Historic Game -- Mississippi State-Loyola (IL)

[Olympic Fan]

This Saturday's schedule will feature a rematch of one of the most important games played. Mississippi State will meet Chicago Loyola and the occassion will be used to honor and celebrate the 1963 meeting between the two schools -- an NCAA Sweet 16 game that was a far more significant racial breakthrough than the more hyped Kentucky-Texas Western game three years later.

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/8741183/game-change-mississippi-state-loyola-cannot-forgotten-college-basketball

Of course, after beating Miss State in '63, Loyola defeated Duke's first Final Four team in the national semifinals ... one night before the Ramblers beat Cincinnati in overtime to win the national championship. Huge upset at the time -- Cincinnati was coming off two straight national titles, trying to win a third.

Loyola was not the first integrated team to win a national title (that title goes to CCNY in 1950) or even the first team to start a majority of black players (San Francisco in 1955), but with four black starters meeting a Cincinnati team with three black starters, the '63 title game was at least a big a statement about black abilities than the '66 game.

And where Kentucky and Rupp are usually portrayed (somewhat unfairly) as villians in the '66 drama, it's hard not to celebrate Coach Babe McCarthy and his Mississippi State team for their refusal to buckle to racist sentiment in 1963.

[throatybeard]

This Saturday's schedule will feature a rematch of one of the most important games played. Mississippi State will meet Chicago Loyola and the occasion will be used to honor and celebrate the 1963 meeting between the two schools -- an NCAA Sweet 16 game that was a far more significant racial breakthrough than the more hyped Kentucky-Texas Western game three years later.

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/8741183/game-change-mississippi-state-loyola-cannot-forgotten-college-basketball

Of course, after beating Miss State in '63, Loyola defeated Duke's first Final Four team in the national semifinals ... one night before the Ramblers beat Cincinnati in overtime to win the national championship. Huge upset at the time -- Cincinnati was coming off two straight national titles, trying to win a third.

Loyola was not the first integrated team to win a national title (that title goes to CCNY in 1950) or even the first team to start a majority of black players (San Francisco in 1955), but with four black starters meeting a Cincinnati team with three black starters, the '63 title game was at least a big a statement about black abilities than the '66 game.

And where Kentucky and Rupp are usually portrayed (somewhat unfairly) as villians in the '66 drama, it's hard not to celebrate Coach Babe McCarthy and his Mississippi State team for their refusal to buckle to racist sentiment in 1963.

Thanks for mentioning this. I would love to see a 30 for 30 about it, to pair with the recent one on Ole Miss and James Meredith. It's a major point of pride (now) at Mississippi State, which integrated, peacefully, but three years later than Ole Miss. The Student Union, for many years, has been named for Dean Wallace Colvard, a North Carolinian who was also involved in the creation of NCSS&M and UNC-Charlotte as a University. AIUI, it was Colvard's call to send the team to play; they left out of GTR under cover of darkness. Snuck the team out, basically.

There's a dynamic, I learned, in the SEC plus Clemson, the Deep South, where white fans and alumni relish in painting their rival schools as "the real racists." The landgrant schools frame this as the flagship school being a haven for white privilege, and the flagship schools portray the landgrant schools as a bunch of racist hillbillies. It's most clear cut in Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina; I haven't noticed it as much with Florida and Florida State. I don't mean for this to be a PPB post, but the dynamic is definitely there.

I was pleased to learn when I moved there that it was the landgrant, not the snooty school with the Law and Medicine schools, who had the moniker "The people's university." This is rather opposite North Carolina.

At any rate, MSU fans who think racial equality is a good thing have been lording the 1963 team over Ole Miss for a long time and will continue to do so. The writer of the ESPN article characterizes the game as "largely forgotten," but I assure you it is not in Mississippi.

I don't get to see MSU games much recently since they're lousy the last couple seasons and tend not to be on national TV, so I would have missed this had OF not mentioned it. I'll check on the weekend, maybe our newfound status as an SEC market will get us the game.