What are the 8 reasons why Bear Bryant became popular?
Why did Alabama mean so much to white southerners? What 4 things did the team represent?
What was the state of the South in the 1950s? What was Bryant’s position in all of this?
The South feels like it’s under attack. There are lynchings and killing occurring in Alabama but Bryant doesn’t use his power to say anything, he claims he isn’t political. This is different from today where coaches cannot be silent.
According to Andrew Doyle, why does Alabama become so popular?
Doyle claims the University of Alabama football team became a visual representation of white supremacy.
What was the significant of the NAACP?
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People: the ultimate goal was to integrate K-12, but started with graduate students
Why do faculty at universities like Prairie View have their PhDs from more competitive universities (michigan, harvard, columbia, ucla, etc.) compared to faculty at schools like Texas?
Most southern states would give scholarships that paid for black students to attend school in any other state
Who was Heman Sweatt and what did he do?
Sweatt wanted to attend Texas Law School after receiving his undergrad degree. He understood it put the board of regents in a bind and thus came the Sweatt vs. Painter case.
A law school was then created for blacks and was held in a basement and claimed to be equal to the white law school.
Sweatt never finished his degree due to stress and intimidation.
What was the significance of the 1926 Rose Bowl game between Alabama and Washington?
Alabama sees this game as an opportunity to shine. Alabama’s win was seen as a sectional victory that a southern school had beaten a west school.
It transformed Alabama into this “Pride of Dixie” type of deal
What made Alabama more popular across the South in the 1950s? (Structural things that took Alabama to another level)
What was the Montgomery bus boycott?
Blacks refused to ride the bus anymore. Black people had to pay at the front then sit in the back or even stand when there were empty seats. This became problematic because 85% of money made by bus companies was made from Black people.
What was the significance of the 1961 Rose Bowl game between Alabama and UCLA?
UCLA had 8 black players and refuses to play Alabama because they won’t integrate. We begin to see the intersection of race, sports and politics.
Bryant said he had nothing to say about not playing UCLA. Alabama ended up pulling out to avoid being embarrassed. Always had to “defend their way of life”
What was the significance in the 1963 Orange Bowl between Oklahoma and Bama?
It had the context of the Cuban Missile Crisis. JFK met with OK but didn’t want to meet with Bryant because he had to protect his image. Bryant was offended and used it as a motivating factor for his team
What would all conversation revolve around during the mid 1950s in Alabama?
race and football
What was the deal with Alabama’s new president?
He had a big vision for football. Board of Trustees wants to know if he will support integration but he caters his response to his audiences. He becomes popular for getting Bryant as a coach.
What did Alabama want in a coach?
How did Bryant scare players off Alabama?
What role did HBCUs play in college football?
HBCUs were established during the period of segregation, they enroll 15% of all black students in college but produce higher percentages of black PhD’s.
First HBCU game in the 1880s in NC, created a parallel world where college ball was played in ivy leagues as well as HBCUs
Prior to integration, HBCUs have a monopoly on black athletic talent up until the late 1960s
What three conferences do HBCUs use?
Why did white southerners tolerate HBCUs?
HBCUs saw link between them and black success
What makes HBCUs different?
They’re always going to prioritize academics over athletics. They believed black academic success could change racial prejudice.
When we talk about HBCU football, we’re not just talking about the game, we’re talking about “sporting congregations.” What entities are these made up of?
Players have a wrap around support structure where all these entities are invested in the players doing well on the field in addition to doing well in life.
What was the golden age of black college football?
Between 1945-1970, black football is on par with, if not better than, white college football
What was the double burden of black coaches?
Felt they had to take the jobs for black america and perform to create opportunities for other coaches but can’t be overly concerned with win and losses and exploiting black athletes.
What explains the disparity in black coaches (6 or so) out of 65 total? even though the majority of teams were black
The message being sent was that black people work and white people lead