I knew I liked Lee Corso for some reason other than the way he puts on the mascot costume of the team he predicts will win whatever big college game ESPN is broadcasting that particular weekend.
Turns out Corso played a part in integrating college football in the South when he recruited Darryl Hill to be the first African-American to play for the University of Maryland in the early 1960s. Corso was the freshman coach then, but Hill wasn’t sure he wanted to accept Corso’s offer.
“I want to play some football,” Hill told Corso. “I don’t know about being Jackie Robinson.”
That’s just one of the many stories told in HBO’s latest sports documentary: “Breaking The Huddle: The Integration of College Football.” It premieres tonight at 10 p.m.
These days we debate who deserves to play in the national championship game and whether a playoff system is needed. The documentary reminds us that 40 years ago there were more significant issues being debated in our country and on our campuses.
“Breaking The Huddle” examines the state of college football during the Civil Rights Movement, focusing on the Southwest, Atlantic Coast and Southeastern conferences, where segregation reigned in the classroom and on the football field.
Written by New York Times sports columnist William C. Rhoden, the hour-long documentary captures the hostility faced by the first African-Americans to play in those Southern conferences, players like Hill, the first African-American to play in the Atlantic Coast Conference; Jerry LeVias, the first African-American on scholarship to play in the Southwest Conference; and Thomas Gossom, the first African-American athlete to graduate from Auburn University.
“I left the comfort of segregation for the discomfort of integration,” Gossom says in the film.
The integration of the football program at the University of Alabama is the core of the film as historians, coaches and players try to recapture the thinking of coach Paul “Bear” Bryant during that time. He is portrayed as being a proponent of integrating his all-white football team, but was handcuffed by the reluctance of state politicians and alumni. Bryant is quoted as telling someone, “I won’t be the first to integrate, but I won’t be the last.”
The film leads to the 1970 football game between Alabama and USC in Birmingham, where the Trojans, led by an all-black backfield and a black quarterback, whipped the Crimson Tide, 42-21. The documentary says Bryant told USC coach John McKay after the game: “John, I can’t thank you enough for what you did for me today.”
That game is said to be the catalyst for Bryant signing black players, but the documentary points out Bryant had already signed his first, Wilbur Jackson, before the game, and the following year Bryant signed junior college transfer John Mitchell, who became the first African-American to play in a varsity college game in 1971.
“The legacy of their struggles echo across every football in the south,” the narrator says in the documentary.
The legacy includes players like Hill and coaches like Corso.