Sidelined (22 page)

Controversy over different performers' interpretation of “The Star-Spangled Banner” and the contested imagery of the Stars and Stripes was not confined to the actions of Smith and Carlos in 1968. Days before the Olympics in Mexico City José Feliciano had received widespread criticism
for his “bluesy” rendition of the national anthem during Game 5 of baseball's World Series. Furthermore, Jimi Hendrix's rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at Woodstock in 1969 was largely regarded as a reflection of the loss of faith in American ideals and a call for redemption amid the turmoil of the Vietnam era. Smith and Carlos, like Hendrix and Feliciano, used the anthem as a forum for their own expression of nationalism.
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The potent symbolic importance of the raising of the flag and performance of the anthem, coupled with the long sporting traditions of the victory ceremony, had a large impact on the response of athletes.

Indeed, it was the forum chosen for the raised fists and the interpretation of the intent and meaning of this gesture that angered many white athletes. Bruce Bradley's water polo teammate Barry Weisenberg told the press, “I think it was a disgrace. In my opinion an act like that in the medal ceremony defiles the American flag.”
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George Young sympathized with the plight of African American athletes and the wider problems of race relations in the United States, but he remembered disagreeing with the time and place selected by Smith and Carlos for their protest. “I don't think it was the right place to do it, and I think, as a matter of fact, they both lost more than they could have by winning the gold medal.” Young reflected that, having gained a place in the limelight after excelling in their chosen event, they should have returned home and then pressed their agenda. “I think that showing themselves to be good athletes shows Black Power without having to stand and hold up a gloved black fist. That to me was not very impressive, their performance was impressive, but on the stand I did not really appreciate it.”
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Young argued that he and others watching the protest gesture of Smith and Carlos had little idea of what they were actually trying to communicate. The concept of “Black Power” was particularly ambiguous. After all, here were two black athletes standing on a victory stand and representing America while simultaneously complaining about conditions in America. Young still considers this “a kind of contradiction in itself.”
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Smith and Carlos had proved that they did have opportunities in the United States by their very presence on the podium. American swimmer Jane Swagerty reflected that she saw a little cowardice in the actions of Smith and Carlos, that they did “not really embrace the moment for themselves; they were heavily influenced by Harry Edwards.”
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Smith and Carlos would contend that theirs was a personal response born of a great conviction that the issue of America's race problems needed to be highlighted. Swagerty, however, described how she and her swimming teammates were shocked
by the actions of the sprinters and “actually rather embarrassed.” They believed that Smith and Carlos had “disgraced America” and had chosen the wrong place and time to make the stand that they did.
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Many of the athletes who were competing for their country did so with a reverential respect for sporting traditions and the customs of the Olympics. As a consequence, they argued that Smith and Carlos had transgressed. The two sprinters' actions may have been courageous, but they were also seen as misguided both then and now. High jumper Dick Fosbury asserted that while using sport to make a political stand was acceptable in some ways, “I do believe they made a serious mistake by doing a demonstration on the podium. That is a ceremony and there are standards that we have as a society and as a culture as to how we should behave when we are in a ceremony and it should not be made political.”
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Fosbury argued that Smith and Carlos should have used the fame they had achieved as a result of sport to express their opinions once they had stepped outside of the stadium. Similarly, white hammer thrower Ed Burke had counseled black teammate Ralph Boston that he should go to the Olympics, achieve fame, and then use this as a springboard to highlight the problems faced by African Americans.
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In this way sporting recognition could be harnessed as a force for a political message to be disseminated without the arena of sport being invaded by the political agenda itself.

There are a number of athletes, therefore, who saw then, and years after, something inappropriate in the actions of Smith and Carlos. There are also some whose views reflect the changing popular interpretation of the podium salute. For example, long-distance walker Larry Young explained his opinion following the podium salute: “My initial reaction was, well, is this really appropriate during the ceremony when they were accepting their medals when the U.S. flag was being raised?”
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On reflection, though, he argued, “I really think that what they did was just fine. You have to understand what was going on in the country at that time. Tommie and John [were] treated as second-class citizens in terms of where they lived and where they stayed … but the Olympic team wanted their gold medals.”
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The fact, however, that Smith and Carlos's teammates were still divided years after in their interpretation of the podium salute is revealing. The concept of team and the dominant ideals of sport continue to have a large impact on the way the protest is viewed. This also highlights the unique relationship between sport and the civil rights struggle. Furthermore, the contested understanding of what Smith and Carlos were trying
to do and the conflicting interpretations of the symbolism of their efforts in the immediate aftermath of the 1968 Olympics had an indirect impact on the continued racial struggle on the nation's campuses. The following chapter will explore some of these struggles and explain the ways in which the sporting establishment hardened its attitude toward the use of sport to further the civil rights struggle. The shifting focus from using sport to protest racial injustice in wider society to a revolt against racism in sport was part of a series of complex developments that made it increasingly difficult for athletes to successfully engage in the black freedom struggle. Smith and Carlos were attempting to use the platform afforded by sporting success to highlight racial problems in America. This was something different from the protests at the University of California, Berkeley, and from the predominant manifestation of the black athletic revolt on the campus in 1969.

5

Sport, Race, Culture, and Politics

You're dealing with a new breed of young people today … kids who [don't] have anything better to do than rebel against discipline, rebel against the Establishment.

—Coach Jake Gaither, Florida A & M University, 1969

I could not grow facial hair, I did not shave until I was thirty years old…. We had another guy … he could not grow facial hair either. He went and got one of these eyebrow brushes that girls used to highlight their eyebrows so that he could draw on his face to highlight that he had a mustache, but he really could not grow one.

—Haskel Stanback, football player, University of Tennessee

In 1969, the University of Wyoming Cowboys were dominating the Western Athletic Conference football standings. By the middle of October, they were unbeaten and ranked just outside the top ten college teams in the country. Coach Lloyd Eaton ran a talented and racially integrated team with black athletes recruited from across the United States. Eaton demanded discipline and total commitment and coached his team in the style of a military dictatorship. White player Alan Zerfoss later recalled, “Everyone respected [Eaton] because he was a very good disciplinarian, and you followed his rules…. What he was doing was working; we did not lose many games.”
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Problems emerged when some of the players wanted to challenge his rules. The problems were exacerbated because the players who sought change were the fourteen black players on the squad. Eaton denied their request to wear black armbands to protest the racist actions of Brigham
Young University. Not only did he deny it, but he threw the players off the team. The Cowboys' performances deteriorated and their winning streak was replaced with a series of losses and a mediocre season. The efforts of the “black fourteen” have parallels with the podium salute of Smith and Carlos. They attempted to make a solemn and dignified protest against injustice. They tried to use their position as athletes to affect the civil rights struggle. Where Smith and Carlos sought to engage with the national community of the United States, the black Cowboys wanted to make their stand in front of the local community of Laramie, Wyoming. Their efforts were greeted with derision, confusion, and recrimination. Nevertheless, just as Smith and Carlos have been lionized and their podium salute captured in a statue, so the black fourteen have now been memorialized. With symbolic connections to the actions of Smith and Carlos, a raised black fist sculpture engraved with the names of the black players sits in the basement of the Student Union on the Wyoming campus.

In April 2004 one of those players, Melvin Hamilton, was speaking with a white friend who had been a student at Wyoming in 1969. The friend remarked, “I notice that the university acknowledged the black fourteen with a memorial to you guys in the Student Union.” What followed both shocked and disappointed Hamilton. “What about a memorial to the fans?” the white friend asked, his suggestion being that the actions of the black players ruined the season and began the dismantling of a successful football program. Hamilton recalled, “He said the fans were the ones who got hurt, and he just denied, he failed to see the fact that it really was the blacks who got hurt. It was the blacks, some of who did not finish college, it was the blacks, some of them not going on to play professional football.”
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The recriminations and racial tension experienced by the local community because of the importance of their football team echo down through time. Referring to the statue in the Student Union, historian Lane Demas has observed, “The players' connection to the ‘bogy of black power' is fixed in bronze.”
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Media coverage of the actions of Smith and Carlos brought national attention to the connections between sport and the black freedom struggle. The ripples of dissent moved into communities previously untouched by major civil rights activism. Importantly, this activism was affecting the cherished institutions of local sports teams. The disciplined and traditional world of college sports was being rocked by the gusting cultural winds sweeping across the American landscape. These transformations were complicated because race intersected with changing notions of power and
authority. Students protested the Vietnam War, grew their hair long, did not shave, and challenged the status quo in new and unforeseen ways. In the year after the 1968 Olympics the use of sport to advance the civil rights struggle faced considerable difficulties. Confusions between discrimination and discipline and a backlash against forces that were identified as threats to both the local and national sporting communities compromised the effectiveness of the sporting arena as a forum in which to successfully engage with the black freedom struggle.

In contrast to events at Wyoming, after 1968 the focus of the black athletic revolt increasingly shifted to racial politics within athletics departments and sports teams across the country, much more so than the use of sport to engage in political action that dramatized the racial problems of wider society. The sporting establishment showed continued sensitivity when faced with charges of racial injustice within its own ranks. It was, however, able to use the traditional ideal of sport as a positive racial force, combined with strategic concessions, to combat such challenges. As a consequence, the established ideal of sport as a force for positive racial change was reaffirmed. These developments, along with increased contention concerning issues of discipline, coach-player relations, and athletes' human rights, shifted focus away from the use of sport to dramatize the civil rights problems of wider society. As a result, by the early 1970s the black athletic revolt was ostensibly over.

For many sports administrators it seemed as though the very institution of college athletics was in danger of collapsing in the twelve months after the stand by Smith and Carlos at the 1968 Olympics. Former California state superintendent of public instruction Max Rafferty argued in 1969, “There are two great national institutions which simply cannot tolerate either internal dissension or external interference: our armed forces, and our interscholastic sports programs. Both are of necessity benevolent dictatorships.” He went on to state that at “a dozen … disgraced colleges, players have challenged their coaches, walked out on their own teams, and boycotted their own schools, all in name of some social, economic, or political grievance which the sport in question had never had anything to do with.”
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Rafferty was expressing an opinion shared by many college sports administrators who felt besieged by athletes' protests. This activism by college athletes was not confined to racial matters only.

Vice President Spiro Agnew argued that sport had promoted the traditional values of discipline and manhood that had helped shape America. He stated that a minority of young people in the United States were opposed to these values and chose actions that were not appropriate for the playing fields of the nation.
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Players and administrators were caught in the cross fire of a tumultuous period for intercollegiate athletics, a time when the meaning of the sporting ideal was being defined and redefined. The countercultural challenge to traditional American values evoked a deep tension that touched the world of sport, and as David Zang has asserted, “Undermined [its] claims to character-building and the tenets by which organized sports were conducted: sacrificial effort, submission to authority, controlled physical dominance, victory with honor and manliness.”
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