LMU had three black players and a black trainer on the team. It was not uncommon for black athletes to attend colleges in California. In , black people still faced racism and de facto segregation similar to what Jackie Robinson had experienced at UCLA.
But it was different from the legal racism and segregation of Texas. There were massive differences in how the state of California and the state of Texas treated black people in the s.
Nonetheless, a game had been scheduled between Loyola University and Texas Western. Red Hopkins was the LMU football team manager. He had the responsibility of making the accommodations and scheduling games. He was responsible for scheduling the Texas Western game and also made the hotel reservations for the team at the Hotel Cortes. Loyola University was put in a tough situation by the fact that the Hotel Cortes would not allow black players to stay there. The Hotel Cortes said they would make accommodations for the black athletes to stay elsewhere in the city but under no circumstance could stay at the hotel.
In addition, there was a standing rule in the state of Texas that prohibited black athletes from playing:. The Board of Regents of the University of Texas, of which Texas Western was a member, would not budge from its longstanding rule that blacks could not play for or against football teams in its division. Loyola University had to decide whether to play in this game without their black athletes and trainer being able to go.
Loyola University stood by their Jesuit values when it came to defending the black players and trainer. From a Jesuit perspective, it would be unethical to allow such discrimination just to play in the game and for the success of an athletic program. It was not a simple decision, though, because if you cancel the game you lose money, and it also looks bad for your football program.
The hotel was already booked for the whole team as well as airfare. By canceling the reservation, Loyola canceled the trip to El Paso. This was the first step in forfeiting the game against Texas Western.
Loyola did not stand for segregation and stood up for their black athletes and trainer. It also was harder for Loyola to schedule games with other teams going forward.
Knowing a team canceled a game within a season was unsettling to some schools. Red Hopkins had trouble getting scheduled to play games outside the state of California. All the players and coaches supported the decision, which was ultimately made by Loyola University president Charles Casassa. Loyola suffered financially and athletically from this decision, but they placed their Jesuit values above winning.
Sixteen years after Loyola University forfeited a game against Texas Western because of segregation, Texas Western ironically became the first team to start an all-black lineup in college basketball history.
Not only were they the first team in college basketball to start five black players, but they also won the National Championship that year, beating a historically great Kentucky basketball team coached by Adolph Rupp. Kentucky was a team of all white players and was a perennial blue blood in college basketball, while Texas Western was unheard of in college basketball.
If a school like Texas Western could beat Kentucky with five black players against five white players, it would be groundbreaking for black athletes across the country. When he came to the Lakers, Bob McAdoo told me how much the game meant, how it changed everything, how it opened up the world for black kids in the South.
I guess I never really thought of it that way, that we were such a big part of history. The loss remains. The fact that Texas Western was able to win on such a massive stage had huge ramifications for black athletes all over the country.
From a talent perspective, other schools started recruiting more and more black players. Secondly, it was an inspiration to young black kids across the country. It showed them that a group of black players could come together and succeed and that ultimately their talent could be appreciated and succeed at the top level.
The fact that they beat a blue blood program like Kentucky shows the significance and importance of the game. It showed that black athletes could not be turned down and discriminated against much longer. In the case of Jackie Robinson, he played four sports in as a black athlete in Although a freshman, he had been tagged a future pillar of the backfield, and he appears in the yearbook varsity team photo. In less than a year, Horn was drafted into military service. Horn roomed with English, and the two of them talked with Cunningham and sophomore Clarence Lofton, another African American player, about the incident.
The African American players, Horn says, were angry. But because of discrimination, they were prevented from performing together as a team.
The players recognized the significance of the decision at the time. As competitors, the players and coaches were understandably disappointed to not play the game. The team would go 7 — 0 before losing to Santa Clara 28 — 26 in the second to last game of the season. That loss probably cost Loyola an invitation to the Orange Bowl, even though the team ended the season beating ranked University of San Francisco.
Coach Olivar, widely considered the creator of the most innovative passing offense of his time, died in He left Loyola to coach Yale from — His team earned the Lambert Trophy as the best in the East. He passed away in Well after his playing days, he remained close friends with Cunningham, who had taken Klosterman under his wing when the latter was a boy growing up in Compton. Some of the remaining members of the team still get together twice a year.
The air around Loyola was unbelievable. The campus was alive. With the student body there now, it would have been incredible. Horn, too, remembers the team as an extremely close-knit group. The African American players felt that Loyola stood up for them, and they appreciated it, he says. We were accepted by everyone. We liked all of our players, and they liked us. Giancanelli agrees. We really cared for one another.
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