Eddie McAshan Legacy

[Northeast Stinger]

Not really. My HS did not until 1971. Probably would have taken longer in FB, if the "Bear" had not been stomped by Nebraska and Oklahoma multiple times. I would relate a quote he said after one such game, but it is better left unsaid.

My high school football team was integrated by 1967. As for the Bear, the story goes that there was a running back that he really wanted to recruit but he was afraid to face the color barrier. So he called up the coach at USC and scheduled a home and home series. Southern Cal came in with an integrated team and just toyed with Alabama the whole game, winning by 3 touchdowns after Alabama scored late against their third string. The next year the alumni were on board with Alabama breaking the color barrier.

 

[TheSilasSonRising]

Carson would have integrated GT earlier. He signed a young man, on the field ( happened to be GF where the HSCG was always held) immediately after the game in 67/68. You could do that back then. Remember the kid was a monster RB from Valdosta but could not get in school.

But as far as getting a minority on the field, I think UT beat us by a year or two. Think it was a WR.

 

[ATL1]

Kentucky was the first to integrate the SEC in football.

 

[dressedcheeseside]

More on the controversy that ended his playing days at GT.

"So when the university denied McAshan's request for extra family tickets to the season-ending game against Georgia in 1972, ``It was what they call the last straw,'' McAshan said recently.

When McAshan skipped a practice to protest the decision, coach Bill Fulcher suspended him from the Georgia game, which Tech lost, then extended the suspension to include the Liberty Bowl against Iowa State.

Atlanta's black community rallied to McAshan's defense; Georgia Tech's athletic department and administration backed Fulcher. McAshan soon became a civil rights cause celebre, receiving advice from black activists who tried to organize a boycott of the Liberty Bowl. His black teammates, fearing the loss of their scholarships, crossed an NAACP picket line outside the Liberty Bowl but wore black armbands in a show of support.

While his backup led Georgia Tech to a 31-30 victory over Iowa State, McAshan sat outside the stadium in a white stretch limousine with Jesse Jackson, who would call him the ``Jackie Robinson of Southern college football.''

http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19901230&slug=1111983

 

[Declinometer]

You have to love Coach Fulcher's resolve

 

[awbuzz]

Wow! I'm just young enough (51) to not remember that teams have not always been non-segregated in my lifetime.

In my mind it's hard to think that it ever was time when we weren't "integrated".

Thanks for posting a history lesson for those of us that don't remember that era.

 

[GT18YJ]

Wow! I'm just young enough (51) to not remember that teams have not always been non-segregated in my lifetime.

In my mind it's hard to think that it ever was time when we weren't "integrated".

Thanks for posting a history lesson for those of us that don't remember that era.

Some of it 's not history, it's fantasy.