1970 USC-Alabama game fairytales: Click here: Tom Shanahan Promo.mp4 – Google Drive
***
By TOM SHANAHAN
Note to Nick Sheridan, Michigan State’s new offensive coordinator:
You may have been through the doors of the Duffy Daugherty Building as a kid when your father, Bill Sheridan, was a Michigan State assistant coach, but do you know Duffy’s deeper story? Your own coaching stops as an assistant at South Florida (2013) and two years at Alabama (2024-25) exposed you to polar opposites of college football integration accounts.
One is Daugherty’s true story that changed the face of the game. The other is a fairytale about Alabama coach Bear Bryant that nevertheless curiously overshadows Daugherty’s legacy. The point here is Alabama preaches a false narrative, while Michigan State doesn’t teach its true history.
My hope is you gained a slice of Daugherty’s story while you coached under Willie Taggart at South Florida (2013).
Prior to USF’s 2013 Michigan State game at Spartan Stadium, I interviewed Taggart, who at the time was one of only 13 Black head coaches among 134 Division I schools. Coaches rarely agree to one-on-one phone interviews with reporters they don’t know, but apparently Taggart’s respect for Daugherty prompted him to do the interview.
Taggart called Spartan Stadium “hallowed ground.”
He added he gave his players a Michigan State history lesson, telling them Daugherty was ahead of his time with fully integrated rosters. This was an era when other schools followed an unwritten quota limiting Black athletes to a half-dozen or so.
Taggart further said he explained to his players they may think at times it’s tough dealing with racism, but they have no idea what Black pioneering athletes in the South endured to overcome Jim Crow and the Ku Klux Klan.
PHOTO: Willie Taggart considered South Florida’s 2013 game at Michigan State a chance to visit “hallowed ground.”
After all, these days most kids, Black and White alike, don’t understand segregation is recent history, not ancient.
Nick, hopefully you also learned during your time at Tennessee (2014-16) that Volunteers’ coach Doug Dickey was ahead of Bryant, desegregating his program in 1967. In 1969, Tennessee traveled to Legion Field in Birmingham and routed Alabama, 41-14. Linebacker Jackie Walker, the Southeastern Conference’s first Black All-American player, intercepted a first-quarter pass for a touchdown and a 21-0 lead.
MORE ON MICHIGAN STATE’S NEW COACHES
— My open letter to Pat Fitzgerald explaining Duffy’s unappreciated legacy – Tom Shanahan Report
Tennessee is one of Alabama’s longest rivalries, so everyone understood what happened: A team with Black players embarrassed Bryant’s all-White roster. The Tennessee result contradicts a fairytale made up two decades after the 1970 USC-Alabama game was played.
The myth claims Bryant came up with a secret plan to schedule USC as a game to lose to shock his fans into allowing him to recruit Black players. This fabrication overlooked the 1969 Tennessee game and that Bryant signed his first Black player prior to the 1970 season, Wilbur Jackson.
After all, by 1970, Alabama’s fans were used to integrated opponents rolling up 40-plus points. In addition to Tennessee in the 1969 regular season, integrated Colorado beat Alabama in the 1969 Liberty Bowl, 47-33.
But sloppy journalism regurgitating the 1970 USC-Alabama myths while ignoring 1960s milestones keeps the Bryant fairytale alive as an accepted narrative.
Even another Alabama Nick, Saban, who coached at Michigan State as an assistant (1983-87) and a head coach (1995-99), fell for the obfuscation. Saban’s comments endorsed a 2021 Alabama film claiming Bryant opened doors in the South in 1971 with his first two Black players, Jackson and junior college transfer John Mitchell.
“These guys were people who did something that nobody else was really willing to do that created so many opportunities and changed the lives of so many people and changed the mindset of a lot of other people and was a big step in desegregating the South,” Saban said. “And I think Coach Bryant should be commended for what he did to make that happen.”
Nobody else?
Here are a few: Maryland’s Darryl Hill, 1963; Wake Forest’s Bob Grant and Butch Henry, 1964; SMU’s Jerry LeVias, 1965; Kentucky’s Nate Northing and Greg Page, 1966; Tennessee’s Lester McClain, 1967; Auburn’s James Owens, 1969; Georgia Tech’s Eddie McAshan, 1970. In all, 33 of 37 major southern programs were integrated by 1970.
Commend Bryant? For following the law of the land? Bryant didn’t have a Black player on his football field until two years after we landed a man on the moon.
Southern coaches with less job security than Bryant stuck their necks out in the 1960s. In addition to the Duffy Disciples in the South — Dan Devine at Missouri, 1958; Bill Yeoman at Houston, 1964; and Earle Edwards at NC State, 1966 – there were other brave southern coaches desegregating programs before Bryant.
They included Wake Forest’s Bill Tate, 1964; SMU’s Hayden Fry, 1965; and Kentucky’s Charlie Bradshaw, 1966. By 1969, even Auburn’s Ralph “Shug” Jordan and Mississippi State’s Charles Shira of the Deep South were ahead of Bryant.
There were men who walked on the moon before Bryant had Black players on his football field.
This is how Pulitzer Prize-winner David Halberstam summed up Bryant’s impact on integration in a 2002 story he wrote for ESPN’s website:
“But the Bear was very late to the dance, especially because people are always talking about football coaches as leaders. In this case, he did not lead very well.”
Dan Devine’s Missouri teams, 1958 through 1960, were led by two Black stars, Mel West and Norris Stevenson, but the gullible media tells us Bryant led the way in 1971. When will ESPN, Sports Illustrated, The Athletic et al wake up?
Saban should know better than to regurgitate Bryant fiction. Former Michigan State head coach Mel Tucker told me he learned Duffy’s history from Saban when Tucker served as a graduate assistant, 1997 and 1998. I tried to contact Saban about Tucker’s comment, but I received no response.
Tucker had a chance to tell Duffy’s story when the Washington Post’s Candice Buckner wrote a 2022 story on Tucker as a rising Black coach influencing the future. The article didn’t touch on Duffy’s trailblazing. That’s not her fault. Tucker needed to tell her that story. A Washington Post story would have gained national attention. Buckner is a great columnist, so most likely Tucker kept the spotlight on himself.
Then, Tucker’s tenure blew up over a sexual harassment story two games into the 2023 season. Another opportunity was lost for a Michigan State figure to teach the nation the true story of Daugherty leading college football integration.
Tucker’s fumble gets worse. In a Buckner follow-up story on Tucker’s dismissal a year later, she mentioned a guest speaker spoke about Michigan State leading college football integration. Whoever it was, the speaker was most likely has only a cursory grasp of Daugherty story.
Why do I think that? I’ve talked to Tucker players. Among many milestones they didn’t know, one was Sherman Lewis and Jimmy Raye, players Daugherty recruited from the segregated South, were star players Duffy later hired as assistant coaches when there were few Black coaches. Lewis and Raye went on to pioneering careers as college and NFL Black coaches.
Daugherty opened doors for Black players and Black coaches.
The guest speaker may have heard about the 1966 Game of the Century but didn’t learn the social significance of the 1966 Game of the Century as a tipping point to the end of the unwritten quota limiting Black athletes to a half-dozen so.
I was hoping John Feinstein, who wrote about Jimmy Raye in his 2021 book “Raise a Fist, Take a Knee,” would someday write a story on Duffy in the Washington Post, but he passed away in 2024.
Nick, something else for you to understand: Don’t believe myths Bryant sent Duffy players. I keep repeating this comment because, unfortunately, you might hear the myth from Michigan State people. They fail to understand the fairytale makes Bryant sound like a crusader and Daugherty a passive bystander. It’s the other way around.
Bryant was unaware of Black players until a Civil Rights lawsuit brought against him by the Alabama Afro American Student Association in 1969 forced him to recruit Black players.
Bryant admitted in his deposition with Civil Rights attorney U.W. Clemon he was unaware of Black athletes to recruit. Clemon also said he was prepared to explain he was told by Alabama Black high school coaches that Bryant wasn’t serious about their players. The lawsuit went away when Bryant signed Jackson and Bo Matthews for the 1970 recruiting class (Matthews ended up at Colorado).
One reason the Bryant myths endure is sloppy journalism. One third of the media has been blinded by Bryant’s legend and suckered by the fairytales. One third knows it’s not true but fears taking on Bryant’s myth and his sycophants. The final one third is too young to know segregation is recent history, not ancient.
Nick, maybe the media will listen to you telling Duffy’s story. Tell them what Barry Switzer, whose 1970s teams personified opportunity, said about Duffy. It’s in Chapter 1, page 1, of “THE RIGHT THING TO DO, The True Pioneers of College Football Integration in the 1960s.”
“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.”
If it matters, though, if you tell the truth, you may get yourself banned from Alabama.
-30-
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.”
***
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.
