2 April 2021
Red & Black
Opinions 15
Loyola-Chicago Helped Desegregate Basketball Paul Collier Red & Black Editor
In the past couple years, LoyolaChicago’s men’s basketball team has captured the attention of the sports world through their appearances in March Madness. In 2018, they tied the record for the lowest seed to make a final four, and they lost in the sweet sixteen last Saturday after upsetting the one seed Illinois. Loyola’s team chaplain, Sister Jean, who was 98 years old in their first run in 2018 also gained national attention for her support of the Ramblers. But this is not the first time this program has seen success, and the last time they were this popular on the national stage, their success was integral to diversity in basketball. Prior to the 1962-1963 basketball season, there was a “gentleman’s agreement” that no team would play more than three Black players at one time, as a part of upholding white superiority and disparaging integration in the sport. Other teams even had to follow state rules that banned all-white teams from playing against integrated schools, such as Mississippi State, who, according to state court orders, were forbidden from playing any team with a Black player. However, Loyola coach, George Ireland, defied this agreement by not only starting four Black players, but by having his first substitute be a Black player, meaning he often played with an all-Black lineup. Loyola was also a top 10 team the entire season, setting them up for the NCAA tournament.
Likewise, Mississippi State was a top 10 team that Coach Ireland considered to possibly be the best in the country. However, many segregationists, including Miss. Governor Ross Barnett, wanted to keep sports from becoming segregated, which led to Mississippi State turning down tournament bids in the years prior. Supported by University President D.W. Colvard, the state college board decided in an 8-3 decision to allow Mississippi State to play, a decision upheld by the state supreme court only a day before the team was set to leave for the tournament. Mississippi State still snuck their starters out of the state to avoid lawyers or protestors. As fate would have it, the radically integrated Loyola-Chicago team would meet the all-white Mississippi State in the sweet sixteen game known as the “Game of Change,” where Loyola would win by ten on their way to their first, and only, national championship. This cemented a legacy of diversity and integration in college basketball, immortalized in 2013 when Loyola’s 1962-1963 team became the only team inducted into the national collegiate hall of fame. In fact, Mississippi State would allow its first Black student in 1965. In 1966, Texas Western and its five Black starters defeated the allwhite Kentucky team in the NCAA Championship game, now cemented in the movie “Glory Road.” The SEC allowed its first Black player in 1967. This makes Loyola-Chicago a major institution for the progress of desegretgation and black equality in American society and culture. In a sport dominated by historicallywhite schools, its promising to see a trailblazing program find success.
Courtesy Wikiwand
A Loyola player shoots over a player from Mississippi State in the 1963 sweet sixteen game called the Game of Change.
