Nearly 50 years ago, a group of Wyoming football players decided to take a stand against what they perceived to be racial discrimination by an opponent and it cost them.


Tony McGee had no idea what would come next after he and 13 other black players were kicked off the undefeated and nationally ranked Wyoming Cowboys football team in the midst of the 1969 season. The defensive end had been playing like an All-American and maybe even a future pro, racking up 11 sacks in just four games. But now his football career, his college education and his entire future were in doubt.

One thing McGee knew for sure was that he would never play for Wyoming again. As far as he was concerned, the ouster of the group that came to be known as the Black 14 had revealed head coach Lloyd Eaton as not just a hard-edged taskmaster but also a hardheaded racist.

Wyoming’s black players had proposed wearing black armbands in their home game against Brigham Young University. A few wanted to protest the Mormon Church’s dictum forbidding black members from becoming priests. But for most of them, including McGee, the beef was more personal: BYU’s all-white squad had hurled racial slurs and cheap shots at black players during their game a year earlier.

But when the black Wyoming players raised the idea of a protest with their coach, Eaton did not want to hear it. Instead, he berated and insulted them, saying they were troublemakers, half of whom did not know their fathers. Then, he kicked them off the team. McGee recalls Eaton saying the players could go back home to live off “colored relief.” Or, if they were lucky, maybe they could go play for Morgan, Grambling or some other historically black college or university.



http://theundefeated.com/features/bl...to-super-bowl/