1966 MICHIGAN BASKETBALL ROSTER SKIN

It was a new place to go.'ĭaugherty formed connections with many of the top black high school coaches by holding separate clinics for them at coaching events where they were otherwise barred. 'If they could have played down South, they would have probably stayed down there,' said Hank Bullough, an assistant under Daugherty from 1959 to 1969. Future College Football Hall of Famer Don Coleman played tackle at MSU from 1949 to 1951.īut in the early 1960s, Daugherty made a recruiting push to the segregated South and brought in players who helped put Michigan State back on top of the college football ladder. He led Michigan State to a national title in 1952 and became the first black quarterback in the NFL with the Chicago Bears in 1953. Willie Thrower was the first black quarterback to play in the Big Ten in 1950. In 1913, Spartans tackle Gideon Smith became one of the first black men to play college football. Michigan State had a long history of accepting black athletes before those seasons. We didn't think about the history that was being made. 'But at the time, when you're 18 or 19 years old, you're just playing. 'Duffy used to always tell us that if you play with enthusiasm and you play as a team, our names would be printed in indelible ink and would last for a lifetime,' Raye said.

In contrast, the team that earned national championship honors in 1964 - Alabama - came from the Southeastern Conference, which didn't integrate until 1966. The 1966 roster featured 17 black players, 10 from the South. The 1965 roster included 18 black players, nine from Southern states (Texas, South Carolina, Louisiana, Virginia and North Carolina). Led by coach Duffy Daugherty, Michigan State won national championships in 1965 (UPI) and 1966 (National Football Foundation) with some of the most racially and geographically integrated teams in all of college football. 'We wanted to be the best in the country.'Īnd they were. We didn't talk about that all the time, but we knew we had something to prove, and this is our opportunity. We bonded at Michigan State because we all had similar stories. 'All of the states where we were from, they would not take black athletes.

'All the Southern players, we were outcasts from our own states,' said former Michigan State wide receiver Gene Washington, a native of La Porte, Texas.

1966 MICHIGAN BASKETBALL ROSTER SKIN

Michigan State provided an opportunity - to play college football at the highest level - not afforded to them in their home states because of their skin color. They came to Michigan State's lush campus in the early 1960s from places like Beaumont, Texas Fayetteville, N.C. While racial and civil unrest raged around them, they lived in a green zone of sorts - an 'atmosphere of acceptance,' as former quarterback Jimmy Raye put it - a world apart from their homes in more ways than one. AP Photo/Michigan State Universityīut as young men, they anchored themselves in the moment. As old men, they've come to appreciate how their Michigan State teams, which blended white, black, North and South, reflected a changing America during a defining decade.

1966 michigan basketball roster