Bear Bryant and Dean Smith Flipped Segregation to Forge History

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Bear Bryant and Dean Smith are undeniably two of college sports greatest coaches.  Each is legendary.  Yet, within a few years of one another, they had hit a wall with their programs.  That wall?  Segregation.  Changes were needed and they knew it.  The ensuing decisions they made would make history, forever altering the landscape of Southern college athletics and their universities.

Turning points

Both Bryant and Smith had been adaptable.  Enough so to grow their programs and keep pace with the competition.  Why?  Neither was afraid of change.

The veteran Bryant had, in fact, already captured three national football championships at the University of Alabama by 1968.  Conversely, Smith was not as successful at the University of North Carolina.  Nevertheless, in 1965 the Tar Heels had turned the corner.  Great recruiting, of course, didn’t diminish either team’s immediate outlook.  However, Smith in 1965 and Bryant in 1970, each foresaw a not-too-distant future which did not suit them.  Their desires for their programs to be at the top of their respective sports were in jeopardy.  Meanwhile, their largely segregated fan bases were in the dark.  Little did they know that flipping Southern racial norms on their ear was upon them.

Few know it now, but Bear Bryant and Dean Smith were instrumental in pushing aside segregation for the betterment of their programs and their universities.  Nothing has been the same since.

Dean Smith signs Charlie Scott at UNC

Dean Smith became the head basketball coach at the University of North Carolina in 1961.  Elevated to the position following the departure of UNC legend Frank McGuire, Smith’s early teams struggled to remain relevant in the vaunted Atlantic Coast Conference.  But his 1965 team had performed well enough for Smith to keep his job in Chapel Hill.  Still, Smith knew he had to do something drastic to catapult his squad upward to the elite level of men’s basketball.  Besides, being also-rans was intolerable to Tar Heel fans.  They yearned for another national championship.  Desperately searching for the answer, Coach Smith discovered his turnaround catalyst in a special recruit from Laurinburg (NC) Institute named Charlie Scott.  The athletic guard would become the first African-American scholarship player at UNC.

But Scott’s arrival on Franklin Street meant more to Smith than having snagged a top recruit away from Davidson College.  He was also serving another agenda.  In signing Scott, Smith signaled to the UNC Board of Governors that their veiled attempts at integration were outdated and coming to an end.  The year Scott enrolled, 1966, only 22 of 2,000 incoming freshmen were African American.  Hence, Smith’s overt move ushered in an age of acceptance which has endured.

The payoff for UNC

Charlie Scott’s impact on the basketball squad was evident.  During his three years of varsity play, UNC advanced to two NCAA Final Fours, largely due to Scott’s extraordinary talent.  Although coming away empty-handed each time, upon graduation Scott had made his lasting mark on the program and the ACC.  Today, Charlie Scott is one of the most beloved athletes ever to don the Carolina blue and white uniform.

We know now that it was indeed Coach Smith’s plan all along.  His father was the first to integrate basketball in Smith’s home state of Kansas.  That stuck with Dean Smith and would inspire his actions decades later.  On his integrating the Tar Heels program and its influence on the university, Smith said humbly, “I wasn’t trying to make a legacy, I was just trying to do what I thought was right.”

How did it work out?  Smith led the Tar Heels to two national titles (1982 and 1993 ), 17 ACC regular season titles, 13 ACC conference crowns, 11 Final Four appearances, and a record 879 wins.

Bear Bryant integrates the Crimson Tide

Palu “Bear” Bryant’s Alabama Crimson Tide of the 1960s was arguably college football’s best.  Yet, that would unexpectedly change. Although the Tide had earned three national crowns, Coach Bryant painfully saw that his team needed a drastic overhaul.  In 1970, Alabama suffered an embarrassing defeat at the hands of John McKay’s USC Trojans, 42-21, at Legion Field in Birmingham. The Trojans had started a backfield completely comprised of African Americans.  Most notable was Sam Cunnigham who ran roughshod through the Tide’s defenders for 135 yards and two scores.  Their superior athleticism was obvious.  The game was not only a turning point for Bryant’s team, but for college football across the South as well.

Bryant already had one African American on his team, Wilbur Jackson, but the following year the legendary Bear recruited and started another African American, John Mitchell.  The Tide rolled into Los Angeles and returned the Trojans’ favor by upsetting Southern Cal, 17-10.

The payoff for Alabama

From that point on in Tuscaloosa, it was on.  Certainly, Coach Bryant was met with some powerful resistance, but none was as powerful as Bryant himself.  Coach Bryant subsequently began recruiting larger and larger numbers of black athletes.  The payoff was that under Bryant’s tutelage, the Crimson Tide went on to capture three more NCAA champions in 1973, 1978 and 1979.  His Alabama teams amassed six national championships and thirteen conference championships. Upon his retirement in 1982, he held the record for most wins as head coach in collegiate football history with 323 wins.

Did Coach Bryant know the significance of his historic move to integrate Alabama football?  A year following his final national title, Bryant admitted to TIME Magazine, “I wanted to be the Branch Rickey of football.”

Bear Bryant and Dean Smith were agents of change

In retrospect, it was inevitable that Southern college teams would integrate.  Nonetheless, it took stalwarts Bear Bryant and Dean Smith to fire the starting pistol.  Soon every major university in the ACC and SEC was signing African American athletes to scholarships in all sports.  When college sports integration would have become accepted and widespread is unknown.  With that in mind, who would buck Smith and Bryant, especially with the results they achieved?  The answer is a short one – nobody.  Moreover, their contributions in athletics extended beyond the sports areas.  As black athletes became commonplace in southern universities, student bodies at large began to accept the presence of their African American peers in the classroom as well.

There is no question then that Bear Bryant and Dean Smith changed a long-held paradigm whose time had run its course.

Note:  Author Alan Parham is a 14-year veteran high school scout for National Scouting Report, the America’s oldest, largest and most respected scouting organization.  He currently serves as the company’s NCAA Compliance Manager.

 

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