04/16/24
February 17, 2006
Hidden: 1966 'Glory Road' Miners to visit White House: Thank God, no pun intended, the Dungy post was laid to rest. I just wanted to share this link and hopefully get some insight from all the 'Sports Filter' experts out there regarding the following "quote" from said link: It is all in conjunction with the movie and the 40th anniversary of El Paso's most famous team, the 1966 Texas Western Miners -- the team that is widely credited with breaking the color barrier in college athletics. Who else is credited with breaking the color barrier? Lay it on me dudes and dudettes. Peace.
posted by chrisly13 to basketball at 09:21 PM - 2 comments
The Texas Western team had five black starters, but you don't have to have an all-black starting lineup to "break the color barrier." The 1950 CCNY team that won both the NCAA and NIT tournaments had three black players, two of them starters. And that's just basketball. The article says "college athletics," which is absurd. The first black All-American football player was William H. Lewis, who played for Harvard in 1892 and 1893. And he had previously played for Amherst. If he didn't break the color barrier in college athletics, I don't know who did.
posted by rhickok at 11:03 AM on February 19, 2006
All I can say is that if the team was from any other state in the union, they would not be going to the White House.