Posted on 11/05/2009 10:29:40 AM PST by Colofornian
Forty years ago, BYU and Wyoming met at War Memorial Stadium in Laramie, Wyo., for a football game that turned out to be much more than a game.
It was October, 1969 -- a turbulent time in American history, with demonstrations and protests abounding around the country, sparked by the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War.
So when 14 black Wyoming football players decided to wear black armbands for the game against BYU -- to protest what they considered to be "racist practices" of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which owns and operates BYU -- and when then-Cowboys coach Lloyd Eaton decided to boot those 14 players, which included seven starters, from the team for that decision, it touched off a maelstrom of controversy and it immediately became a national story. The following week, reporters from media outlets like the New York Times and Sports Illustrated descended upon Laramie to chronicle the episode.
And the ramifications of the "Black 14" incident have since resonated for decades.
During the week of the 1969 BYU-Wyoming game, the Black Student Alliance at Wyoming announced it was planning to stage a demonstration outside the stadium against the LDS Church because it did not allow blacks to hold the priesthood (it wasn't until 1978 that blacks were granted that opportunity). The Black 14 insisted on being part of that protest by wearing black armbands as a symbolic gesture, but Eaton rejected that plan and meted out a severe punishment against those players for violating team rules prohibiting players' involvement in protests.
Marc Lyons, who was BYU's starting quarterback in 1969, remembers staying at the Holiday Inn in Laramie the night before the game and hearing people throw bottles at the hotel. On game day, the Cougars encountered protestors as they arrived at War Memorial Stadium.
"It was definitely a strange atmosphere," said Lyons, a longtime color analyst for KSL Radio who will be in Laramie when BYU visits Wyoming on Saturday (noon, The mtn.). "It was hard to understand. A lot of our players weren't LDS. It was odd that this was happening at a football game.
"We were the news. ... It was the first time we encountered protesters. People were holding signs as we got to the stadium to play. We walked through those people and they were badgering us a little bit.
"There was a girl who had a sign, something about the Mormons, and she misspelled the word 'Mormon.' It was a little bit unnerving, a little bit comical," Lyons said. "The strangest part was that it didn't seem at all like a game that day. There was a lot of other stuff going on. It was a different atmosphere, that's for sure."
At that time, Wyoming was a dominant team in the Western Athletic Conference while the Cougars were perennial also-rans. Yet going into that contest, BYU was confident about its chances for victory because it knew the Cowboys had lost seven starters.
"We were kind of excited. We thought, 'Man, we're going to beat those guys,' " Lyons recalled.
Instead, the incident, at least on that day, galvanized the rest of Wyoming's team.
"Once the game started, man, they got all over us," Lyons said. "I was surprised about that. They beat us pretty good."
Indeed, the Cowboys, who were unbeaten and ranked in the top 10, crushed the Cougars, 40-7.
From there, however, the two programs started courses in opposite directions and Wyoming football was never the same. From 1966-1968, the Cowboys had won 27 games, but over the next seven seasons, they won only 24 times and suffered six consecutive losing campaigns. After playing in the 1968 Sugar Bowl, Wyoming didn't play in another bowl game until 1987.
BYU, on the other hand, went on to become the WAC's dominant team from the late 1970s through the 1990s. Through the years, many Wyoming fans saw BYU as being responsible for the Cowboys' demise.
Kevin McKinney, a Cheyenne native and Wyoming graduate, is the senior associate athletic director at Wyoming. He's also the longtime color analyst for Cowboy radio broadcasts. McKinney, who was on the school's sports information staff in 1969, said the Black 14 incident had a long-lasting influence that went far beyond football.
"It had an incredible impact on the football program and it had an incredible impact on those kids (who were kicked off the team)," McKinney said. "They had a terrible time going to school anywhere. It was a tragic thing, really. It impacted a program, but it impacted a lot of young men, too. That was the sad thing. The wins and losses were the shallow part of it. The real crux of it was the impact it had on those kids and their teammates."
Like many Wyoming fans, McKinney had a difficult time coming to terms with the incident.
"I live and die Wyoming. I was born there, I was raised there, I went to school there," he said. "It's hard for me. It was amazingly bitter because Wyoming football was everything to the fans and the students."
It wasn't until years after the incident that McKinney met up with one of those Black 14 players and they talked about what happened in 1969 and its aftermath.
"He told me how he couldn't go to college anywhere because nobody would take him," McKinney said. "I got a real perspective on what courage it took to stand up for what he believed in. Those kids loved the game. They gave that all up. So I kind of changed my mind about it."
Just this week, a symposium was held on the Wyoming campus about the Black 14 incident. McKinney was among those on the panel. The auditorium was packed with students eager to learn about that painful time in the school's history.
"People need to know about it," McKinney said. "It was 40 years ago. That's a long time. But I was amazed at the turnout at this (symposium). It was very interesting to be part of that. I didn't know that, 40 years later, we'd still be talking about it. But it was as big as anything."
The Wyoming program was never the same:
From the article: Through the years, many Wyoming fans saw BYU as being responsible for the Cowboys' demise.
From the article: Kevin McKinney, a Cheyenne native and Wyoming graduate, is the senior associate athletic director at Wyoming. He's also the longtime color analyst for Cowboy radio broadcasts. McKinney, who was on the school's sports information staff in 1969, said the Black 14 incident had a long-lasting influence that went far beyond football. "It had an incredible impact on the football program and it had an incredible impact on those kids (who were kicked off the team)," McKinney said. "They had a terrible time going to school anywhere. It was a tragic thing, really. It impacted a program, but it impacted a lot of young men, too. That was the sad thing. The wins and losses were the shallow part of it. The real crux of it was the impact it had on those kids and their teammates."
Hmm. So they blame a team they steamrolled (by coming together as a team as a show of support), for their overall suckiness as a team in the last 40 years? Sounds like a whiny liberal issue to me.
I could see Cowboy fans seeing this as a pivotal point in their program: I'm not sure how many of those 14 players were starters, but imagine almost half of your starting squad being eliminated from the program.
Beyond that, only one of the 14 was a senior. At least 5 or 6 were sophomores. (So it deeply effected their seasons into the 1970s). In '69, Wyoming was counting on winning a 4th straight WAC championship.
On top of that, it deeply hurt Cowboy recruiting. Black players knew that at that time Wyoming was going to sanction open BYU racism by cracking down on even symbolic objections to it.
Looks like the players were shafted, too. It's sad - I didn't know that piece.
That argument is akin to blaming the cop for a speeding ticket. The team had a rule against protests - the players violated that rule. The coach may have been an idiot, but what prevented anyone else at WY to talk sense to him, or overrule/replace him?
It has nothing to do with policy. Those players were entitled to protest because BYU is Mormon and are not responsible for their actions because of what the intent of the protest was about. How dare that coach cower to the establishment and enforce the policy. It is all the Mormon’s fault. /Sarc
Cmon.. an armband is scarcely a protest.... they didnt refuse to play did they?
I stand by this statement: " The coach may have been an idiot, but what prevented anyone else at WY to talk sense to him, or overrule/replace him?"
Again, there had to be more than the coach involved. To hang the last 40 years on one person is laughable.
If Wyoming has a legitimate gripe, it would be against its own coach and against the 14 rule breakers.
As for the insane notion that the dismissal is the root cause of Wyoming being terrible at football today, I might mention that around that same time we had an entire CFB team from a relatively obscure state (Marshall) DIE. However, that program was able to post a 114-25 record in the 1990’s.
I might suggest then that Wyoming’s football woes have little or nothing to do with BYU and just about everything to do with Wyoming.
#1: I didn't know Marshall had recruiting problems bringing in either out-of-state recruits or potential recruits who made have felt some solidarity with football program victims...if anything, Marshall had some key recruiting successes right away because the NCAA granted an exception to frosh being allowed to play for the varsity program
#2: I don't really think the problems all this caused extended into the 21st century. I mean, after all, Wyoming finally turned it around...
1987-1990 (10-3, 11-2, 9-4 seasons)
1993 (8-4)
1996-1999 (10-2, 8-5, 8-3, 7-4)
But there's no doubt this deeply impacted Wyoming both immediately AND for at least 11-17 seasons:
Wyoming 10-1 in both 1966 & 67; 7-3 in '68; 6-4 in '69;
THEN 1-9 in 1970...
AND only one winning season in the 1970s...and only two over the next 17 years...
...Compare the 17-year impact to what happened to Marshall, which didn't pull out of its nose-dive to the records you referenced until 1991 (Marshall was still only 6-5 in 1990) -- so there was a 17-20 year impact on each school.
I would be more willing to buy into the notion that there was a material impact upon Wyoming for a decade or so. That makes some sense.
However, the primary fault still lies with Wyoming’s program itself. Either the players should have followed team rules or the coach should not have overreacted.
I would be more willing to buy into the notion that there was a material impact upon Wyoming for a decade or so. That makes some sense.
However, the primary fault still lies with Wyoming’s program itself. Either the players should have followed team rules or the coach should not have overreacted.
I would be more willing to buy into the notion that there was a material impact upon Wyoming for a decade or so. That makes some sense.
However, the primary fault still lies with Wyoming’s program itself. Either the players should have followed team rules or the coach should not have overreacted.
Sorry for the triple post.
The best thing for those black players to have done was instead of wearing armbands, to just go out and kick BYU’s ass on the field.
What changed Southern football, when Alabama was schooled by USC, from then on SEC schools realized that all-white teams weren’t going to cut the mustard anymore.
Did Jesse Owens wear a black armband in Berlin?
(We're in rough agreement; it may have been as few as a little over 11 seasons...might have been as long as 17 seasons)
However, the primary fault still lies with Wyoming’s program itself.
We're also in agreement there to some degree. I mean, players being recruited by Wyoming late 1969 into the mid-80s, especially African-American players, weren't responding to BYU policies all that time...no, they were holding the Wyoming program accountable for their actions by looking past attending Wyoming. So, frankly, this recruiting reality is what was most directly linked to the demise of the 70s Wyoming program.
Still, there's always a cause-and-effect. I saw in the news this week a priest(?) [somebody correct me if I'm misidentifying who it was] laying down in Pelosi's office over the healthcare bill -- somebody identified with Randall Terry's group and who was probably engaging in civil disobedience & got arrested. Obviously this man knew that by not getting up when requested could eventually result in his arrest. (The power to NOT be arrested "rested" with him). But what was the provocative instigation of all of this? It was the putrid pro-abortion healthcare legislation Pelosi is imposing upon us! Likewise, what was the provocative instigation of the "Black 14" armbands? It was the putrid racist policies of the Lds church and BYU.
(If he had, would they have kicked him off the Olympic team?)
The best thing for those black players to have done was instead of wearing armbands, to just go out and kick BYU’s ass on the field.
Most of BYU's 1969 racism wasn't occurring on the football field. (It needed a venue addressed beyond taking it out on the Cougar players alone)
What changed Southern football, when Alabama was schooled by USC, from then on SEC schools realized that all-white teams weren’t going to cut the mustard anymore.
Well, that seemed to be the legacy also unveiled in the movie, Glory Road, when an upstart Texas Western team defeated an all-white Kentucky team in 1966, 72-65.
Frank Fitzpatrick of ESPN Classic writing about that game: ...examine the grainy film more closely. The crowd is white. So are the NCAA officials, the referees, the coaches, the cheerleaders and almost all the sportswriters on press row. High in the bleachers, Kentucky fans wave a Confederate flag as the Wildcats' five white players line up for the opening tap.
Texas Western's Bobby Joe Hill drives the lane against Kentucky. Then history steps into the picture.
Walking toward the red "M" at center court, in their orange uniforms and white Converse All-Stars, are the five starters for Texas Western. They are all black.
Until that moment, at the height of the civil-rights era, no major-college team had ever started five blacks in an NCAA championship game. In fact, until Texas Western coach Don Haskins did it earlier that season, no major-college team had ever started five blacks in ANY game.
For the first time that night, on the edge of the Mason-Dixon Line, a major American sports championship would be contested by one team that was all-white and another whose starters were entirely black.
"What a piece of history. If basketball ever took a turn, that was it," said Nolan Richardson, the Arkansas coach who played for Haskins at Texas Western.
Texas Western, an independent from remote El Paso, was little known outside the Southwest despite its 27-1 record and its No.3 ranking. Their 72-65 victory that night over No.1 Kentucky, coached by the legendary Adolph Rupp, stunned college basketball and upset conventional wisdom. (Source: http://espn.go.com/classic/s/013101_texas_western_fitzpatrick.html )
Pumped up by the 40 year anniversiary, the Wyoming Cowboys posted a 53-0 loss this weekend to BYU, at home.
Pumped up by the 40 year anniversiary, the Wyoming Cowboys posted a 53-0 loss this weekend to BYU, at home.
Well, the "0" isn't surprising...not the first time Wyoming's been shutout this season.
As for the "53" -- hey, if you think you're a "god in embryo," you have that sense of invincibility...that somehow wasn't able to transfer well to the TCU game, tho, eh? (And that was "at home" for the Cougs, too)
We'll see how the Cougars fare vs. the Utes.
TCU is the real deal, as the Utes will find out this weekend.
53-0 has nothing to do with having a “sense of invincibility”, its just a good old fashioned whipping.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.