Top Comments: last all-white championship teams edition

A look at the last all-white championship teams in certain sports, after the jump:

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We have been hearing (ad nauseum) about white nationalism the past two years, to our chagrin. In researching a recent Top Comments of mine, I came across this sports essay from the year 1999 — outlining the last all-white teams to win championships in five major US men’s team sports: the NFL, the NBA and Major League Baseball (for professional sports) and college football and basketball.

The author (Richard Rothschild) goes on to posit that the teams involved (who were slower to integrate than others) suffered later-on in some ways — which isn’t always a cause-and-affect, he admits. Yet he did think it was worth-a-look back in 1999 … and in today’s climate, I’d like to take a another look.

Note: the obvious sport not listed is the NHL — which will not join this list for a time. After all, it was only this decade that the % of NHL hockey players who are Canadian-born dipped below 50% for the first time (and Canada has a low black citizen population). Still, the number of players who are black is around 5% and growing … so the day will come when the NHL joins this list. It simply won’t be for having had a public “color line” prohibition, as baseball did.

Two of the teams date back to 1953, in America’s older team sports.

The 1953 New York Yankees won their fifth straight World Series title in 1953 (which has not been duplicated since). Two years after the retirement of Joe DiMaggio, the team had five future Hall of Fame players (Whitey Ford, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Phil Rizzuto and Johnny Mize) as well as a Hall of Fame manager in Casey Stengel.

Richard Rothschild noted that the team did not have its first black player until two years later (catcher Elston Howard in 1955) — eight years after the debut of Jackie Robinson — and did not make the World Series in 1954 and lost it in 1955. Still, he felt that team management was complacent — we are winning, aren’t we? He acknowledged that from 1956-1964, they were quite competitive. But Rothschild still felt they were slow to become fully integrated, which affected them greatly from 1963-1975, when they were often non-competitive. It was their wholesale signing of black players in the mid-70’s (such as Willie Randolph, Chris Chambliss, Mickey Rivers and especially Reggie Jackson) that changed their fortunes.

         1953 World Series champion New York Yankees

Professional football had African-American players in the 1920’s with no color line, but the owner of the Washington franchise (George Preston Marshall) insisted upon one in 1933 — which lasted until 1946, when four players (a year before Jackie Robinson) were signed. Marshall himself was forced to integrate when Washington, D.C. built a new stadium for his franchise in the early 60’s … and this KKK photo is staggering.

No, it is not Photoshopped!

The Detroit Lions did have three black players in 1949 (tied for the league lead) but had none from 1951-1956. Their 1953 NFL championship was the last all-white team in the NFL to win the title, winning a 17-16 title match against Cleveland. They were helped by seven future Hall of Fame players, including quarterback Bobby Layne and safety Yale Lary (who recently died at the age of 86).

Rothschild posits that the Lions may have followed-the-lead of the Detroit Tigers, one of the last baseball teams to integrate. But after winning the 1957 NFL championship, the Lions have been shut-out ever since.

Interestingly, the rival American Football League (AFL) that began operations in 1960 (before merging with the NFL a decade later) were more willing to draft players from the (often smaller) historically black colleges and universities— perhaps one reason why the fledgling league caught-up in talent so swiftly.

            1953 National Football League champion Detroit Lions

At last year’s Netroots Nation, I made a point of seeking out the location of the St. Louis Blues hockey team arena — because that site used to be the old Kiel Auditorium, home of the NBA’s St. Louis Hawks (who in 1968 relocated to Georgia to become the Atlanta Hawks … where next week’s Netroots Nation takes place).

  (Partly demolished) Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis

The St. Louis Hawks of the 1950’s were a competitive franchise, led by three future Hall of Fame players including their power forward Bob Pettit. Their owner Ben Kerner was concerned about trying to integrate a team on the edge of the South (even after the NBA had integrated in 1950).

They were one of two teams who could have drafted Bill Russell in 1956, but they traded their first round pick to the Boston Celtics (in exchange for two of the Hawks’ future Hall of Fame players, Ed Macauley and Cliff Hagan) due to that concern, and thus remained an all-white team.

The Celtics won the 1957 title over the Hawks in seven games with a double-overtime victory in Game 7. The next year (1958) the Hawks won in six games, when Bill Russell suffered a foot injury: missing Games 4 and 5, and hobbled in Game 6 that enabled Bob Pettit to score 50 points. (When Bill Russell finally allowed the Celtics to publicly retire his uniform #6 in 1999, I attended — and Bob Pettit was one of the celebrities on-hand, whom Russell called “one of the toughest opponents I ever faced”).

The Hawks finally integrated in 1959, but had trouble sustaining their attendance base (despite drafting stars such as Lenny Wilkens and Zelmo Beaty), leading to their move to Atlanta in 1968 — and have not returned to the NBA Finals since 1961. The rival ABA (that began operations in 1967) also made it a point to recruit black players more than the older, established NBA).

     1958 NBA champion St. Louis Hawks

Moving to college sports: Rothschild marvels that the last all-white championship team was the 1959 University of California—Berkeley Golden Bears— given the Bay Area’s progressiveness ... and that their rival University of San Francisco won titles (in 1955 and 1956) with three black starters (including its captain Bill Russell).

That 1959 team’s championship was unexpected, with a lineup not taken seriously by many sportswriters and analysts, except for their center Darrall Imhoff (who just recently died at the age of 78). But they had two advantages: one being head coach Pete Newell (being carried-off the court after the championship match in the photo below) who had a level of preparation for his team that is common today, but not in the 1950’s (with advance scheduling, planning for future matches, emphasizing physical conditioning, et al).

The other was assistant coach Rene Herrerias, whose main contribution was to scout the team’s opponents — with a travel budget common today, but a rarity back then — so that the team had a high level of knowledge. And in the Final Four, they had to defeat two opponents having a guard who were stars then (and later considered to be among the best players of all-time) — overcoming semi-final opponent Cincinnati 64-58 (led by Oscar Robertson) and needing a game-winning basket by Darrall Imhoff to outlast West Virginia 71-70 (led by Jerry West).

But after losing the championship match to Cincinnati the following year, the high-strung coach Newell retired … and the Bears did not even win a conference title again until fifty-one years later in 2010. In the 1960’s, talented African-American athletes increasingly chose to go to UCLA or Arizona in their conference, as UC-Berkeley had several racial issues by the late 1960’s.  

The 1959 University of California NCAA champs

And lastly, due to the enormous popularity of college football in the Deep South — the last all-white championship team was not until 1969, as integration did not occur until the dawn of the 1970’s at schools in the region.

The University of Texas was awarded the consensus national title, and would integrate the next year (as African-American Julius Whittier was ineligible for the 1969 squad due to regulations then-prohibiting freshman). Texas won the title in a way that — now with a formal four-team playoff system — couldn’t be repeated.

First, in early December, 1969: they played one of college football's "Games of the Century" — that actually lived up to its advance billing. Like Notre Dame-at-Michigan State in 1966 and Nebraska-at-Oklahoma in 1971, the Texas-at-Arkansas match of 1969 featured two undefeated teams with Texas prevailing 15-14, having gambled on a fourth-and-three play (from their own 43) with a 44-yard pass that set-up the winning touchdown with four minutes to play.

The Longhorns won again the following year, but did not win another title until thirty-five years later (with its African-American quarterback Vince Young scoring the winning touchdown). The Southwestern Conference (that both Texas and Arkansas were part of) itself went downhill and disbanded in 1996.

But several aspects of the 1969 Texas-Arkansas game transcended mere sports:

(a) This game was marked by President Nixon's decision not only to attend (along with then-congressman/future president George H.W. Bush) but also to present a plaque (signifying a national title) to the winning squad — despite the fact that Penn State was also undefeated and the bowl games were several weeks away. Texas did go on (later) to be formally awarded the national title after a Cotton Bowl victory, even though Penn State also won their bowl game, too.

(b) This was the last major NCAA football game played between two all-white teams - as southern regional conferences began integrating the following year.

(c) With Nixon present, anti-Vietnam War protesters attended: and one climbed a tree overlooking the stadium in Little Rock to hold up an anti-war sign. An urban legend declared him to be none-other-than Arkansas native (and future President) Bill Clinton— but Clinton was then in England as a Rhodes Scholar (although he listened to the game on a shortwave radio).

(d) Finally, this wasn't the only time a Joe Paterno-led Penn State team went undefeated, yet were unable to play for the national title: which is why he long argued for a playoff system (that did not come into existence until two years after his death). Many sportswriters of that era looked down upon northeastern college football as inferior to that of the South, upper Midwest and Pacific Coast (hampered also by the limited television broadcasts of that era) — and these attitudes did not change until later in the 1970’s.

I need not reiterate the horrors revealed about Joe Paterno’s later years ... but one quip of his was telling. Five years after the 1969 season, Nixon's involvement in announcing a champion before the bowl games began led Paterno (a conservative Republican) to ask during a 1974 commencement speech, "How could Nixon know so much about college football in 1969  …. and so little about Watergate in 1973?"

   1969 NCAA champion Texas Longhorns

After the present occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue leaves that “dump” …. there will be future white presidents … yet I feel that no one will be elected president who openly campaigns on a white nationalism platform. At least, I sure hope so — and if so …. that will be the one silver lining to his regime.

Let’s close with Muhammad Ali singing Stand by Me in 1963 — at a time of change.

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Now, on to Top Comments:

From sfcouple:

In the diary by JebbaTheButt about the Trumpster referring to the White House as a real dump— I would like to recommend the following by pines of rome as a Top Comment for today.

From greenbird:

In today’s Abbreviated Pundit Roundup— agnostic had a comment that has me saying: my my my: twitter abbrev's + spill chk = bad mis-read: he said "HOLD YOUR FIRE!"

From ZenTrainer:

In my own diary by about Col. Doug Applegate’s retort to the Trumpster trying to thwart transgender service members — this is a beautiful comment by nutherhumanbeing (talking of racism and "otherism" in the military). I don't know if I'm getting old and sappy or what …. but so many Kossacks seem very poetic to me.  

From MikeTheLiberal:

In my own diary about an existential threat to women — this comment made by PadreMellryn (in response to TrueBlueMajority) captured what I believe is the essence of the abortion argument here in America.

And also from my diary: you can add this comment by KaLo — because it does bring up the struggle of women in the United States, thanks in part to a book “The Secret History of Wonder Woman”.

Highlighted by pat of butter in a sea of grits:

In the diary by jenesaiswha, explaining the Milk People to us —   this clever comment by StevenWells merits notice.

And from Ed Tracey, your faithful correspondent this evening ........

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