chapter+4-+so+sorry+its+late!

Tuscaloosa: The Pariah of Postwar Football

- Jim Murray= sports writer. Most hated man in Alabama. - Murray had simultaneously threatened southern football and segregation, thereby challenging alabamians’ embrace of both a southern and American way of life- 117 - The issue of segregation weighed upon southerners as a regional social issue, a national political issue and an international diplomatic issue – 118 - The university of Alabama consistently rejected desegregating the student body and engaged in all manner of coercion, blackmail and various other illegalites either to deny admission to black applicants or to convince them to withdraw their application. - Alabama’s worst racial problems occurred in response to the freedom rides – 119 - Birmingham police chief Eugene “Bull” Connor arranged for the mob and rioters to have 15 minutes before police show up. 119 - Southerners intensified identification of football with white supremacy and distinctiveness and retreated ever further into the game as a refuge from the criticism - Southern white colleges allowed blacks to attach themselves to their athletic programs. Ranging from water boys to rubbers.- 120 - Alabamians sought to use football as a neutral group upon which to make common culture cause with other Americans during the period. Known as a cultural bridge. - Hiring of bear Bryant à role as savior of statewide morale reputation illustrated the intense attachment to Alabama football in the state 124-126 - Gentleman’s agreement says black players need to sit out when they play a segregated team 126 - To accept the culutural role of college football during the period was to endure the occasional integrated opponent – 128 - Liberty bowl 130 - Episodes like the liberty bowl were not defeats to the segregationist cause but opportunites to create new bonds uniting white southerners as they girded themselves for the larger struggle against integration at home- 133 - U of A wanted to accept liberty bowl to “return self respect to our athletic program” – 136 - La times sent murray to Birmingham to cover the game between Georgia tech and Alabama - Murray declared segregation was worse than un-american. Its unhuman- 141 - Called Alabama “blood colored white supremacists” 144 - Outsiders understood football in its postwar contexts as a distinct expression of American values, of which segregation most decidedly was not included - U OF A says that they have no quota. Accepting white jews. So many jews in post war. Then they became unhappy with the universities racial position – 147 - October 1961 Birmingham ordered the desegregation of all public facilities. They refused and fired employees instead - Next they put barbed wire around to keep the demonstrators in. make it look like a concentration camp to prove a point 149-150 - Alabama was a state filled with lawless, ruthless and vicious bigots – 150 - University never admitted they really got a rose bowl invite 150 - Blamed Murray for ruining their chances - Bear Bryant wrote his own book about everything and admits that they were invited but still blames murray IMPORTANT CLOSING LINES: à ;last two pages - White southerners embraced college football in the postwar years as a means by which they might unite the white south in defense of segregation while also using the game as a bridge to footballs national narrative or American exceptionalism and identity - Outsiders increasingly refused to accept southern football on southerners’ terms. As a result they saw Alabama football as a manifestation of a sick, racist and un-American value system. - U of a felt a loss against black players would be simply too humiliating to accept in the face of gloating from the insufferable NAACP - All evidence points to a Rose Bowl invitation that was turned down by U OF A on its own volition - It is unclear exactly how influential the announcement of the UCLA student group boycott to the rose bowl was to the events that followed. - When a possibility of a segregated rose bowl opponent appeared, students put those issues in the context of football. As a result their understanding of postwar football as an embodiment of benevolent American exponentials brought into focus distinctly un-American limitations on basic liberties and freedoms
 * o chose to see sports through a prism of social commentary
 * o “murray had a sharpness and cynicism seldom found in American sports pages at the time and the willingness to debunk the holy cow”- 117
 * autherine lucy à admitted to U of A but faced harassment only lasted one week on campus 118
 * o Protests against her treatment by faculty explained on 123.
 * o President and faculty resigned
 * o Alabama football team needs to fix the reputation “whether they like it or not”- 124
 * First full paragraph on 120 = important
 * o Examples on page 121
 * o First to have a tv show
 * o Families became obsessed
 * in the face of racial upheaval and social dislocation from urbanization, white southerners found in football a means to create community cohesion and cultural stability. Using football to make those same linkages outside the south increasingly ran afoul of the changing racial climate.
 * rose bowl speculation of 1961
 * o Student group from UCLA called negro college students of southern California wanted to lead a boycott of the rose bowl if Alabama accepted the invitation because it would further fund a school that had segregation -140