V 13 N. 36 Drake Relays Coming Soon, A Drake Pole Vaulter You Never Heard of, I Know I Had Not

 

Putting this article in today's blog was inspired by the events in the Tennessee state legislature today.

George Brose

 

The Drake Relays will be upon us in a matter of a week or so.   I did some virtual looking around in the the Cowles Library archives on the Drake campus a few months ago.  They have an extensive collection of photos from the Relays going right back to the beginning.  It is claimed that in the 1920's Knute Rockne helped make the Relays famous by bringing his football players there to compete as track men, and the crowds came to see them.  His first job at Notre Dame was as their track coach.   For his efforts, Rockne was voted into the Drake Relays Hall of Fame.  

While scouring through the photo collection I noticed the picture below of a relatively unknown African American pole vaulter Johnny Bright taken in the early 1950's.   He's seen jumping indoors on what appears to be a steel pole.  No other reference to Bright's track exploits, but the photo makes him eligible for discussion on this 'track and field' blog.  Another sport made him famous.  What it was was football, as Andy Griffith once said,  and a very ugly incident that happened on the field.

In 1951,  Johnny Bright was the leading passer and rusher in the nation as the tailback in a single wing formation at Drake University.  He would be the first black football player to play in Stillwater, OK in their midseason game.   In the run up to the game against Oklahoma A&M the  Aggie coach encouraged his defensive players to focus on Bright and do everything in their power to take him out of the game.    They succeeded and broke Bright's jaw, but he still completed a touchdown pass before leaving the game.  Below is the Blake Sebring's story about Johnny Bright.   The photo sequence earned a Pulitzer Prize.   After college Johnny Bright emigrated to Canada and played in the CFL for the Edmonton Eskimos (now Elks) and retired as the leading rusher in the CFL and is in their Hall of Fame.  The rest of his life he stayed in Edmonton as a school teacher and eventually a middle school principal.  

             

          Competing in PV his freshman year at Drake

The following article tells us a lot more about Johnny Bright

Johnny Bright could do it all

By BLAKE SEBRING of  the Ft. Wayne, IN  The News-Sentinel

 

After Johnny Bright died from a heart attack in 1983, his many friends tried to accurately portray his abilities and essence, but perhaps former Central High School (Ft. Wayne, Indiana)  quarterback and teammate Ned Brenizer said it best.

"He was a man playing boys games," Brenizer said.

There were very few things Bright could not do on an athletic field in an era when there were many things he was not allowed to do off it because he was black. His race affected his choices throughout his life.

"I remember him being indestructible," former News-Sentinel Sports Editor Bud Gallmeier wrote. "He had the body of Jim Brown."

When Bright attended Central, he led the football team to a city title in 1945, and the basketball team to a pair of state tournament Final Four appearances. He was also a one-man track team, often winning as many as five events during a meet, including clearing 12 feet in the pole vault using a bamboo pole.

Though Bright was only 5-foot-10 and 180 pounds, former Central Catholic quarterback Tom Jehl remembers Bright could touch the rim with his elbow.

"He was so competitive and so confident that he would be taunting you before the game," Jehl said. "He was the kind of guy that if you were playing him in basketball he'd say, 'We're going to beat you by 20, and I'm going to make them.' And then he would back it up. He was friendly, and he was being John Bright, smiling and letting you know that he's going to do his best against you and you're not going to stop him. You made up your mind that you wanted to play your best to stop him."

Bright was as well-known for his attitude as for his abilities.

"He was a good kid. A lot of people misinterpreted it as cockiness, but I encouraged him to feel proud of what he could do," longtime Central coach Herb Banet said.

And Bright was simply that good.

"He could palm a basketball and dunk," Brenizer said. "I don't recall anyone else ever doing it at that time. We had a little under-the-basket play where I would be the inbounds passer and John would stand casually under the basket. I would casually loft it up and he would go up and grab it and put it in over everyone. No one could get up with him."

And Bright could do just about anything. Besides football, basketball and track, he was also an outstanding boxer and softball pitcher. Despite Bright's accomplishments, Purdue never showed any interest in recruiting him for football, Notre Dame did not recruit blacks at that time, and Indiana University coach Clyde Smith told Banet he "already had enough black running backs," according to Banet.

So Bright took a scholarship at Drake University to run track, with the condition that he could try out for the football and basketball teams. After sitting out the mandatory year of freshman ineligibility, Bright tried out for the football team and made the squad after two days. A few days after that he became the focus of the offense.

"He lettered in three sports as a sophomore -- track, basketball and football and then decided to concentrate on football," longtime Drake sports information director Paul Morrison said. "He was a great athlete really, just a natural athlete. He could be good in any sport he wanted to participate in."

As a sophomore, Bright rushed for 975 yards and threw for 975 yards to lead the nation in total offense as the Bulldogs went 6-2-1. He followed that with 1,232 yards rushing and 1,168 yards passing as a junior to set an NCAA record for total offense. The next season he was leading the nation in rushing and total offense with 821 and 1,349 yards respectively when the Bulldogs played at Oklahoma A&M on Oct. 20, 1951.

Though Bright was not the first black player at Drake, this would be the first time a black opponent played at Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State). On a late hit early in the game by Aggies defensive lineman Wilbanks Smith, Bright suffered a broken jaw. After picking himself off the turf, Bright came back to throw a touchdown pass on the next play, but another hit knocked him out of the game a few plays later.

Immediately after the game, Drake officials accused Oklahoma A&M of dirty play and being out to "get" Bright. Photos from the game by John Robinson and Don Ultang of the Des Moines Register showed the severity of the late hit and won a Pulitzer Prize. Drake protested and eventually left the Missouri Valley Conference as a result, and the NCAA soon required players to wear face masks and mouth guards.

Bright came back to play one more game two weeks later, rushing for 204 yards against Great Lakes Naval Station, to finish with more than 6,000 yards in total offense. He averaged 236 yards per game and scored 384 points in 25 games. As a senior he earned 70 percent of the yards Drake gained and scored 70 percent of the Bulldogs' points -- despite missing three games.

Though the Philadelphia Eagles drafted Bright with their first pick in 1951, he was wary of playing in the NFL.

"I would have been their first Negro player, but there was a tremendous influx of Southern players into the NFL at that time, and I didn't know what kind of treatment I could expect," Bright said.

Instead, Bright decided to play in the Canadian Football League. He was signed by the Calgary Stampeders in 1952 as a linebacker, but shoulder injuries led the team to write him off in 1954 when he was traded to Edmonton.

The trade gave Bright's career new life and sparked a dynasty in Edmonton as the Eskimos won Grey Cup titles in 1954, 1955 and 1956. Bright's best individual seasons were still coming as he rushed for 1,722 yards in 1958 to earn CFL Player of the Year honors. Four times he was the CFL's top rusher.

The NFL approached Bright about signing several times, but he always declined. He had already started his teaching career in Edmonton.

"I might have been interested," he once said, "if the offers could have matched what I was making from both football and teaching."

Bright's football career ended in 1964 after 10,909 yards rushing in 13 seasons. He still holds CFL records for most career playoff touchdowns, most yards gained in a Grey Cup game and for playing in an amazing 197 consecutive games as both a linebacker and a fullback. Bright was inducted into the CFL Hall of Fame in 1970 and the College Football Hall of Fame in 1984.

After he retired from football, Bright became an often-honored teacher in Edmonton, and eventually the principal of D.S. MacKenzie Junior High School, where he received numerous honors.

Drake had won five straight games before heading to Stillwater and the outcome of the game probably would decide the Missouri Valley Conference championship that fall.

Bright was an established star coming into the contest, having led the nation in total offense in 1949 (the first sophomore in history), again in 1950 and again was leading the NCAA national statistics in total offense, rushing and scoring.

It was obvious that Bright was a “marked man” at the start of the game. He was knocked unconscious three times in the first seven minutes by Oklahoma tackle, Wilbanks Smith. While the final blow broke Bright’s jaw, he was able to throw a 61-yard touchdown pass a few plays later before the injury finally forced him to leave the game.

Fortunately, for Drake (and history) the Des Moines Register had decided to send a photo crew to the game. Although they were using a new, faster plane, the crew would be able to shoot only the first few minutes of the game in order to get back to Des Moines and have the photo coverage in Sunday’s edition. Cameramen, Don Ultang and John Robinson captured the assault on Bright in machine gun camera sequence that would later win them a Pulitzer Prize. The photo sequence received world-wide exposure and was also reprinted in Life Magazine.

Because of this incident and because the Missouri Valley Conference refused to take any action, Drake University withdrew from the conference for several years before resuming conference membership in 1955.

Bright was a great all-around athlete. He lettered in football, basketball and track as a Drake sophomore, before deciding to concentrate on football in his next two years of competition. He was also regarded as one of the state’s best softball pitchers at the time and is in the Iowa Softball Hall of Fame. Bright was drafted No. 1 by the Philadelphia Eagles of the NFL, but instead went to Canada where he played for Calgary in 1952, 1953, and part of 1954, before moving to the Edmonton Eskimos where he won numerous CFL honors in a 14 season career. Bright was revered in Canada not only for his outstanding football career but for his work as a junior high school principal and for work with youth.

Bright is also in the Des Moines Register’s Iowa Sports Hall of Fame, the National Football Foundation’s College Football Hall of Fame, as well as the Canadian Football Hall of Fame and the Edmonton Sports Hall of Fame. He also received the Swede Nelson Award (Gridiron Club of Boston) in 1951, signifying outstanding sportsmanship. That same year he was fifth in the balloting for the prestigious Heisman Trophy. He also played in the Shrine East-West game and the Hula bowl.

Bright, ED’52, was honored in 1969 as the greatest Drake football player of all time. He was also one of the first recipients of the Drake National D Club’s Double “D” Award.

Johnny Bright died December 14, 1983, of a massive heart attack while undergoing an operation to correct a football knee injury. The incident of 1951 brought about changes in football rules regarding blocking and also more protective helmets, with face guards. The incident was also a part of a TNT 90-minute feature “Moment of Impact: Stories of the Pulitzer Prize Photographs” in the summer of 1999.

Photographic sequence[edit]

A six-photograph sequence of the incident captured by Des Moines Register cameramen John Robinson and Don Ultang clearly showed Smith's jaw-breaking blow was thrown well after Bright had handed the ball off to Drake fullback Gene Macomber, and was well behind the play.^[6] Robinson and Ultang had set up a camera focusing on Bright before the game after the rumors of his targeting became too loud to ignore. They rushed the film to Des Moines as soon as Bright was knocked out of the game.^[3] Ultang said years later that they were very lucky that the incident took place when it did; they had only planned to stay through the first quarter so they could have enough time to develop the pictures before the deadline.^[7] The sequence won Robinson and Ultang the 1952 Pulitzer Prize for Photography, and eventually made it into the November 5, 1951, issue of Life.^[8][9]

The Pulitzer Prize–winning sequence of photos showing the first hit on Johnny Bright by Wilbanks Smith

You can slide this sequence from left to right with the bar just below the picture

                           Johnny Bright was also good enough to play basketball for Drake as well.

 I believe that PV picture was taken at the Drake Fieldhouse, adjacent to Drake Stadium.  They used that for the PV and LJ when the weather was bad at the Relays.

   I had heard that story before but just like with today's many photos, it did not happen unless it was documented by a picture.  In this case, a sequential picture was still not enough which says a lot about the MVC.

   He did the right thing to go to Canada.  Bill Schnier

This is truly top shelf writing George!  Still difficult to believe that this type of behavior was going on back then. Both thumbs up to you for introducing us to a real American hero!   Darryl  Taylor

As a long-time subscriber to LDL, I felt that I knew him pretty well. Sorry to hear about his passing.  

Dennis Kavanaugh

V 13 N. 66 C.R. Roberts USC Trojan, R.I.P.

 Today's story is not about a track and field athlete, but it is about college sport in segregated America.

This article was referred to us by Russ Reabold at Trojan Force.  It is the obituary of C.R. Roberts

C.R. Roberts was a running back on the U. of Southern California Trojans football team in 1955 and 1956.  In 1956, USC was scheduled to play the University of Texas in Austin where the Southwest Conference had yet to integrate.  This New York Times article tells what happened.  Roberts was not assaulted on the field like Johnny Bright of Drake University was at Oklahoma State.  See our April 2023 article  here:  Johnny Bright link

But the crowd in the stands showed it's displeasure with his presence throughout the game.  C.R. Roberts responded with a barn burner of a performance and shut the bigots up that day.

The first African American to play sport in the Southwest Conference was James Means, a track athlete at the U. of Texas.    You can see our story on Mr. Means at   James Means  link

Here is the July 17, 2023 article about C..R. Roberts from the New York Times by Richard Sandomir.

C.R. Roberts, Scoring Sensation in Milestone Game, Dies at 87

In 1956, he starred for the University of Southern California in a signal victory over an all-white University of Texas team after withstanding racial threats.

C.R. Roberts, center, of the University of Southern California, leaping over a defender for the University of California, Berkeley, in a game in 1955.Credit...Clarence Hamm/Associated Press

By Richard Sandomir

Published July 16, 2023Updated July 18, 2023

C.R. Roberts, a Black running back for the University of Southern California, was afraid of what might happen when his integrated Trojans football team traveled to the Jim Crow South to play the all-white University of Texas Longhorns in Austin in 1956.

There were death threats before the game. He wondered: Would a shotgun blast from the stands at Memorial Stadium kill him?

“Tension was high,” he said in a 2018 documentary, “Breaking Down Barriers: The C.R. Roberts Story,” directed by Jeremy Sadowski. “We could hear the epithets coming out of the crowd when you were near the sideline.”

Despite the possibility of violence, Roberts turned in a sensational performance, leading the Trojans to a 44-20 victory. In the second quarter, he raced for a 73-yard touchdown and for another that covered 50 yards.

In the third quarter, on his final carry, he scored again on a 74-yard jaunt. In all, he gained 251 yards, a single-game rushing record that stood at U.S.C. for 19 years. The Los Angeles Times called him an “explosive bolt of searing speed.”

But Roberts, who was one of three Black players on the U.S.C. team, said that with spectators shouting the N-word, Coach Jess Hill pulled him from the game soon after he scored his final touchdown.

“The atmosphere in that stadium was very negative toward a Black person,” Roberts said in “Breaking Down Barriers.”

Image

Roberts in a promotional photo for the U.S.C. Trojans. Recalling the watershed integrated game against Texas in Austin, he said, “The atmosphere in that stadium was very negative toward a Black person.”Credit...USC Athletics

The Trojans’ victory occurred early in the civil rights movement, when Black citizens were boycotting segregated buses in Montgomery, Ala., and the game stands today as an important racial breakthrough of that era.

In 1966, Texas Western College (now the University of Texas at El Paso), became the first team with an all-Black starting five to win the N.C.A.A. men’s basketball championship, beating an all-white University of Kentucky team.

And in 1970, Sam Cunningham, part of U.S.C.’s all-Black backfield, gained 135 yards and scored two touchdowns in a 42-21 win over an all-white University of Alabama squad. Although the Crimson Tide had a Black player on its freshman team, the game is credited with giving the Alabama coach, Paul (Bear) Bryant, the green light from higher-ups to actively recruit Black players.

Roberts died on Tuesday at a care facility in Norwalk, Conn., his daughter Cathy Creasia said. He was 87.

Cornelius R. Roberts was born on Feb. 29, 1936, in Tupelo, Miss. His father, also named Cornelius, picked cotton and was a railroad steel driver. His mother, Audra Mae (Dabbs) Roberts, was a homemaker.

His mother, as Roberts recalled, felt that the family had to leave racist Mississippi.

“Get our son out of Mississippi or they’re going to kill him,” he quoted her as telling his father, in an interview on a U.S.C. website in 2015.

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In the third grade, Roberts recalled, as his family was returning by train from a vacation in Oceanside, Calif., he was playing with a white boy in an integrated car when the train entered the segregated South. At that point his mother pulled him away from the boy; the family had to move to a different coach.

“When you crossed the Mason-Dixon line going south,” he said in “Breaking Down Barriers,” “the Blacks had to go back to their car and be segregated again. I didn’t understand.”

The family later moved to Oceanside, where Roberts became a star at Oceanside-Carlsbad High School, scoring a remarkable 65 touchdowns. In the vernacular of the time, one local newspaper in 1954 extolled him as the “all-American Negro flash.”

As the drill-team leader of the R.O.T.C. unit in high school, Roberts aspired to attend the United States Military Academy at West Point. “I’d have made it there if I was smarter in math,” he told The San Diego Union-Tribune in 2012.

At Southern California, he finished second in rushing to Jon Arnett in 1955; he would lead the team in that category in 1956, his junior year, thanks in part to his scintillating game against Texas.

But he almost did not make it there. U.S.C.’s coaches initially suggested that he not travel to Austin with the team because of the race issue. He replied that he would rather quit the team than stay home. His teammates stood by him, refusing to go to Texas if the team’s Black players — the others were Louis Byrd and Hillard Hill — did not.

The University of Texas, for its part, was not welcoming, although it had played against Washington State University, which had a Black player, two years earlier. U.S.C. was told to leave the team’s three Black players behind.

“Texas called us about a week before the game and said we couldn’t play any coloreds, that the races couldn’t compete at the same time,” Roberts told The Austin American-Statesman in 2005.

After some negotiations, the full team traveled to Austin. But the hotel that the team planned to stay in would not allow Roberts, Byrd and Hill as guests, and it arranged for them to stay in a Y.M.C.A. The team refused and went to another hotel that, despite its segregation policy and after some persuasion, let them in. Black hotel employees and local citizens gathered to meet the three players.

Image

Roberts was the subject of the documentary “Breaking Down Barriers: The C.R. Roberts Story.”Credit...John McGillen/USC Athletics

Roberts did not play in 1957, his senior year, after the Pacific Coast Conference (now the Pac-12) imposed penalties against U.S.C. and other schools for providing illicit financial aid to players.

After receiving a bachelor’s degree in business administration from U.S.C. in 1957, Roberts played two seasons for the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League. Then he moved to the N.F.L., where he gained 637 yards on 155 carries during four seasons with the San Francisco 49ers.

He later taught typing and business skills in high school and college and opened a travel agency and a tax consulting service.

In addition to his daughter Cathy, he is survived by another daughter, Chandra Roberts; a son, Craig; and four grandchildren. His marriages to Joyce Moss and Yvonne Barton ended in divorce.

For all his football exploits, the Texas game — and the emotions it stirred up — remained vivid in Roberts’s memory. On the day of the game, he recalled in an interview with The Los Angeles Times, “I didn’t give a damn who we played.”

“We were going to beat them,” he said. “Everybody had a chip on their shoulder. We played our best game.”

Richard Sandomir is an obituaries writer. He previously wrote about sports media and sports business. He is also the author of several books, including “The Pride of the Yankees: Lou Gehrig, Gary Cooper and the Making of a Classic.” More about Richard Sandomir

A version of this article appears in print on July 19, 2023, Section B, Page 12 of the New York edition with the headline: C.R. Roberts, 87, Unstoppable Rusher In Breakthrough Against Segregation. 

George-wonderful post about a true American Hero! I sincerely hope that the Longhorns have moved way, way away from that poisonous position from the middle 1950s. Preston Davis who ran for the Longhorns and the 49er TC/PCC was great example of what I hope is the current attitude among their athletes here in 2023. Important post today to let current participants of all ethnic backgrounds to see how and where progress has been made. Thank God!

Darryl Taylor

Dear George:

The 50s and earlier were bad times for black athletes playing on Northern teams.

We had  two such incidents  involving the Western Michigan College track team that I witnessed personally.

Both, I think, were handled very well by the white and black athletes on our team.

Take care,

Tom Coyne