Sidelined (14 page)

Active recruiting of more black students and athletes to the campus was a response to the civil rights activism of the mid- to late 1960s. In many respects the university was adopting policies that supported the ideal of sport as a positive racial force. The athletics department saw a way to improve the quality of its teams and show the racial progress that
sport could bring. Nevertheless, to a large extent the university authorities had brought the Presley incident on themselves by recruiting a significant number of black athletes to the athletics department but leaving them largely isolated on a campus with very few other black students.
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Wolfe described the black athletes being “dropped into an environment that was almost impossible for them to succeed in, … two entirely different universes all of a sudden converging.”
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Blackwell argued, “It was a difficult transition…. a lot of the guys … were switching worlds, they were switching languages.”
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In this environment and with the increasing pressure to play some part in the racial protest movement, black athletes could point to incidents of discrimination and lodge protests, convincing themselves that they were making a stand for racial justice without compromising their role as an athlete on a team.
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Many of the white players saw the protests by their black teammates as a rejection of the traditional sporting ideals of team and discipline. The anger and disillusionment of some white team members still resonates today. The dominant opinion is that Presley broke team discipline and then provoked a racial confrontation. From a very early point in the events at Berkeley there was a widening of the racial divide as white and black players took stands that made it difficult to inhabit a middle ground. With the benefit of hindsight there is a recognition that many of the problems that arose stemmed from a cultural misunderstanding. Wolfe recalled, “We were insensitive to issues that might have led to maybe cutting him [Presley] more slack.”
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At Berkeley we see less of an attempt to promote civil rights protests through sport and more of the clashing racial cultures of young white and black men thrown together on a basketball team. Events reveal an important facet of the black athletic revolt without offering an unequivocal example of sport being used to promote the black freedom struggle.

In the spring of 1968 racial unrest came to the Marquette University campus in Wisconsin. The student protest group Respond issued a number of ultimatums to university officials concerning the institution's policy toward equal opportunities. In response to equivocation by the officials, several black students threatened to withdraw from Marquette. Among their number were basketball stars Frank Edwards, Dean Memminger, Joe Thomas, George Thompson, Blanton Simmons, and Pat Smith. The response of the coach and the white players on the team and the focus on wider university policy rather than on team discipline reveal important differences between the impact of the black athletic revolt at Marquette and its impact at Berkeley.

The incident at Marquette was not linked to the broader OPHR movement in the same way that events at San Jose and Berkeley were. Certainly, Harry Edwards was not an influential actor in the events in Wisconsin. Black player Joe Thomas explained, “We at Marquette were rather isolated in terms of what was going on in wider areas and other campuses…. We were not aware that there was a wider attempt through athletics at other college universities or through other civil rights movements to have a wider and greater effect.”
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Indeed, the incident at Marquette did not emanate from inside the athletic department in the way it did in California. Student protest leaders focused their attention on the racial policies of the university as a whole, and the involvement of the basketball players followed. This fact helped to ensure that the protest followed a different path than the one taken at Berkeley. The protest at Marquette revealed the extent to which a boycott could be used as leverage to elicit change. Nevertheless, the role of sport and the importance of having a winning team compromised the extent of this change and its wider significance. In many respects events at Marquette were closely in tune with the ideology of the OPHR. Students sought to use their position as sports stars to draw attention to wider civil rights struggles.

Civil rights activism at Marquette was organized by Students United for Racial Equality (SURE). The organization was founded in 1965 and was initially engaged in civil rights marches, specifically targeting the slow pace of school integration in Milwaukee. SURE members engaged in a boycott of the public school system and organized a petition to express dissatisfaction with the school board's policy, which they argued maintained de facto segregation. Conscious of their participation at a Catholic university, SURE leaders emphasized their responsibilities as both citizens and Christians.
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In early 1968 black and white members of SURE began to put pressure on the university to focus on those of its policies that helped to perpetuate racial inequalities. Some of the students organized a fast and several were arrested after a sit-in.
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Leaders of the movement stated, “The black man in this country does not trust the white man, not even the white liberal,” and called on the university to tackle racism within its own institutions.
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Following slow responses from university authorities, six demands were
presented on May 8, 1968. These demands reflected the increasing dominance of black leadership among the protesters, now organized under the name Respond. Calls for the establishment of one hundred black scholarships, the adoption of black history courses, the sacking of the head of campus security, and the hiring of black administrators reflected similar demands on other campuses.
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Respond spokesmen warned that if the university did not meet its demands there would be significant consequences. Jack Cummins, president of the graduate students' association, argued, “There will not be violence but I promise you this—we will embarrass this university.”
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The black basketball players became involved in the protest movement because they shared the ideals of the demonstrators. Joe Thomas explained that in his view Marquette had a responsibility to reach out to the parts of the surrounding community that were poorly served by the university. The ghetto area five or six blocks down from the campus needed an equal opportunities program to assist with the education of black youth in the city.
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An open letter from protesting students to university officials argued, “Our identity as a Christian University is at stake. If we do not involve ourselves actively and immediately in response to the racial crisis which faces us, to the urgent needs of the poor and oppressed of our city … we will simply cease to be credibly Christian.”
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Interviewed during a rally organized by Respond, Blanton Simmons argued, “Dr. King said it is cruel to tell a bootless people to pick themselves up by their bootstraps. Let's join together to get those people some boots!”
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George Thompson, the star player of the basketball team, expressed his thanks to all those who came to the rally and supported the demands of Respond.
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The black players were aware of their profile on campus and the extent to which they especially could draw attention to the issues at hand.

University officials were concerned with the practicality of meeting the demands of Respond and appeared to the demonstrators to be moving too slowly. Marquette vice president Father McAuley told the protesters that the university would try to meet Respond's demands but where more scholarships for blacks were concerned there were funding limitations and the university could not spend money it did not have. Respond leader Don Wallace described McAuley's statements as meaningless.
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As a consequence, the protest leaders issued an ultimatum that the university had to make a commitment to hire a full-time black staff recruiter and scholarship coordinator by May 16 or they would take serious direct action.
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When the deadline passed, twenty black students withdrew from the
university, including the six basketball stars. This was particularly threatening to the basketball program because, as Thomas explained, without himself, Memminger, Thompson, and the others there would not have been much of a team.
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Father Cooke of the Theology Department called for a forty-eight-hour truce period and gave assurances that the university would act within that time.
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The university officials were true to their word and the six basketball players returned to the team. A small piece in the
New York Times
on May 18, 1968, reported under a small heading (“6 Negro Marquette Athletes Reverse a Decision to Quit”) that the disruption to the basketball squad was over.
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A statement released by the returning students outlined how they were encouraged by the decision to recruit a black coordinator for a scholarship program. As Thomas explained, “Once that agreement had been made the basketball players decided we [had] accomplished our goal and so we decided to come back to school.”
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The manifestation of the black athletic revolt at Marquette reveals important differences from that at Berkeley. It was a breach of discipline by Presley that sparked the initial problems at Berkeley and led to wider protests concerning racial injustice. At Marquette, however, the protest was in no way focused on the basketball team. As white player Mike Fons explained, “There was never any kind of racial problem…. It was just a very normal team and that was both before and after [the protest].”
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His teammate, James Langenkamp, concurred: “We [white players] did not feel any animosity towards them.”
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Indeed, Joe Thomas explained, “The protest was not so much against the team but against the university as a whole.”
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The black players aligned themselves with a protest movement that emerged from outside of the athletics department and had nothing to do with actual team dynamics. Unlike the issues of discipline and tensions with the coach at Berkeley, the players at Marquette were unified by their coach, Al McGuire. It was McGuire who was instrumental in persuading the players to come back onto the squad. The college paper, the
Marquette Tribune,
praised McGuire for his success in retaining the unity of a successful and talented team. He was reported to have been involved in a “real shouting match” with student protest leader Gus Moye. Furthermore, the coach had previously told his black players that before they began speaking out about black power and racism they should remember that they had yet to make their mark in the world.
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Mike Fons described his coach as the kind of individual “who would start talking to you and instantly it was like you knew him forever, he was a fabulous personality.”
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McGuire met with four of the six protesting players in the early hours of May 17. When the players asked if they could phone some of the protest leaders before talking to him, McGuire indicated that he would rather speak to these leaders and the players himself. He then conducted a meeting with the players, Gus Moye, and other protest leaders in a local hotel room, at the end of which the players prepared a statement announcing that they would return to the university.
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George Thompson stated, “At this time we feel that as basketball players we can best work in support of this group [Respond] by remaining in school and working through the proper university channels.”
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