The 1966 national championship football team

The blending of racial dynamics and athletics always makes for compelling content. The 1966 Michigan State football team was one of the greatest ever assembled. That team featured the top two picks in the 1967 NFL Draft and four of the top eight picks overall. In consecutive seasons they went a combined 19-1-1 and won back-to-back national titles. We know all of that, and it’s all very impressive.

What makes this group stand out in particular is what was going on off the field. The 1960’s were a turbulent decade for racial tensions in America. 1966 is halfway between the Civil Rights Act’s passage in 1964 and the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. The march on Selma and Bloody Sunday happened in 1965. The first black college football player to play in the SEC, Nate Northington, made his debut in 1967. Georgia and Texas wouldn’t have their first black players until 1970.

Meanwhile, up in East Lansing, MI, a man named Duffy Daugherty was going into the Deep South and offering young black men an opportunity they couldn’t find locally; a fair chance to play high-level college football. Lo and behold those teams thrived and helped–among many, many, many other things–pave the way for full integration of college football.