racial issues

For one I will ignore the parent and if its to off colored I would tell them I don't appreciate those kinds of remarks. Coach CAmpbell

pretty much how i have dealt with it. Sad.

Our community is good about racial issues. We have 2 black kids in school now but recently had a few more. People of African heritage are a distinct minority in our school which is roughly 85% white, 14% hispanic and 1% white (don't hold me to the math please!). I guess we don;t get alot of that kind of stuff so that is nice. Ignorance is stupid. I'm sure there are racists in my town, every town in the USA has them. Hopefully I can continue to coach there without knowing who they are.

Danny Ford(HC- Clemson National Champions-1981) once told me he was sick of getting phone calls telling him that he should be aware of a black QB or a white QB playing over in city x. He said when are they ever going to call and just tell me that they know of a good prospect without giving me his racial background?

Coach Easton

Let' see if I can get this right: A reporter asked Bear Bryant how many black players he had on his team. He replied none. He was then asked "well how many white players do you have on your roster?" Again he replied none. What he was getting at was color did not matter. He had football players. All that mattered was they could play. (Okay Tiger, Jerry, or Bill I know I butchered this one somewhere along the way. Fill in the blanks where needed.)

My long time receivers coach, Willie Jackson, was the first Afro American to play at the Univ. of Florida, went on to play with the Rams in the NFL. He has 2 sons who are in the League now, Willie Junior with the Bengals and Terry with the 49ers. Barry Switzer was the first big time college coach that I know of that first started recruiting black players at the University of Oklahoma (southern coach). When confronted with the argument that prize recruits were telling him they didn't want to play with a racially mixed team, he just looked them right in the eye and said; Well son, you can go over and play for that other school that wants you, or you can come with us and win! I guess enough of them came with him because they did a lot of winning for a long time!

Coach Easton

When I was in the Army, my NCO's used to say that our race was "green" (the only color that matters in the military!)

I recently read one of John Wooden's newer books (My Personal Best, I think?) There's a great part about how Wooden refused to take his Indiana State team to a national tournament back in the '40s because he had 1 black kid on his team and the tournament directors did not allow integrated teams to play. The black kid wasn't a star or even a 6th or 7th man, for that matter, but Wooden still wouldn't budge and refused to take his team.

The next year, ISU won something like 25 games and was invited to the same tournament. Wooden again refused the invitation based on the tournament's anti-integration policies. However, the NAACP intervened and ask Wooden to go. The NAACP felt that, even though there would be restrictions placed on the black player, that it was important to just get a black player in the national spotlight. So, at the urging of the NAACP, Wooden took his team and they won the tournament.

After that year, the tournament (Which later became the NCAA national championship) became fully integrated.