Derrick E. White - Blood, sweat, et tears : Jake Gaither, Florida A et M, and the history of Black college football

JAKE GAITHER, FLORIDA A&M, AND THE HISTORY OF BLACK COLLEGE FOOTBALL

THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS

Chapel Hill

2019 Derrick E. White
All rights reserved

Set in Chaparral and Champion types by Tseng Information Systems, Inc.

Manufactured in the United States of America

The University of North Carolina Press has been a member of the Green Press Initiative since 2003.

Cover photo: Coach Jake Gaither going over plays with his FAMU football team, 1953 (Florida Photographic Collection, floridamemory.com)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: White, Derrick E., author.
Title: Blood, sweat, and tears : Jake Gaither, Florida A&M, and the history of Black college football / by Derrick E. White.
Description: Chapel Hill : The University of North Carolina Press, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019004399 | ISBN 9781469652443 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781469652450 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Gaither, Jake, 19031994. | Football coachesUnited StatesBiography. | Florida Agricultural and Mechanical UniversityFootball. | African American universities and collegesSports. | FootballSocial aspectsUnited States. | College sportsUnited StatesHistory20th century.
Classification: LCC GV939.G3 W47 2019 | DDC 796.332092 [B] dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019004399

CHAPTER 1
The Color Line of Scrimmage and Sporting Congregations

CHAPTER 2
Florida A&M Develops a Sporting Congregation

CHAPTER 3
A Double-V Campaign On the Field and Off

CHAPTER 4
The Golden Age of Black College Football Begins

CHAPTER 5
Championships and Civil Rights

CHAPTER 6
Black Gold

CHAPTER 7
Desegregation, Decline, and Black Power

CHAPTER 8
Jake Gaithers Last Season and the End of an Era

EPILOGUE
Chasing Ghosts: HBCU Football at the End of the Century

AFL American Football League

AME African Methodist Episcopal

AP Associated Press

CIAA Colored Intercollegiate Athletic Association

FAMU Florida A&M University

FSU Florida State University

HBCU historically black college and university

ICC Inter Civic Council

KC Knoxville College

LSU Louisiana State University

MAA Midwestern Athletic Association

NAACP National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

NAIA National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics

NCAA National Collegiate Athletic Association

NFL National Football League

OBC Orange Blossom Classic

PWI predominately white institution

SEC Southeastern Conference

SIAC Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

SWAC Southwestern Athletic Conference

TSU Tennessee State University

UF University of Florida

UPI United Press International

BLOOD, SWEAT, AND TEARS

Jake and Sadie Gaither caught the elevator to their box seats on the fourth floor of Doak Campbell Stadium. The elderly couple sat quietly alone, as they had arrived two hours early to beat the traffic to the game. As the time got closer to kickoff, Jake Gaither pulled out his binoculars and pressed them to the glass, watching the players loosen up for the game.

On the first weekend in October 1979, the Florida A&M (FAMU) Rattlers hosted the University of Miami Hurricanes. Although Division I college football had been fully integrated for at least a decade, the leading predominately white programs had judiciously avoided playing the powerful HBCU (historically Black college and university) teams such as FAMU, Grambling, Southern, or Tennessee State. Through sheer persistence and a little luck, FAMU had managed not only to get the Hurricanes on the schedule but to play them at home in Tallahassee.

Jake Gaither, more than most, understood the games significance. He rubbed his thinning grey hair, feeling the two golf-ball-size indentions behind his left ear, a reminder of how much he had physically overcome to build a successful program. He had survived two brain tumors, a broken leg, and the whims of Jim Crow to build the most dominant program in Black college football. Gaither had been a coach at FAMU more than three decades. He was an assistant beginning in 1937 and was the head coach in 1945 until he retired in 1969. In his twenty-five years as head coach, he won 203 games against 36 losses and 4 ties. His teams captured seven national titles and twenty-three conference titles while producing three dozen All-Americans. He had ushered FAMU into the golden age of Black college football. However, he never had the opportunity to play the University of Florida (UF), Florida State University (FSU), or Miami, the three leading formerly segregated football programs in the state. The highlight of his career, in terms of race relations, was beating the University of Tampa in his penultimate game in 1969. The victorys significance was muted when Tampa ended its football program in 1974. Even when FAMU, under coach Rudy Hubbard, captured the first I-AA national championship in 1978, the team was often overshadowed by the states larger, and now desegregated, programs. The game against Miami was finally a chance to prove what many people had suspected for decades: FAMU was the best program in the state.

The games racial significance was obvious, despite both teams attempts to downplay the implications. One Rattler player stated, Sure its a big game but look around, most of the people going to school here [FAMU] are from Miami. Its not because were black and theyre white.

The racial dynamics eclipsed each programs trajectory. FAMU entered the game as the more highly decorated program. Jake Gaithers teams were so dominant that in most years the final regular season gamethe Orange Blossom Classic (OBC)was a de facto national title game. The teams slumped after Gaithers retirement, but head coach Rudy Hubbard had restored the Rattlers to greatness by the late 1970s. Relying on a strong running game, Hubbard led the Rattlers to a Black college national championship in 1977, and the school won the first-ever Division I-AA playoff in 1978. Heading into the game against Miami, the Rattlers had won 27 of 28 games. On the other hand, the University of Miami had struggled through most of the 1970s. The school even threatened to end football after the 1978 season. Instead, the school hired Howard Schnellenberger, a former assistant coach to University of Alabamas Paul Bear Bryant and the offensive coordinator for Don Shulas successful Miami Dolphins teams. The gruff-voiced, pipe-smoking Schnellenberger eschewed the run-oriented offenses favored by most teams in college football for a passing offense modeled on professional football. He publicly rejected the University of Miamis legacy as suntan-U and told local fans and alumni at his opening press conference that he planned to win a national championship in five years.