Georgia Historical Society Racial Change and "Big-Time" College Football in Georgia: The Age of Segregation, 1892-1957 Author(s): Charles H. Martin Source: The Georgia Historical Quarterly, Vol. 80, No. 3, HIGHER EDUCATION IN GEORGIA (FALL 1996), pp. 532-562 Published by: Georgia Historical Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40583490 . Accessed: 05/11/2013 21:04 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Georgia Historical Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Georgia Historical Quarterly. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 35.8.11.3 on Tue, 5 Nov 2013 21:04:01 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions RacialChange and "Big-Time" CollegeFootball in Georgia: The Age ofSegregation, 1892-1957 ByCharles H. Martin a cool Fridayevening in earlyDecember 1955, an angry mob ofGeorgia Tech students poured into the streets of At- lantaand stageda seriesof large and rowdydemonstrations. The targetof their wrath was Governor Marvin Griffin, who had earlier in theday announced his intentionto preventthe Yellow Jacket footballteam from playing in the 1956 SugarBowl game in New Orleanson January2. Afterburning an effigyof Griffinon cam- pus,the unruly Tech students then unexpectedly staged a march towarddowntown, catching local police offguard. A boisterous crowdof nearly2,000 demonstrators eventually assembled at the statecapitol, where they hung another effigy of the governor and damagedtrash cans and severalbuilding doors. Still upset, many of the protestersthen marched on to the governor'smansion, wherea phalanxof jittery policemen and statehighway patrolmen blockedtheir path. After a lengthystandoff, the crowd eventually dispersedpeacefully in theearly morning hours of Saturday,De- cember3.1 Footballgames have frequently inspired much passion and ex- citementin theDeep Southand in Georgia,but rarely have they 'AttentaJournal, December 3-5, 1955; Atlanta Constitution, December 3-5, 1955. MR. MARTINis assistantprofessor of history at theUniversity ofTexas at El Paso.Re- searchfor this article was funded in partby a grantfrom the National Endowment for the Humanities. The GeorgiaHistorical Quarterly Vol. LXXX,No. 3, Fall 1996 This content downloaded from 35.8.11.3 on Tue, 5 Nov 2013 21:04:01 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Racial Change and College Football 533 come close to settingoff a mob attack on an elected governor. What ignited this particularexplosion was a direct collision be- tweenthe contemporarypolitical campaign to maintainstrict seg- regationin Georgia and the desire of the state'spremier college sportsprograms to pursue nationalathletic prominence free from external meddling. GovernorGriffin, a leader in the emerging "massiveresistance" movement against federally mandated school desegregationin the South, opposed Tech's Sugar Bowl tripbe- cause the school's opponent would be an integratedteam from the Universityof Pittsburgh.The governorapparently feared that allowinga Georgia universityto participatein such a highlypubli- cized athleticcontest would be inconsistentwith his commitment to total segregation and might undermine massive resistance. Griffin'sefforts and a subsequent campaign in early 1957 by ex- tremesegregationists in the stateassembly to pass a law prohibit- ing all interracialsporting events thus clashed head-on with previousdecisions by administrators at Georgia Tech and the Uni- When Governor Marvin Griffinannounced his op- position to Georgia Tech's participation in the 1956 Sugar Bowl againstthe Uni- versity of Pittsburgh be- cause it had a black player on itsteam, students staged an angrydemonstration on December 2, 1955, in which theyhung Griffinin effigy, and then proceeded to march on the state capitol and the governor's man- sion. Photographfrom the At- lanta Constitution. This content downloaded from 35.8.11.3 on Tue, 5 Nov 2013 21:04:01 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 534 Georgia Historical Quarterly versityof Georgiato abandontheir long-standing tradition of ra- cial exclusionin athleticcompetition. This articledescribes the historyof Georgiaand Georgia Tech'sinstitutional policies concerning race and sportsfrom 1892 to 1957,focusing primarily on football,by far the most popular col- lege sportin thestate. At thestart of thetwentieth century both schoolshad committedthemselves to a policyof rigid racial exclu- sion,refusing to play against any team whose ranks included an Af- rican-Americanmember, even if the game were playedin the North.During the 1920sand 1930s,both universities successfully defendedthis policy against northern critics. But after World War II, thegrowing presence of black athletes on non-southernteams forcedthe two schools to re-evaluatetheir commitment to fullseg- regation,which now threatened to interferewith their passionate desireto wina nationalchampionship. During the early1950s, bothschools cautiously began to displaya willingnessto schedule an integratedcontest if it were held outside the Southeast, a racial deviationwhich Governor Griffin and severalinfluential legislators attemptedto halt. The failureof extreme segregationists toreverse theprocess of racial change thus marked the end ofthe age offull segregationin big-timecollege sports in Georgia.Although the ac- tualintegration of both universities' football teams still lay over a decadeaway, the shift to a policyof integrated competition outside the statedemonstrated that by the mid-1950sthe state'scollege athleticestablishment placed a greateremphasis on thepursuit of athleticglory than on themaintenance of total racial exclusion. The Americanizedversion of English rugby which came to be called footballspread rapidlyacross college campusesin the Northeastduring the 1870s.By the mid-1880s manywhite stu- dentsin Dixie wereexcitedly experimenting with the new fad.2 GeorgiaTech studentsbegan playingformal matches against othercolleges in 1892,only four years after the school had opened itsdoors to young men seeking a technicaleducation which would preparethem for careers in an industrializingNew South. In 1904, Techlured Coach John Heisman away from Clemson for what was 2RonaldA. Smith,Sports and Freedom:The Rise ofBig-Time College Athletics (New York, 1986) , 67-98;Benjamin G. Rader,American Sports, second ed. (Englewood Cliffs,N.J., 1990) , 101-112,172-88; Patrick Miller, The Playing Fields of American Culture: Athletics and HigherEd- ucation,1850-1945 (forthcoming, Oxford University Press). This content downloaded from 35.8.11.3 on Tue, 5 Nov 2013 21:04:01 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Racial Changeand College Football 535 thena remarkablesalary of $2,250, plus 30 percentof the gate re- ceiptsfrom football, making him the first full-time paid coach in theSouth. During an incrediblysuccessful sixteen-year reign, the legendaryHeisman, for whom the annual award to themost out- standingcollege football player today is named,built the Yellow Jacketsinto a powerhouseand led themto a shareof the national championshipin 1917. His successor,William A. Alexander, coachedthe Engineers to fiveconference titles in the 1920sand thenational championship in 1928.Succeeding "Coach Alex" in 1944was anotherlegendary figure - BobbyDodd. The amazing Dodd spenttwenty-two highly successful years at Tech and di- s rectedthe team to thenational championship in 1952. Atthe University ofGeorgia, an all-maleinstitution until 1918, ProfessorCharles H. Hertyintroduced the eastern version of foot- ball to eagerstudents in 1890.In early1892 the school fielded its firstintercollegiate football team, defeating Mercer and losingto Auburn.Rough play was common in thenew game, and injuries werefrequent. After the tragic death of a playerin 1897due to a head injury,the stateassembly almost prohibited the sport.De- spitethis violence, and to someextent because of it,the football squadgenerated tremendous enthusiasm and soonbecame an in- tegralpart of campus life. In orderto improvethe quality of play, thecollege hired W. A. Cunninghamas head coach in 1910.Cun- ninghamsubsequently produced winning teams in sevenof his ten seasons.James Wallace (Wally) Butts was the bestknown of Cunningham'ssuccessors, serving as head coach from 1939 through1960. Butts' outstanding 1942 teamwon the Southeast- ernConference title and defeatedUCLA in the 1943Rose Bowl. Locatedjust eightymiles apart, Georgia and GeorgiaTech soon developeda fiercerivalry with each other.Their annual confron- tation,held at theend ofthe regular season after 1926, quickly be- came a majorspectacle which captured the fancyof sportsfans acrossthe state,many of whomhad neverset footon a college ^RobertC. McMath,Jr.,Ronald H. Bayor,James E. Brittain,Lawrence Foster, August W. Giebelhaus,and GermainM. Reed, Engineeringthe New South: Georgia Tech, 1885-1985 (Ath- ens, Ga., 1985), 124, 138-40,172-74, 232, 272-74,350-51, 390; GeorgiaTechFootbaü 1992 (At- lanta, 1992), 238-43. This content downloaded from 35.8.11.3 on Tue, 5 Nov 2013 21:04:01 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 536 Georgia Historical Quarterly