Lately news stories have talked about how Alabama is claiming this national championship as their 14th. Of course, six of those were under Bear Bryant the mythical coach of what is called Alabama's golden era of football.
The problem is, before 1970 none of the national championships, no matter how decided, should count.
The count of Alabama's legitimate national championships drops to five. Most of Bear Bryant's national hegemony disappears when the lack of African American, or any players of color, is factored in. And, not only did Alabama not play athletes of color, they refused to participate against teams who had players of color. So did the S.E.C., which ironically today is considered the premier football conference in the land.
Alabama's national championships should not count because it was not until 1971 that an African American player competed for the Alabama Varsity. In fact, it was not until 1970 that Alabama even played an "integrated team"; unfortunately for Alabama this "experiment" was against USC and Alabama got destroyed.
Bear Bryant has been hailed as a genius for scheduling USC to finally break the "color line". I supposed that is partly true. But he was no genius during the sixties, when Alabama refused to play integrated teams or allow people of color near their football program. And it was during the 60s that Alabama was supreme.
This was a dark era for America and for sports. Professional baseball, basketball and football were integrated in the late 40s. Only college athletics remained segregated in the south during the 50s, 60s and part of the 70s. By the 70s, six years after the Civil Rights Act was passed, southern football holding out for its segregationist past glories was downright embarrassing.
Stanford was integrated when I played there from 1965 to 1969. The 1968 Varsity had ten African Americans on it, a Japanese, and a few Mexican-Americans (one a guy named Plunkett). But we were well integrated compared to the SEC.
When we played Tulane my Junior year, we had only a home game, no return game was offered because integrated teams could not play in New Orleans at the time.
I have a friend who played for Oregon and played Texas in the early sixties. Oregon's African American players had to stay in a different hotel, and eat in different facilities. Oregon won the game.
My point is the south, S.E.C., and Alabama in particular, fought integration to the end. White only teams, white only cheerleaders, and white only student bodies were the norm.
I can remember competiting for a position against African-Americans, the best players got on the field. I held my own, and played, but shared postions all of my career. I suppose at Alabama I might have started, but that would have meant the best players would not always have played. Of course at Alabama in the 60s many great players never got a chance to even be on the team.
That is the point why Alabama cannot claim national championships before 1971. They simply did not deserve them, when integrated northern teams were playing a more able cross section of athletes.
Football is a pure meritocracy. Athletic ability, courage, hard work, and teamwork are all vital ingredients to a team's success. The SEC, before 1970, was not a meritocracy; it was segregated, and as a consequence weak compared to other integrated conferences. We never got to find this out, however, because the SEC refused to play integrated teams. There was a reason for this; witness what happened to Alabama in 1970 at the hands of USC!
If Alabama had any class at all, THEY would admit that those pre-1970 champships were not valid, and stop bragging about having the most national football championships.
Alabama should only claim national championships when everyone could compete and when they also played against integrated teams. That is why they are called national championships.
They don't deserve the others.
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