Fall in Michigan means football. For Elizabeth Meister and Dan Collison, producers of the documentary, "Teams of the Century," football is also a useful metaphor for America's shifting seasons of racial integration. After all, while college football and its fans have enjoyed the kind of meritocracy that sports often proclaim, racial integration remains an event of the not-so-distant past. The lessons therein also tend to repeat themselves socially and on the gridiron. The stories of Michigan State University's mid-1960s teams, teams that were the first to fully integrate Black players, involve racial reckonings, interracial relationships, racism, acceptance, victory, defeat, pride, and community: a litany of the themes that have made football such a useful model for Americana.
When Ernie Pasteur arrived at Michigan State's campus, the idea of attending school with white peers was still "taboo." Ernie's football and school experiences were, up to that point, marked by Jim Crow laws. Michigan State football, however, was "the first time that I had seen white and Black players on the same field." For players like Ernie, MSU offered an alternative to HBCUs - one with more exposure and a chance to prove that both segregation and the tradition of "gentleman's agreements" - the practice of sitting Black players when teams played against all-white schools - limited the sport and its potential.
Between Ernie and his teammates, integrating MSU football was a process, but that process wasn't all struggle and strife. Progress was marked not only through wins but also by shifting traditions. Jimmy Ray, a player from the '66 team, recalled a story where a Black teammate sang the Beach Boys to the team instead of his school's fight song. It was, for the '65 team, a moment that "broke down the barriers where Black guys would sit with the Black guys and white guys sit with the white guys and pretty soon it was cool to sit wherever you wanted to sit."
Between dating and parties, campus life and classes, practices and games, the stories of the '65 and '66 teams make football a vehicle for daring acceptance and radical unity. Those Michigan State football teams were recently inducted into the MSU Athletics Hall of Fame, an honor that - though belated - nevertheless capped one of the most important periods in college football history. Listeners can enjoy that full history, in the words of those who lived it, in the links below.
Producers:
- Elizabeth Meister, Documentary Producer, Long Haul Productions
- Dan Collison, Documentary Producer, Long Haul Productions
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