Here’s how Sam Cunningham greeted Sherman Lewis at the Pearly Gates Gridiron
PHOTO: USC College Football Hall of Famer and Rose Bowl Hall of Famer Sam “Bam” Cunningham.
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— Click here for book 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
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“History writes people out of the story. It’s our job to write them back in.”
— David Maraniss, Pulitzer Prize winner
By TOM SHANAHAN
The first heavenly football legend to greet Michigan State icon Sherman Lewis at the Pearly Gates Gridiron was USC’s Sam “Bam” Cunningham, a College Football Hall of Famer. Lewis, a pioneer Black athlete and coach from segregated Louisville, Kentucky, died on May 15 at age 83.
“I apologize,” Sam said to Lewis. “The 1970 USC-Alabama-Bear Bryant fairytale gave me a place in history I don’t deserve. It belongs to guys like you – the true 1960s pioneers of college football integration.”
Cunningham explained he was bothered by obituaries on Lewis limited to mentioning his 1963 All-American season and winning four Super Bowl rings as an NFL assistant coach. The stories failed to note Lewis’ larger role influencing Michigan State coach Duffy Daugherty 1960s teams that were college football’s first fully integrated rosters.
“I learned about you from Bubba and George,” said Sam, referring to Michigan State College Football Hall of Famers George Webster, who died in 2007, and Bubba Smith, who died in in 2011. “They said when you were a senior and they were freshmen you set a standard that helped them win their 1965 and 1966 national titles.”
Lewis also was an athlete/coach mentor to Michigan State Hall of Famer Jimmy Raye, the South’s first Black quarterback to win a national title on the 1965 and 1966 teams. Lewis, hired by Daugherty on his staff in 1969, was joined by Raye in 1972. Raye (2022) and Lewis (2023) both earned NFL Awards of Excellence from the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Michigan State’s Tyrone Willingham, the first Black coach to lead a team to the Rose Bowl with Stanford’s 1999 Pac-10 champions, considered Lewis and Raye mentors.
— The Drive with Jack’s tribute to Sherman Lewis – Tom Shanahan Report
— Sherman Lewis, a Michigan State trailblazing athlete and coach, dies at 83 – Tom Shanahan Report
“Thanks, Sam,” Lewis said. “I took advantage of the opportunity Duffy gave me. His 1960s teams were college football’s first fully integrated rosters and showed the way — coast to coast — to the 1970s. But the guys who did the dirty work playing on the road in the South — enduring cheap shots and fan abuse — were Maryland’s Darryl Hill (1963), Wake Forest’s Bob Grant (1964), Houston’s Warren McVea (1964), Southern Methodist’s Jerry LeVias (1965) and others. They blazed trails long before the 1970 USC-Alabama game.”
Sam nodded his head, explaining he was similarly dismayed the trailblazing career of Wake Forest’s Bob Grant, who died in 2024, was ignored by ESPN, The Athletic, Sports Illustrated and other national media outlets. Sam, who died in 2021 at age 71, was embarrassed those same outlets posted banner headlines hailing him as a driving force to southern integration.
“Bob was the first Black player from a major southern conference to earn all-league honors as a 1966 All-ACC defensive lineman,” Sam said. “When the Baltimore Colts took him in the 1968 NFL draft’s second round, he was the first Black player from a major southern conference taken by an NFL team. He was followed by Warren McVea in the fourth round by the Kansas City Chiefs.”
I based this imaginary story of Sam Cunningham and Sherman Lewis meeting in heaven based on many interviews over the years with true pioneers of college football integration in the 1960s, including the late Bob Grant and added insight from their mutual friend, Reggie Berry.
They instructed Cunningham on 1960s progress in the segregated South the 1970 myth overlooked. Other books blithely claim Bear Bryant changed the South and race relations in a single night. Regarding race, America doesn’t change overnight. Bryant, in his 1974 biography, didn’t mention a word about the 1970 USC-Alabama game. He also didn’t cite it in a 1980 Time Magazine cover story. Bryant died in 1983. The myth wasn’t made up and spread until the late 1980s/early 1990s.
Lane Demas, an author of books integration in sports and a Central Michigan University Ph.D., said this about the myth:
“Alabama football integrated because an organized, sustained movement of Black Americans nationwide forced it to, against its will. That’s the only answer that makes sense if you study the broader historical context.
“The USC-Alabama story is in a long line of White myths that serve to deny Black people their agency in terms of changing America. Focusing on figures like Branch Rickey and Bear Bryant creates a narratives in which it is ultimately White people who make cautious, thoughtful, calculating decisions to create and integrate their own teams. They become the agents of change, not Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, or thousands who struggled in the streets.”
One of the USC backers who helped drive the 1970 myth into folklore 30-some years ago admitted to me recently he didn’t know Michigan State’s 1960s rosters included 20-some Black players.
Sam paused.
“All I did was run through a 1970 door opened by the true 1960s pioneers,” Sam said.
Sam noted Grant’s death was ignored in the national media, even though the NCAA honored Grant in 2022 with its Inspirational Award. Andy Katz, the long-time nationally prominent writer and TV journalist, introduced him.
Andy Katz introduces Bob Grant at the 1:15 mark.
“Sherm, you deserve a similar award,” Sam said.
Lewis asked Cunningham how he came to realize the 1970 USC-Alabama-Bear Bryant game was a fairytale. Sam explained he and Grant did volunteer work for Reggie Berry, a former NFL player whose “Goals for Life” program provides academic support in the Los Angeles area. By then, the popular misconception worked its way into the national folklore with the aid of poorly researched sports writing.
“Reggie is still on Earth doing heavenly work,” Sam said. “One day the three of us were talking. Reggie told me, “Bob and other guys integrated the South; Bob was at Wake Forest in 1964. I began to rethink the 1970 USC-Alabama myth. I looked at Reggie and said, ‘You’re probably right.’
“In 2016, I expressed my discomfort with the myth in a Los Angeles Times interview,” Sam continued. “I was quoted, ‘It’s already a historic story without adding sauce to it, you know what I mean? Everybody wants to make it more than what it is. And what it was, was very, very important anyway.’”
The media seems oblivious to the fact Bryant was the seventh of 10 Southeastern Conference schools to recruit his first Black player, in 1970. Even in-state rival Auburn was ahead of Bryant with James Owens, in 1969.”
To say the end of Jim Crow football began with Bear Bryant in 1970 is like saying World War II started on D-Day.
Sam noted a 2002 ESPN article by David Halberstam, the Pulitzer Prize-winner who cut his teeth covering the Civil Rights movement. Halberstam wrote, “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.”
The sloppy journalism doesn’t stop there.
The media didn’t listen to Neil McCready of the Mobile Press Register. In 2003, prior to a USC game at Auburn, McCready asked Cunningham about the claim Bryant took him into the Alabama locker room to “show his players what a football player looked like.” The supposed humor — which failed to recognize the scene of Sam standing on a bench stripped to the waist was tinged with slavery images — drove the myth word-of-mouth into college football lore.
“I told Neil it never happened. McCready also wrote that Bryant had signed his first Black player, Wilbur Jackson, before the game was scheduled. McCready should have won an award for debunking the myth, but the media glossed over it.”
Cunningham noted the tale overlooked Alabama high schools desegregated by the late 1960s. Bryant’s younger players had competed with and against Black athletes. They didn’t need enlightenment. Bryant did.
“It sounds a lot like Boston Globe legendary sportswriter Bob Ryan trying to educate younger fans about the NBA on Twitter,” said Cunningham, who played in the NFL with the New England Patriots. “When they post Shaquille O’Neal was the greatest, Bob replies sharply about Bill Russell and other early NBA legends. But they don’t seem to listen. “
The 1970 myth started in the late 1980s with USC boosters until a 1990s leap into the media through columnist Loel Schrader of the Long Beach Press-Telegram. The myth kept growing as HBO (2008), Showtime (2013) and ESPN (2019 and 2020) jumped on board with films.
Sam said in HBO’s film, “Breaking the Huddle,” he made the mistake of dancing around the question.
“But in the 2013 Showtime film, “Against the Tide,” Sam added, “I said I didn’t go into their locker room, I didn’t shake any of their guys’ hands, I didn’t get put up on a pedestal or nothing. But kind of that got surfaced and kept rolling for 30-some years.”
Lewis asked, “Didn’t the media note you said 30-some years later rather than 40-some, which was needed to date to 1970?
Sam rolled his eyes, noting Tom Selleck, a USC alum, narrated the film.
“Among other errors Selleck read in the script, he says, “It wasn’t as if Bear Bryant and Alabama stood alone. Nearly all of the SEC schools were equally slow to integrate. Selleck should have sent that back for a rewrite. In addition to Alabama as the seventh of 10 SEC schools, 33 of 37 major southern programs included Black players by 1970.”
ESPN TV, in a 2020 feature narrated by Jeremy Schapp, recognized the 50th anniversary of the 1970 USC-Alabama game. And there’s more about that date, September 12, 1970, to put into context.
“On the same day we played Alabama, Stanford’s No. 10-ranked team upset No. 4 Arkansas 34-28 at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock. Stanford’s Hillary Shockley, a Black fullback from Los Angeles, outdid my numbers with 149 total yards with three touchdowns.
“Stanford-Arkansas was nationally televised by ABC-TV from Little Rock’s War Memorial Stadium, while USC-Alabama was limited to local radio. Sports Illustrated legendary writer Dan Jenkins covered Stanford-Arkansas – not USC-Alabama. Stanford-Arkansas was reported in the Los Angeles Times by Bill Shirley, the sports editor.
“And that same day in Atlanta, Georgia Tech’s Eddie McAshan was the Deep South’s first Black starting quarterback. He led the unranked Yellow Jackets to a 23-20 upset of No. 17 South Carolina’s integrated roster.”
There’s more, Sam added. He noted Stanford won the 1970 and 1971 Pac-8 titles. USC wasn’t a juggernaut – only 6-4-1 in both the 1970 and 1971 seasons — and didn’t earn bowl bids.
Then, he noted USC’s Charle Young, a sophomore tight end in 1970 who went onto the College Football Hall Fame, explained a racial divide on the 1970 and 1971 teams when he appeared on a 2025 podcast, “100 Yards of Football.” Young said when USC began recruiting more Black players in 1969 and 1970, older White players didn’t like losing their starting jobs to younger Black players.
Sloppy journalism ignores of the 18 Black players on the 1970 USC roster, 15 arrived in 1969 or 1970. Nine were junior college transfers (four in 1969, five in 1970) and two transfers from four-year schools. There were only four Black high school recruits in USC’s 1969 class, which included Cunningham and Young.
Until the late 1960s, USC, like other schools, followed an unwritten quota limiting Black athletes to a half-dozen or so. That explains why USC numbered only five Black players on its 1962 national title team and seven on the 1967 national championship roster despite a campus based in populous and diverse Los Angeles.
“Charle was an honest man — just like you, Sam,” Lewis said.
Sam continued, “The entire premise of the 1970 USC-Alabama myth was Bryant scheduled USC as a game to lose at Legion Field in Birmingham. He wanted to shock his bigoted Alabama fans watching an integrated roster overrun his all-White team into allowing him to recruit Black players. But that ignores Tennessee’s integrated roster routed Alabama 41-14 at Legion Field in 1969.”
Tennessee linebacker Jackie Walker, the SEC’s first Black All-American player, intercepted a pass he returned for a 21-0 lead in the first quarter.”
“Jackie is another true pioneer lost to history,” Sam said, “He made more All-American teams than I did, but he’s not in the College Football Hall of Fame.”
Tennessee built statues to Lester McClain, the SEC’s first Black player to score a touchdown, in 1968; Jackie Walker pictured), the SEC’s first Black football All-American; Condredge Holloway, the SEC’s first Black starting quarterback; and Tee Martin, the SEC’s first Black quarterback to win a national title.
Cunningham went on to say after talking with Bubba and George, he learned college football integration’s tipping point was the 1966 Game of the Century matching Notre Dame at Michigan State. A record TV audience of 33 million watched.
Michigan State lined up 20 Black players, 11 Black starters, two Black team captains, College Football Hall of Famers George Webster and Clinton Jones, and Jimmy Raye recruited out of segregated Fayetteville, N.C., as the South’s first Black quarterback to win a national title.
“Bubba and George also explained to me Duffy was the first coach to ignore the quota limitations on Black athletes of a half-dozen or so,” Sam said. “I said to myself, ‘That’s why there were so few Black players on the roster when I got there as a freshman in 1969. There were only four USC Black starters in the 1970 Alabama game.”
Lewis added he hoped ESPN, The Athletic, Sports Ilustrated can capture the essence of the 60th anniversary of the 1966 Game of the Century when Michigan State plays on September 19 at Notre Dame.
Sam rolled his eyes as if to say, “Only if it finds a way to work Bear Bryant into the story.”
Something else the media ignored was the 1971 season. Alabama beat the Trojans at the Coliseum, 17-10, even though USC had more Black players and Black starters, including Cunningham, in 1971 than in 1970.
Lewis, everybody’s friend, put his hand on Cunningham’s shoulder.
“Sam, nobody should consider you contributing to the myth,” he said. “You were used and swept up in the fairytale by sloppy journalism promoting a fairytale.”
They pivoted toward the Pearly Gates Gridiron.
Lewis said, “Let’s go find Duffy, Bubba and George.”
“And Bob,” Cunningham added.
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With time, Reggie Berry, who played at Long Beach State and for the San Diego Chargers, also discussed the Bryant myth with Scott Hunter, the 1970 Alabama quarterback and NFL veteran. Hunter helped Berry campaign for Berry to earn his seat on the retired NFL Players Association board.
Hunter is quoted in print and film that Cunningham never came into the Alabama locker room.
Berry said he recently took a train trip with his wife from Toronto to Vancouver, British Columbia. Along the way he met and talked with a passenger who turned out to be former Alabama player Rod Steakley, a receiver and halfback on the 1970 and 1971 Alabama teams.
Steakley is a nationally prominent lawyer in Huntsville, Alabama, whose clients have included Texas oil and gas tycoon H.L. Hunt. Steakley and Berry talked football, including the myth surrounding 1970 USC-Alabama.
Berry said that Steakley, speaking of the myth, told him, “It’s fictious.”
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These two stories reveal how little Bear Bryant cared about Black athletes prior to the 1970s:
— My FWAA first-place story on the 1962 Rose Bowl and segregation
— Bo Knows: Matthews bares his thoughts on Bear Bryant’s 1970 recruiting audible – Tom Shanahan Report
— My nod to Larry David: My Dinner with The Bear – Tom Shanahan Report
— The true pioneers of college football integration are lost to history until major media outlets recognize 1970 USC-Alabama Game is a Bear Bryant fairytale. My lengthy catalogue of 1970 USC-Alabama myths and Bear Bryant fairytales – 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. Order here:
How Duffy Put Hawaii On America’s Football Map by Tom Shanahan, Paperback | Barnes & Noble®
Amazon.com: How Duffy Put Hawaii On America’s Football Map eBook : Shanahan, Tom: Kindle Store
Tom,
Your history and insights hit the mark every time .
As a 90 year old, my interactions were mostly in the 1950’s. When I graduated new Bern High School in 1954, I received a letter from Bear Bryant inviting me to Tuscaloosa to “try out” for a scholarship (travel at my expense :>)). I didn’t go and did receive a scholarship from new NC State Coach from Michigan State.
Also worked Integration through basketball and NC State’s Everett Case. He had my Dad and me meet with New Bern’s Walt Bellamy in 1956 ( he went on to greatness at Indiana).
In 1958 Coach Case asked for different help because he had invited Cincinnati (with Oscar Robinson) and Michigan State (with Johnny Green). No Raleigh hotel would house an integrated team, and Coach Case have us open our Delta Sigma Phi fraternity house to house the teams.
Many, many stories from the ’50’s :>))