Sidelined (15 page)

The role of McGuire would appear crucial in the events at Marquette and he did not encounter the same type of problems that Herrerias did at Berkeley. McGuire had a two-season winning record behind him and enjoyed the great respect of his players, both white and black. The “shouting match” report and the other comments attributed to McGuire suggest the coach put great pressure on the players to return. Joe Thomas revealed that McGuire had been instrumental in the black players' decision to return in a more subtle way, however. The coach used his position to encourage university officials to communicate clearly to the players that they would make efforts to meet the demands of the black protesters. Father McAuley was present at part of the meeting, during which McGuire and the players discussed the withdrawal of the basketball stars from the university. Furthermore, McGuire inspired considerable loyalty among his players and impressed Thomas and the other black team members with his wholly unprejudiced views. “As far as the racism and prejudice among the players on the team, there was not any because we knew that the coach was going to put the best players on the floor,” Thomas said.
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Indeed, a measure of the difference between the team dynamic at Marquette and that at Berkeley can be seen in an incident that occurred several months after the six black players had temporarily left the team. In October 1968 black player Pat Smith was indefinitely suspended by McGuire after failing to make a plane connection to ensure he arrived in time for practice after a weekend at home in New York. There was no sense that this issue could be exploited to raise issues of racism and prejudice—remember, the initial problems at Berkeley had involved Presley being late for, or missing, training. Smith was quoted saying, “I've come to respect the coach's decision. I have no bad feelings towards him because he did it only to keep the team under control.”
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Smith accepted his punishment in the same way that white player James Langenkamp had done in a previous
season under McGuire.
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The black athletic revolt on the campus at Marquette saw black basketball players using their position as visible African American students to highlight the wider racial injustices inherent in university policy. They did not, however, perceive team discipline or team rules to be a source of racial tension in the same way that athletes at Berkeley did. Despite the fact that they were less closely influenced by the OPHR and the figure of Harry Edwards than those on the West Coast, the black ballplayers at Marquette adopted methods similar to those utilized by Edwards at San Jose. The issues highlighted for protest were external to the athletic department, which was eventually drawn into the wider racial struggle on campus.

Similarities on all three campuses can be seen in the tensions that faced the black athletes who were surrounded by a rising tide of civil rights activism. They had a responsibility to both their team and their race. This was no different at Marquette. When the six basketball players returned to the university and their team, other members of the Respond protest group did not. The leading spokesman for these “radicals” was Gus Moye. He argued that the university had not gone far enough in its concessions and that those who returned to the university had settled for a “very inadequate response.”
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Thomas explained that there was some tension between those who wanted to continue the protest and the basketball players who returned to the team. Indeed, Blanton Simmons and Keith Edwards, the two players missing from the meeting with McGuire, expressed disappointment that they had not been contacted about the reversal of the decision to withdraw from the university. Simmons heard Thompson's statement on the radio but had not been consulted beforehand. Simmons and Edwards both agreed to abide by the decision, however, as the black players had made a previous agreement to act as a unified group, and the majority decision to return to the university was therefore the action that would be followed.
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Protest leaders outside of the athletics department realized that the profile that the basketball stars gave to their cause was important and that when this had gone, so had some of the potency of their message.
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At Marquette the strength of the team ethic and the influence of Coach McGuire helped to ensure the black players' acceptance of the concessions made by university officials. This allowed the black stars to reconcile the competing demands of team and race. The players' involvement in the protest appears as something that was essentially symbolic. The players were sincere in their support for Respond, and Joe Thomas argued that they were prepared to leave the university permanently if it did not change
its policy.
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In a letter to alumni in June 1968, however, university president John Raynor asserted that the institution would not be “governed by coercion.” Furthermore, he explained that many of the general proposals made by Respond leaders were already being planned before the May demonstrations and others were subject to budget constraints. Raynor concluded, “Under no circumstances will students be allowed to dictate policy to the faculty or administration.”
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McGuire's persuasion of the players that they could further the cause of the protest movement by staying on the team was aided by the stance of university officials that they would make concessions but would not be pushed too far. The players could therefore make a symbolic stand to show they supported the movement for racial justice, but leaving the team permanently was unlikely to improve conditions on campus or their own position. They were talented enough to pick up a scholarship elsewhere in the country but in doing so they would be leaving a successful team.

At Marquette, therefore, there were limits to the extent to which a boycott—withdrawing from participation on the team—could be used to further racial progress. The role of McGuire and the unity on the team that he inspired ensured that the incident was handled more swiftly and decisively than at Berkeley. The issue of discipline and racial tensions between coach and players were not a problem. The importance of maintaining a winning team influenced the university's decision to implement some of the policies the student protesters were calling for and McGuire played a significant role in this. Nevertheless, the university was clear that there were limits to the effectiveness of this tool of protest; university administrators were not prepared to be coerced into change. Had the players made a stand with the more radical demonstrators like Moye, it is fair to speculate that their scholarships may have been terminated. The desire to maintain a winning team was a motivation in their decision to return, just as it was in the university's willingness to institute some changes to racial policy.

Contemporaneously with the events at Marquette, football players at Kansas boycotted spring practice in order to highlight racial injustice and inequality at the university. The black players missed only a day of practice in order to make their point and win concessions from the university. As at Marquette, the general relationship between white and black players was good and the focus of protest was outside the locker room. What is
interesting, though, in this manifestation of the black athletic revolt is the conditional nature of white acceptance of their black teammates' stand. The quick diffusion of the tension ensured that no games were missed and team unity was not severely ruptured. The black players were also keen that their commitment to the team should not be significantly compromised; they were not consciously using sport as an arena for political protest. In this sense the shape of the revolt deviated in a different way from Edwards's San Jose model.

The black players supported the Black Student Union in their call for a black cheerleader, a black history course, and more African American representation at the coaching and faculty levels. Spokesman for the black Jayhawks Don Shanklin stated, “We figure it's only right. We represent our race and our school in football, basketball, and track but still we didn't have a pom-pom girl.”
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The black players boycotted practice for one day before the final scrimmage of spring practice. Black player Willie Amison explained, “It was a cause we truly believed in…. There had to be some kind of statement made by the team players.”
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Despite divided loyalties between his position as a member of a team and his status as a black player, Bill Green asserted, “We felt that it was something we had to do, we felt strong enough to stand behind our black players.”
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As with other instances of black protest in campus athletics departments, black players faced a dilemma because of this dual status as representatives of their race and players on a team. What we see at Kansas is the reluctance of some team members to boycott and the very lack of political consciousness among some black athletes that Edwards and his supporters were so determined to address through the black athletic revolt. Amison explained that there were some black athletes who did not want to boycott but were persuaded by older players and “community leaders” that it was necessary to make a stand against the injustices on campus and in wider society.
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Not all the black players felt passionately about the issues at stake, and indeed, one of their number appeared to forget about the boycott altogether.

The protest only lasted a day, and once concessions had been won the players returned to the team. The university announced that a black girl would be chosen to fill a vacancy on the cheerleader squad. There seemed to be a general acceptance among the white members of the squad that including a black member was only fair. Cheerleading rules were such that if a girl left the squad then her place would be filled by one of four reserves. When one of the team resigned because of her impending marriage—married women were not allowed on the squad—the four reserves relinquished their right to take her place so that a black girl could do so. A spokeswoman for the pom-pom girls said they had made the decision “in recognition of the tensions in our country today on the civil rights issue.”
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Furthermore, the university announced that a course in black history was to be offered the following academic year. The issue of black coaching staff would be addressed at a later date.
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The black players were accepted back for the intrasquad scrimmage after a meeting with Coach Rodgers, and the team went back to preparing for the coming season.
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Although the coaches were not happy that the players had missed practice, there was a feeling that the issue was closed and “everybody was just happy to get on and do what they were supposed to do.”
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Once the boycott had ended the coaching staff made no reference to the issue; they wanted, as T. J. Gaughan explained, for the issue “to go away and swept it under the rug.”
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What is apparent is that the concept of the team was paramount and having a winning football program was the main focus of both white and
black players. The brief period of the boycott allowed the impact of the protest on the team to be largely neutralized. Amison explained, “The problem was not our interactions with our fellow players, the problem was the injustices that were evident in the everyday lives of all of us.”
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This is not to say there was not a little tension or resentment when the black players returned from the boycott. White player Bill Bell remembered the relationships with black players on the team to be very good but was also surprised when he heard about a possible boycott and was a “little bit peeved that they got away with it.” There was also some disquiet among the white players who had to play out of position to cover for their absent black teammates.
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Although Amison explained that many of the black players felt they had to address the larger issue of racial inequality even if this meant that the team was compromised, he did not accept that they were using sport for political purposes. “We just went out to the union…. We were not using sports whatsoever. We were not using sport, it was just a way of using the system to get what you want.”
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It is difficult, however, not to conclude that they were using sport to an extent to dramatize the issues at stake. Also, by choosing to use a boycott of training as their form of protest they were jeopardizing the team unity that existed.

The brief period of the boycott and the swift concessions from university officials did not fully test the conflicting loyalties of the black athletes to their team and to their racial identity. It does not seem that the black athletic revolt at Kansas was as significant as those at Berkeley, San Jose, or even Marquette. There was an acceptance on both sides of the racial divide, though, that the team would have been adversely affected, and possibly irreparably so, had the black players missed some games. The white players were not prepared to allow the civil rights activism of their black teammates to interfere with the success of the team. Indeed, the ideal of team unity and equality among players was crucial to that success. Even T. J. Gaughan, who was sympathetic to the plight of the black players on campus and enjoyed many close relationships with black teammates, asserted that things would have been very different had the boycott extended to any missed games. This eventuality would have “drawn the line and some guys would have put themselves above the team and that stuff should stay out of the locker room. We are a team and we fight and bleed together and we go through some tough stuff to get close.”
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