Selling Out Black College Football to Make a Buck

Florida A&M's legendary football coach Alonzo Smith "Jake" Gaither watches Bob Hayes before the 1964 season.  Hayes is the only man to win both an Olympic gold medal and a Super Bowl ring. 
(COURTESY FLORIDA A&M UNIVERSITY ATHLETICS) 

Looking back at 2013, we view this article to be the top story of 2013, written by George E. Curry, former editor-in-chief of Emerge magazine; is editor-in-chief of the National Newspaper Publishers Association News Service (NNPA), and author of “Jake Gaither: America’s Most Famous Black Coach.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. --  I cringed as the scores came in over a recent weekend. Ohio State 76, Florida A&M 0. Florida State 54, Bethune-Cookman 6. Miami 77, Savannah State 7. Our HBCUs have traded their proud, rich football heritage for money. And I don’t think it’s worth it.

There’s only one reason our HBCUs schedule games against schools whose head coaches make more than their entire athletic budgets: they earn a big payday, even if that means being publicly humiliated along the way.

The irony is that the SEC wouldn’t continue to have a lock on national football championships were it not for their Black players. And it wasn’t all that long ago that Blacks were as unwelcomed in the SEC as they were at KKK rallies.  But when Sam Cunningham ran for 135 yards and two touchdowns on 12 carries in 1970 when the University of Southern California routed Alabama 42-21 in Birmingham, the conference got the message that they couldn’t win without Black talent.

Until then, if Black athletes wanted to play in the South, they had to attend HBCUs. It was never a question of talent. More than 1,200 players from Black colleges have played in the NFL, including 150 who have made it to the Super Bowl. NFL stars from HBCUs include ...



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