share a piece from an article I wrote on a blog site last year about March Madness in 1963.
An incredible, but true, side story was Loyola’s Mid- West semi-final game with SEC Champion Mississippi State. Now dubbed “the game of change” because it featured an all-white State team taking the floor against Loyola’s four black starters. Loyola’s Coach George Ireland had been flaunting the so-called “gentleman’s agreement” wherein each coach would employ no more than two blacks on the court at any given time, all season. His team endured as many, if not more, of the indignities that the Texas Western team did two years later, because the irascible Ireland was out to prove a point. He ran up the score against every southern team he played pounding Loyola of New Orleans 88-53 and destroying unfortunate Tennessee Tech 111-42. The latter is an NCAA tournament record that still stands. Ireland said “I was twenty years ahead of my time and I wanted them to wake up and smell the coffee”.
Those lop-sided contests, to this day, still evoke mixed feelings from the Ramblers “I felt it was important in those games to make a statement, especially because of the way the crowds were” said Hunter, but we disagreed with crushing Loyola of N. O.”.
Mississippi State’s road to that historic cultural clash was harrowing and fraught with racial overtones as well. State had been SEC champions in 1959, 1961 and 1962. But due to the staunch segregationist feelings of the political powers in Mississippi, they had not been allowed to accept the automatic bid to the NCAA tourney. The racial climate in Mississippi was literally in flames in February of 1963. A few months earlier James Meredith’s enrollment at Ole Miss and incited violence that led to tear gas, explosions and gunfire on the campus that resulted in two deaths.
In 1963 State won the SEC title once again. Babe McCarthy the strong- willed coach had had enough and was determined this team would receive the opportunity his team had earned and accept the bid to the tournament. Needless to say, an already boiling cauldron of hate began to bubble over. Politicians made rambling, racist speeches, newspapers featured editorials proclaiming the idea of whites playing blacks in a game of basketball would signal the end of the southern way of life. The legislature passed a proclamation forbidding the team to play.
Fortunately for McCarthy the newly appointed President of Mississippi, Dean W. Colvard shared the coach’s view. As the conflict swirled around them McCarthy and Colvard concocted a strategy that legend says included the team sneaking out of town in cars at midnight to rendezvous at a rural airport. The true story is just as incredible and is detailed inAlexander Wolff’s March, 2003 Sports Illustrated article “Ghosts of Mississippi”.
Loyola won the game, played in East Lansing Michigan 61-51. State had virtually no fans, no cheerleaders and no pep band at the game. Players from both teams remember it as a hard-fought, but cleanly played matchup without incident. The mutual respect, of the men involved, for what they endured and accomplished, is evident fifty years later.
Gold died in 2011. Who should show up at his funeral? Harkness. "I went up to the front and the whole family embraced me," Harkness said in a phone interview from Indianapolis. "Then I went over to the casket and to the left was the picture of me and Dan Gold shaking hands. I just lost it right there at the head of his casket. I went back to the family and we all cried" I wouldn't have missed it. He would have made it to my funeral”.
Sorry photo didn't copy. You can google it.
Co-captains Jerry Harkness and Jo Dan Gold shake hands prior to the tip-off in what is now called “the game of change”
An incredible, but true, side story was Loyola’s Mid- West semi-final game with SEC Champion Mississippi State. Now dubbed “the game of change” because it featured an all-white State team taking the floor against Loyola’s four black starters. Loyola’s Coach George Ireland had been flaunting the so-called “gentleman’s agreement” wherein each coach would employ no more than two blacks on the court at any given time, all season. His team endured as many, if not more, of the indignities that the Texas Western team did two years later, because the irascible Ireland was out to prove a point. He ran up the score against every southern team he played pounding Loyola of New Orleans 88-53 and destroying unfortunate Tennessee Tech 111-42. The latter is an NCAA tournament record that still stands. Ireland said “I was twenty years ahead of my time and I wanted them to wake up and smell the coffee”.
Those lop-sided contests, to this day, still evoke mixed feelings from the Ramblers “I felt it was important in those games to make a statement, especially because of the way the crowds were” said Hunter, but we disagreed with crushing Loyola of N. O.”.
Mississippi State’s road to that historic cultural clash was harrowing and fraught with racial overtones as well. State had been SEC champions in 1959, 1961 and 1962. But due to the staunch segregationist feelings of the political powers in Mississippi, they had not been allowed to accept the automatic bid to the NCAA tourney. The racial climate in Mississippi was literally in flames in February of 1963. A few months earlier James Meredith’s enrollment at Ole Miss and incited violence that led to tear gas, explosions and gunfire on the campus that resulted in two deaths.
In 1963 State won the SEC title once again. Babe McCarthy the strong- willed coach had had enough and was determined this team would receive the opportunity his team had earned and accept the bid to the tournament. Needless to say, an already boiling cauldron of hate began to bubble over. Politicians made rambling, racist speeches, newspapers featured editorials proclaiming the idea of whites playing blacks in a game of basketball would signal the end of the southern way of life. The legislature passed a proclamation forbidding the team to play.
Fortunately for McCarthy the newly appointed President of Mississippi, Dean W. Colvard shared the coach’s view. As the conflict swirled around them McCarthy and Colvard concocted a strategy that legend says included the team sneaking out of town in cars at midnight to rendezvous at a rural airport. The true story is just as incredible and is detailed inAlexander Wolff’s March, 2003 Sports Illustrated article “Ghosts of Mississippi”.
Loyola won the game, played in East Lansing Michigan 61-51. State had virtually no fans, no cheerleaders and no pep band at the game. Players from both teams remember it as a hard-fought, but cleanly played matchup without incident. The mutual respect, of the men involved, for what they endured and accomplished, is evident fifty years later.
Gold died in 2011. Who should show up at his funeral? Harkness. "I went up to the front and the whole family embraced me," Harkness said in a phone interview from Indianapolis. "Then I went over to the casket and to the left was the picture of me and Dan Gold shaking hands. I just lost it right there at the head of his casket. I went back to the family and we all cried" I wouldn't have missed it. He would have made it to my funeral”.
Sorry photo didn't copy. You can google it.
Co-captains Jerry Harkness and Jo Dan Gold shake hands prior to the tip-off in what is now called “the game of change”
Last edited:
