New Book on MSU's (Duffy Daugherty) Role in the Racial Integration of CFB.

However, there’s a significant and often overlooked part of this saga that took place at Michigan State. A new book by Tom Shanahan, “Raye of Light,” examines how Duffy Daugherty built the great Spartans teams of the 1960s by actively recruiting elite African-American players such as Bubba Smith and George Webster. The starting quarterback on his great 1966 team was Jimmy Raye, an African-American. That team had 20 African-American players at a time when even Northern schools had limited minorities on their rosters. The book is a fascinating story about how Daugherty had a huge role in integrating the game. Here’s a Q/A with Shanahan.

It’s a shame there is no Big Ten Award named for Duffy Daugherty and Murray Warmath. Instead, the Big Ten Coach of the Year Award is named for Woody Hayes, a bully fired for punching an opposing player on the sidelines, and Bo Schembecher, who never won a national title.

Robert J Sakimano wrote:great insight from a great Spartan..

Turtleneck wrote:

It is an interesting story, and probably worthy of more discussion on the BTN than looking ahead to the 2022 recruiting class.

MiamiSpartan wrote:followed by text on the screen highlighting their NFL careers.

MiamiSpartan wrote:I've been saying for years this story needs to be made into a movie. It has so many Hollywood ingredients. Apart from the race and discrimination issues that Hollywood loves to use (and that is not a bad thing by any means), you have a pretty recognizable household name that people know beyond football (Bubba). You have an incredibly charismatic coach who is known for famous quotes. You can toss in a brief side story about two other household names in Joe Namath and Bear Bryant with that whole connection. You have a national championship, as well as the most famous college football game of all time (against Notre Dame, no less). You have four African American players from MSU drafted in the Top 10 during the same year (still a record for one school, I believe), three of which were from the segregated South, which would provide a nice final scene to the movie, wrapping up their journey from facing discrimination growing up and not thinking they'd ever be able to play major college ball, to the dream of being drafted, followed by text on the screen highlighting their NFL careers.

Other Teams Pursuing That wrote:

Sounds like some good pub for MSU. Why don't you produce?

Turtleneck wrote:Maya Washington, Gene Washington's daughter, is making a documentary about her father and the role of MSU in racial integration in the U.S.

Interview with father and daughter in the link below.

http://wkar.org/post/daughter-spartan-football-legend-honors-dad-documentary

Turtleneck wrote:Chicago Tribune has posted an interview with the author.

However, there’s a significant and often overlooked part of this saga that took place at Michigan State. A new book by Tom Shanahan, “Raye of Light,” examines how Duffy Daugherty built the great Spartans teams of the 1960s by actively recruiting elite African-American players such as Bubba Smith and George Webster. The starting quarterback on his great 1966 team was Jimmy Raye, an African-American. That team had 20 African-American players at a time when even Northern schools had limited minorities on their rosters. The book is a fascinating story about how Daugherty had a huge role in integrating the game. Here’s a Q/A with Shanahan.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/chi-duffy-daugherty-michigan-state-integration-20150216-story.html#page=1

What should people know about Duffy Daugherty?

"That only Duffy had a recruiting network in the segregated South. The first time Duffy was invited to speak in the South, he was appalled black high school coaches couldn’t attend. He subsequently staged a clinic in the South for black coaches and invited them to future clinics at Michigan State....

"It also became clear researching the book it was important to debunk myths that Alabama coach Bear Bryant sent Southern black players to Daugherty. My research revealed none of the 44 black players Daugherty recruited from the South between 1959 and 1972 (his last season) were from Alabama. In the late 1960s, civil rights attorney U.W. Clemon revealed in court depositions that Bryant had virtually no knowledge of black athletes in the South. Bryant also said on archived film in the 2008 HBO documentary “Breaking the Huddle” that he couldn’t find black athletes qualified academically and athletically – a contradictory statement. To believe such myths is an egregious injustice to Duffy’s legacy. It reduces him to sitting at his desk, answering the phone and granting a scholarship to an athlete sight unseen. In reality, Duffy was the one with his boots on the ground in the South."

What is Daugherty’s legacy?

"Duffy’s legacy extends generations to the children of players he recruited. To dismiss his recruitment of the segregated South merely to win football games is a gross misperception. He had six southern players from the South on his 1965-66 teams earn All-American or All-Big Ten honors. Well, no one goes six for six in recruiting. The 44 players were grateful for their chance to escape the South and had a 68-percent graduate rate at a time when academic support systems aren’t what they are now. In the 1980s, the NCAA-reported graduation rate for black players was in the 30s before the NCAA cracked down with established standards.

"Clifton Roaf never played a down due to an injury, but he is retired after 40 years as a dentist. Roaf’s son is Pro and College Hall-of-Famer Willie Roaf, but he also has a daughter who is a professor at Northern Arizona. Roaf says he is 'indebted to the people of Michigan State.' Ernie Pasteur was injured but went on to a distinguished career in education. His son is a West Point graduate and his daughter a college law professor at Michigan State. He says he owes his career to Duffy."

SpartanInNH wrote:

Turtleneck wrote:Chicago Tribune has posted an interview with the author.



http://www.chicagotribune.com/chi-duffy-daugherty-michigan-state-integration-20150216-story.html#page=1

What should people know about Duffy Daugherty?

"That only Duffy had a recruiting network in the segregated South. The first time Duffy was invited to speak in the South, he was appalled black high school coaches couldn’t attend. He subsequently staged a clinic in the South for black coaches and invited them to future clinics at Michigan State....

"It also became clear researching the book it was important to debunk myths that Alabama coach Bear Bryant sent Southern black players to Daugherty. My research revealed none of the 44 black players Daugherty recruited from the South between 1959 and 1972 (his last season) were from Alabama. In the late 1960s, civil rights attorney U.W. Clemon revealed in court depositions that Bryant had virtually no knowledge of black athletes in the South. Bryant also said on archived film in the 2008 HBO documentary “Breaking the Huddle” that he couldn’t find black athletes qualified academically and athletically – a contradictory statement. To believe such myths is an egregious injustice to Duffy’s legacy. It reduces him to sitting at his desk, answering the phone and granting a scholarship to an athlete sight unseen. In reality, Duffy was the one with his boots on the ground in the South."

What is Daugherty’s legacy?

"Duffy’s legacy extends generations to the children of players he recruited. To dismiss his recruitment of the segregated South merely to win football games is a gross misperception. He had six southern players from the South on his 1965-66 teams earn All-American or All-Big Ten honors. Well, no one goes six for six in recruiting. The 44 players were grateful for their chance to escape the South and had a 68-percent graduate rate at a time when academic support systems aren’t what they are now. In the 1980s, the NCAA-reported graduation rate for black players was in the 30s before the NCAA cracked down with established standards.

"Clifton Roaf never played a down due to an injury, but he is retired after 40 years as a dentist. Roaf’s son is Pro and College Hall-of-Famer Willie Roaf, but he also has a daughter who is a professor at Northern Arizona. Roaf says he is 'indebted to the people of Michigan State.' Ernie Pasteur was injured but went on to a distinguished career in education. His son is a West Point graduate and his daughter a college law professor at Michigan State. He says he owes his career to Duffy."

Fuck February, this is an American story. God bless Michigan State University, and God bless the USA!

StylesGShmooth wrote:So much awesome here.

Washington was one of several African-American players who made the journey from the segregated South during that era, moving to East Lansing, Mich., to attend Michigan State. Also among that first wave were University of Minnesota All-Americans Bobby Bell and Carl Eller, Washington's Vikings teammate.

Inspired by her father's place in college football history, Maya Washington directed a documentary called "Through the Banks of the Red Cedar," which got its name from the Spartans' fight song.

By the 1965 and 1966 seasons, the South and rest of the nation took notice that Michigan State’s Underground Railroad teams coached by Duffy Daugherty won back-to-back national titles. The teams featured the unheard of number of 20 black players from the north and segregated South, including four future College Football Hall of Famers – George Webster (1987), Bubba Smith (1988), Gene Washington (2011) and Clinton Jones (2015). Jimmy Raye of Fayetteville, N.C., later a long-time NFL assistant coach, was a rare black starting quarterback for the era.
Other schools followed Michigan State’s lead. USC’s 1967 national championship team had only seven black players, but the number jumped to 23 on the Trojans’ 1972 national title squad. USC, with a long history of integration, started only five black players against Alabama in 1970 (Cunningham, Jimmy Jones, Clarence Davis, Tody Smith and Charlie Weaver).

Turtleneck wrote:[tw]1416428348797034500?s=20[/tw]

SawGreen wrote:

Turtleneck wrote:[tw]1416428348797034500?s=20[/tw]

This will be my first ever (and only) name drop. Bob is my favorite Spartan. In my own small way, I helped him with his movie project. I have the impression that when I reached out to him, there may have been a lull in the fund raising.

He called me, and I told him how important his project was, and I got the impression that it provided some vigor.

The last time that I spoke to him was at least 2 years ago. He shared that he was recovering from a health episode (take a guess), and that it was taking some time.  

He and his wife are quite simply beautiful and gratuitous people. They treated me like I was special, while I felt in awe in their presence.

DWags wrote:I got to know him through his brother Bill. Bill and his wife were high school administrators on the east side. Bill coached football and his high school as well. It's a small circle. They moved back to Hawaii when they retired. Two falls ago, before covid and my daughters senior year at MSU on the dance team, we met her at the Kellogg Center. Bobby was there, I saw him while we were having dinner there, got up and shook his hand and reminded him of how I knew him. He sat at our table and talked with us for 10 minutes. I don't know that he really remembered me, but he was so gracious. My father in law grew up in the Nashville Michigan area and was a huge Apisa fan during the hey day of MSU. He got to take pictures with him, and to this day, I think that was one of the biggest thrills he had on the MSU campus. Still talks about it.

Floyd Robertson wrote:I always liked a comment of Bob Apisa's that I read once, saying something like, "you've seen me a lot of movies, I'm always the first one to get killed".

s hand and reminded him of how I

tGreenWay wrote:MSU is awful when it comes to promoting itself. One of the worst for a P5 school with extended major success in basketball and a couple of very good years in football. It’s been that way since Nick Vista retired. When Lo White was a legit candidate for the Heisman, the best the SID’s office could come up with was a weekly stat sheet called The White Paper. Catchy, but well short of grabbing attention. The constant misspellings of Dantonio’s first and last name by the national sports media are other examples. This is one area where MSU could and should learn from u-m. Their PR and marketing arms are outstanding.

Heat Miser wrote:

tGreenWay wrote:MSU is awful when it comes to promoting itself. One of the worst for a P5 school with extended major success in basketball and a couple of very good years in football. It’s been that way since Nick Vista retired. When Lo White was a legit candidate for the Heisman, the best the SID’s office could come up with was a weekly stat sheet called The White Paper. Catchy, but well short of grabbing attention. The constant misspellings of Dantonio’s first and last name by the national sports media are other examples. This is one area where MSU could and should learn from u-m. Their PR and marketing arms are outstanding.

Mr. Haller might have something to say about this. You should drop him a note.

tGreenWay wrote:MSU is awful when it comes to promoting itself. One of the worst for a P5 school with extended major success in basketball and a couple of very good years in football. It’s been that way since Nick Vista retired. When Lo White was a legit candidate for the Heisman, the best the SID’s office could come up with was a weekly stat sheet called The White Paper. Catchy, but well short of grabbing attention. The constant misspellings of Dantonio’s first and last name by the national sports media are other examples. This is one area where MSU could and should learn from u-m. Their PR and marketing arms are outstanding.