Southern schools are the biggest problem

[sport historian]

As I have posted before, Tennessee was the first SEC team to have a black starter, Lester McClain in 1968. Most of the other SEC teams were NOT eager to do the same, which may surprise some people. Florida only had one black player when Doug Dickey came to Florida from Tennessee in 1970. A year later, Dickey had recruited 18 blacks to Florida.

Bear Bryant (Bryant is supposed to have said that he would not have a black player as long as a white player could do the same job) kept an all-white team until 1971. Ole Miss, Georgia, and LSU did not integrate until 1972. There were not all that many blacks on SEC rosters until about 1974. By then, the high schools had been through several integration orders. From that time, the numbers of black SEC football players rapidly increased.

 

[whiteCB]

As I have posted before, Tennessee was the first SEC team to have a black starter, Lester McClain in 1968. Most of the other SEC teams were NOT eager to do the same, which may surprise some people. Florida only had one black player when Doug Dickey came to Florida from Tennessee in 1970. A year later, Dickey had recruited 18 blacks to Florida.

Bear Bryant (Bryant is supposed to have said that he would not have a black player as long as a white player could do the same job) kept an all-white team until 1971. Ole Miss, Georgia, and LSU did not integrate until 1972. There were not all that many blacks on SEC rosters until about 1974. By then, the high schools had been through several integration orders. From that time, the numbers of black SEC football players rapidly increased.

It really is simply amazing how the SEC went through such a swift change in team demographics in such a short amount of time. It's almost like day and night(no pun intended

) but seriously how the hell did these coaches go from the notion that their teams should be all white to the notion that only blacks can play certain positions. I'm guessing(don't know for sure) but that the first SEC teams to feature a black RB and secondary and great success with those black players and beat up on the white teams. This led to a coaching thought and philosophy that blacks, not whites, are best suited for the positions of RB, WR, CB, ect... Any other thoughts?

 

[FieldThrower]

Well, as money increased, the "meat market" approach to selecting student athletes increased as well. College football only really started making big money in the 1980s with the Georgia/Oklahoma TV court case. With higher stakes, coaches probably started seeing players more like gladiators than students or people. Add that with the "you can't beat/coach/learn speed" sayings preached like a sermon, and the ethnicity with the slightly higher fast-twitch ratio wins out, no matter if they score a 5 on the Wonderlic or can't hit the broad side of a barn with their throws.

I'm sure some pressure from the more "liberalized" southern school admins and boards didn't help either.

 

[Colonel_Reb]

As I have posted before, Tennessee was the first SEC team to have a black starter, Lester McClain in 1968. Most of the other SEC teams were NOT eager to do the same, which may surprise some people. Florida only had one black player when Doug Dickey came to Florida from Tennessee in 1970. A year later, Dickey had recruited 18 blacks to Florida.

Bear Bryant (Bryant is supposed to have said that he would not have a black player as long as a white player could do the same job) kept an all-white team until 1971. Ole Miss, Georgia, and LSU did not integrate until 1972. There were not all that many blacks on SEC rosters until about 1974. By then, the high schools had been through several integration orders. From that time, the numbers of black SEC football players rapidly increased.

It really is simply amazing how the SEC went through such a swift change in team demographics in such a short amount of time. It's almost like day and night(no pun intended

) but seriously how the hell did these coaches go from the notion that their teams should be all white to the notion that only blacks can play certain positions. I'm guessing(don't know for sure) but that the first SEC teams to feature a black RB and secondary and great success with those black players and beat up on the white teams. This led to a coaching thought and philosophy that blacks, not whites, are best suited for the positions of RB, WR, CB, ect... Any other thoughts?

I don't think it went like that at all in the SEC. By the time it had been integrated enough for one or two teams to have an all black backfield and secondary, the other schools had several black starters as well. As an example,a good number ofSEC schools had mixed (2 white and 2 black) defensive backfields well into the 80s. By that time, they pretty much all had black offensive backfields. There probably were a couple of games where it was mostly blacks against mostly whites, butI don't think it wasever all black versus all white in the SEC.

 

[sport historian]

As I have posted before, Tennessee was the first SEC team to have a black starter, Lester McClain in 1968. Most of the other SEC teams were NOT eager to do the same, which may surprise some people. Florida only had one black player when Doug Dickey came to Florida from Tennessee in 1970. A year later, Dickey had recruited 18 blacks to Florida.

Bear Bryant (Bryant is supposed to have said that he would not have a black player as long as a white player could do the same job) kept an all-white team until 1971. Ole Miss, Georgia, and LSU did not integrate until 1972. There were not all that many blacks on SEC rosters until about 1974. By then, the high schools had been through several integration orders. From that time, the numbers of black SEC football players rapidly increased.

It really is simply amazing how the SEC went through such a swift change in team demographics in such a short amount of time. It's almost like day and night(no pun intended

) but seriously how the hell did these coaches go from the notion that their teams should be all white to the notion that only blacks can play certain positions. I'm guessing(don't know for sure) but that the first SEC teams to feature a black RB and secondary and great success with those black players and beat up on the white teams. This led to a coaching thought and philosophy that blacks, not whites, are best suited for the positions of RB, WR, CB, ect... Any other thoughts?

The biggest reason was that coaches assumed that they would not be able to compete without a lot of black players. Still, Bryant and most of the other Southern coaches seem to have been reluctant to change. Black players were still rare in the SEC around 1971-72 when the first blacks at Tennessee had already played out their eligibility.

It wqasn't a case of a few games or a few players, though the early blacks in the SEC were good players. Everything just changed in a few years.