1 N O . I 8 8 V O L . I U H Q
Race, Latter-day Saint Doctrine, and Athletics at Utah State University, 1960–1961 BY
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22 Utah State University’s 1960–1961 school year was a particularly tumultuous and chaotic one. While the Aggie football team celebrated nine wins to two losses—its best year in school history—the basketball team struggled to match its tremendous success of the previous year, and head coach Cec Baker announced his resignation before the season was over.1 The university’s newspaper, Student Life, reported that some angry fans responded by hanging an effigy of the former coach.2 Meanwhile, in January, USU president Daryl Chase called a meeting with the school’s African American athletes—including Darnel Haney and other members of the basketball team—to strongly advise them against causing trouble by dating white women. Simultaneously, the publication of a book entitled Mormonism and the Negro by USU journalism professor John J. Stewart revealed racism within the university, the local community, and Latter-day Saint beliefs and sparked a campus-wide discussion about the place of Mormonism at a growing university with a significant international student presence.3 A lot of this commotion manifested itself in letters to the editor of the school newspaper where concerned students, alumni, and faculty debated Latter-day Saint doctrine on race, whether or not the local Latter-day Saint community was narrow minded in its political and world views, and the efficacy of professors sharing their criticisms of Latter-day Saint doctrines and Mormon culture. While some of these topics related to national or even international problems, much of this correspondence concerned local issues in which Mormonism was the fulcrum.
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