Race and College Football in the Southwest, 1947-1976

UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA GRADUATE COLLEGE DESEGREGATING THE LINE OF SCRIMMAGE: RACE AND COLLEGE FOOTBALL IN THE SOUTHWEST, 1947-1976 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE FACULTY in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY By CHRISTOPHER R. DAVIS Norman, Oklahoma 2014 DESEGREGATING THE LINE OF SCRIMMAGE: RACE AND COLLEGE FOOTBALL IN THE SOUTHWEST, 1947-1976 A DISSERTATION APPROVED FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY BY ____________________________ Dr. Stephen H. Norwood, Chair ____________________________ Dr. Robert L. Griswold ____________________________ Dr. Ben Keppel ____________________________ Dr. Paul A. Gilje ____________________________ Dr. Ralph R. Hamerla © Copyright by CHRISTOPHER R. DAVIS 2014 All Rights Reserved. Acknowledgements In many ways, this dissertation represents the culmination of a lifelong passion for both sports and history. One of my most vivid early childhood memories comes from the fall of 1972 when, as a five year-old, I was reading the sports section of one of the Dallas newspapers at my grandparents’ breakfast table. I am not sure how much I comprehended, but one fact leaped clearly from the page—Nebraska had defeated Army by the seemingly incredible score of 77-7. Wild thoughts raced through my young mind. How could one team score so many points? How could they so thoroughly dominate an opponent? Just how bad was this Army outfit? How many touchdowns did it take to score seventy-seven points? I did not realize it at the time, but that was the day when I first understood concretely the concepts of multiplication and division. Nebraska scored eleven touchdowns I calculated (probably with some help from my grandfather) and my love of football and the sports page only grew from there. Academically, I owe my greatest debt to my advisor Professor Stephen H. Norwood whose guidance has shaped my study of history in general and the history of sport in particular throughout my graduate school experience. Without his support and direction this dissertation would not have been possible. I am also grateful for the other members of my dissertation committee who helped shape my graduate studies and this project. Professor Robert L. Griswold introduced me to the study of masculinity and, as the long-time Chair of the History Department at the University of Oklahoma, demonstrated a commitment to academic excellence and leadership that inspired so many of us graduate students. Professor Paul A. Gilje played a critical role throughout my graduate school years as a teacher, mentor, and historian. Meeting Professor Gilje iv to discuss the works of Gordon Wood and Bernard Bailyn introduced me to the profession and his critical eye and constant support continue to benefit me today. Professor Ben Keppel joined the committee during the dissertation’s final stages and provided vital input that ensured that this project moved beyond sport to address larger issues of racial change in twentieth-century America. Professor Ralph R. Hamerla served as the outside member of the committee throughout my master’s and doctoral programs. I am grateful for his time and effort and for the perspective as a scholar and sports fan that he brought to my work. I would also like to thank Professors David W. Levy and Judith S. Lewis, my first two graduate school professors, for believing that a part-time master’s student had the potential to become a professional historian. I completed much of this dissertation while teaching as a faculty member at South Texas College in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. Living on the border in McAllen, I have been lucky to be a part of a vibrant, thriving academic and intellectual community that has provided me with many opportunities to grow as a scholar. Friends and colleagues such as Brent Campney, Patricia Blaine, Trinidad Gonzales, David Anchen, William Carter, Caroline Miles, James Barrera, Sarah Eppler-Janda, Gilberto Reyes, Megan Birk, Christopher Nelson, Steven Rice, John Liss, Greg Gilson, Sean Kennedy, Lance Janda, and many others have listened to my ideas, provided valuable feedback, and made important contributions to the story I tell here. I would like to think my grandparents, Buster and Katherine Estelle Davis and Marshall Clay and Ida Mae Ellis, and my parents, Robert Harley and Rona Ellen Davis, whose lifetimes of hard work made anything that I might accomplish possible. I would also like to thank my children, Harlee Raye Danielson and Brandt Crockett Davis, and v my stepson Alexander Joseph Gall for the inspiration they have provided me throughout their lives. Finally, my entire graduate career and this dissertation would not have been possible without the support, guidance, and love of my partner in life and wife, Linda Christine English. Her final graduate school class was my first, and from the time we met her influence in my life has been critical. vi Table of Contents Acknowledgements ...………………………………………………………………….iv Abstract ……………………………………………………………………………....viii Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………1 Chapter One – The Winds of Change: The 1948 Cotton Bowl—Black Athletes on the Texas Gridiron ……………...............41 Chapter Two – Racial Change on the Southern Periphery: Prentice Gautt and the Desegregation of Oklahoma Football ………………………....98 Chapter Three – Desegregating the Southwest Conference: Recruiting Jerry LeVias and the Strange Career of John Westbrook ………………...173 Chapter Four – A Black Star in the Southwest Conference: The Triumph and the Torment of Jerry LeVias ………………………………………239 Chapter Five – The Last Champions of White Football: Texas vs. Arkansas in the “Big Shootout” …………………………………………...299 Chapter Six – Black Power on the Football Field: Barry Switzer, Darrell Royal, and “The Greatest Team Nobody Saw” ……………...355 Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………...425 Bibliography …………………………………………………………………………443 vii Abstract This dissertation traces the racial desegregation of major college football in the states of Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas from the end of World War II through the mid-1970s. Moving beyond the realm of sport, it links these events to the larger Civil Rights Movement and the dramatic changes in American race relations during this period. As a much-loved part of twentieth-century Southern culture, college football resisted racial change longer than many other institutions in the region. The overthrow of the color line in the Cotton Bowl beginning in 1947, the University of Oklahoma’s signing of Prentice Gautt in 1956, and the recruiting of Jerry LeVias by Southern Methodist University in 1965, all marked gradual, but halting, steps toward the goal of athletic desegregation. Well after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 signaled the zenith of the peaceful Civil Rights Movement, Jim Crow on the college football fields of the Southwest finally collapsed in the late-1960s. By the early-1970s, even the most staunchly segregated universities gave in and began accepting African Americans into their programs. Ironically, after desegregation, the tremendous talent of black athletes coupled with an overwhelming desire to win football games among the general populace turned the college gridiron into one of the most thoroughly integrated social spaces in the region. As such, these spaces reflected both the potential and the limitations of a newly emerging racially desegregated social order. At the same time, they also played an important role in shaping these new patterns of race relations. viii Introduction The setting is a fall Sunday evening in the mid-1960s in a middle-class African- American home in East Texas. In the living room, the television set is tuned to one of the highlights of weekend television viewing in the state—the Darrell Royal Show. As a recorded band plays “The Eyes of Texas,” two aspiring young Longhorn fans stand at attention and salute the screen.1 Like countless other Texas youth, these two boys dreamed of capturing athletic glory for themselves and their home state by wearing the burnt orange jersey of Royal’s Longhorns. As the highlights of that weekend’s game roll, they imagined themselves scoring touchdowns and leading the University of Texas to football championships.2 Unlike the overwhelming majority of their fellow daydreamers, however, these two had the talent to deliver on those dreams. They were Joe and Kenny Washington, the sons of high school football coach Joe Washington Sr., and both would become college football stars. The older of the two, Joe, Jr. would in fact star on two national championship teams and play ten seasons in the National Football League, but neither played for Royal’s Longhorns. The story of how these two loyal young Texans came to abandon their love for the flagship school of their home state and take their considerable skills elsewhere is deeply tied to a larger tale about the history of race relations and the desegregation of major college football in the south 1 During the 1960s and 1970s, on fall Sunday afternoons and evenings throughout the Southwest and the nation, college football fans tuned in to a variety of network and independent stations to watch the coaches’ highlight shows for the region’s most popular teams. In many locales, these programs ran throughout the afternoon and evening and featured extensive highlights and analysis from that week’s game as well as a preview of the upcoming competition. In an era when the NCAA limited the number of games televised in each region to one or two a week, and before cable television, the internet, and the media saturation of college football, these shows often offered the best opportunity for committed fans to see highlights of their team in action. 2 Joe Dan Washington, Jr., “Sport in America,” Class lecture, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, April 18, 2005; Stephen H. Norwood, Real Football: Conversations on America’s Game (Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2004), 170. 1 central United States between the mid-1940s and the mid-1970s. A former star in his own right, Joe Washington Sr.

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