The Dandy Dons: Bill Russell, K. C. Jones, Phil Woolpert, and One of College Basketball's Greatest and Most Innovative Teams

14. Into the Deep South

“Self-respect and dignity do not have to be sacrificed in order to see a sporting event.” —From the Louisiana Weekly about a December 4, 1954, game against the integrated La Salle basketball team The Supreme Court’s landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision in May 1954 mandated school desegregation, although most schools interpreted the decision as not affecting athletic endeavors. Loyola University of the South in New Orleans, a Jesuit school, was different. It was one of the first schools in the South to accept black students when it allowed religious women of color to enroll in 1952, followed by black laymen and women. Desegregation came almost without protest, with only a handful of students leaving the school. “We have lost a few contributions to our college funds, but that is a small price to pay for a clear conscience,” said the school’s president, Andrew Smith. FOURTEEN Into the Deep South 138 Into the Deep South Then, beginning in 1954, Loyola went out of its way to schedule at least three games against teams with black players, one of them the national champion usf Dons. The Reverend Ralph Tichenor, usf’s athletic moderator, said, “You know, one of the big reasons we booked a date in New Orleans with Loyola was that school officials there said we could help along their integration program.” The Loyola athletic director, the Reverend James J. Molloy, said, “[Neither Tichenor nor I] expect any difficulty in any way for the game.” Woolpert saw it as a chance to make a statement. He said the game with Loyola would show that “whites and Negroes can play together” in the segregation-conscious South. “We thought it might help relations. Loyola is the first team in that area to open up mixed petition. I guess it was something of a small crusade on our part.” Perhaps only Catholic schools could have gotten away with playing an integrated basketball game in the South. This decision also came at a time when several northern schools’ only protest came when they refused to play southern schools that would not play racially integrated teams. The first of the three games Loyola played was December 4 against the 1954 ncaa champion, La Salle—another Catholic school—and marked the first interracial game in the South. La Salle had one black starter, six-foot-two sophomore Alonzo Lewis, who starred alongside All-American Tom Gola. The Loyola–La Salle game went off without incident. All of the six-thousand five-hundred theater-type seats in Loyola’s new field house were sold on a first-come, first-served basis. This meant that there were no special sections for black spectators. “Comfort facilities” were integrated as well. On December 4, 1954, the black newspaper the Louisiana Weekly noted, “Negro sports fans of this community and surrounding areas will for the first time be treated as normal, ordinary Into the Deep South 139 human beings. For the first time in the lives of many they will not have to face the humiliating experience of being segregated, ‘going around the back,’ and ‘up the alley’ to sit up in buzzard’s roost to see a sporting event.” On December 20, 1955, Loyola played host to the second integrated basketball game in the South. Players from Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, traveled to New Orleans to take on Loyola in a game that was not without incident, and it gave the Dons some cause for concern. They were scheduled to play Loyola three days later. A black Bradley player, Shellie McMillon, fouled out of the game and gave the fans the middle-finger salute. The crowd, which had cheered him during the pregame introductions, jeered him by singing “Bye, Bye, Blackbird,” and the band struck up “Dixie,” the marching song of the Confederate army. But Molloy said nothing racial was to be made about the song, as it was Loyola’s “secondary fight song,” which was played regularly at games. “It was merely coincidental that the Loyola band played ‘Dixie’ when the spectators were standing and at the same time the Bradley cager fouled out.” Loyola coach Jim McCafferty said he thought McMillon, a sixfoot -five sophomore, “lost his head” and became “disgusted” with himself for his fouls. He said he doubted the incident would affect future games in which Loyola played against African Americans. In a side note McMillon...