Secret Hoops Game in 1944 Between Black and White Players Story

[SamuelKhan]

After Jesse Owens got over in Berlin and before Jackie Robinson made history in Brooklyn, a very secret game took place in NC.

http://www.foxnews.com/sports/2015/...-blacks-and-white-tipped-off/?intcmp=features

Long before this year's edition of March Madness tipped off, two teams squared off in a nearly-empty gym, with no reporters and no scorecards, for a game whose historical and social significance may dwarf that of any basketball contest played before or since.

It was March 19, 1944, and a fast-breaking team called the Eagles from the North Carolina College for Negroes, today called North Carolina Central University, took on the Duke University Medical School's team, which was comprised of former star athletes from across the country. The contest, forever marked in hardwood lore as "The Secret Game," marked the first time black and white college students faced off on the same court in the sport James Naismith had invented some 53 years earlier.

“I think the players knew the significance,” Scott Ellsworth, author of the just-released book, "The Secret Game: A Wartime Story of Courage, Change, and Basketball's Lost Triumph." “The game was covered up, but I think everyone involved knew they were part of something special.”

The Eagles

The Duke Team

and this happened.

The Eagles won, by an unofficial score of 88-44. After the game, the players decided to hang around for one more game, this time splitting into two integrated teams, Ellsworth said.

This predates the 1966 NCAA title game between an integrated Texas Western, now UTEP, squad and an all-white Kentucky team, which featured Pat Riley, in which Texas Western won.

 

[milagros317]

Fascinating piece of lost history. Thanks for the link and the photos.

 

[SamuelKhan]

Fascinating piece of lost history. Thanks for the link and the photos.

Integration of sports teams was only a matter of time. I believe it was due to team owners and coaches who wanted to win championships. Bear Bryant, who wanted to integrate Texas A&M and later Alabama, dealt with the racist attitudes of the respective alumni and boosters. At A&M, Bryant was told that SWC would be the last conference to let "black boys" play. Bear's comeback was appropriate: "That's where we'll finish. Last." Then of course, he negotiated the famous game when USC visited the all-white Alabama team and clobbered them in a lop sided affair. Sam Cunningham ran right through the Tide's defense, almost unopposed.