A year ago this month, the Minnesota Gophers Men’s Basketball team played in the NCAA Basketball tournament. The African American Head Coach, Tubby Smith, had retooled the team. It was on the move again. But even when 15-1, Star Tribune started a series of negative, anti-Tubby columns. (At 15-1? No. At 15-5? Probably. At 21-13? Most assuredly. As they started the season 15-1, they ended the season 6-12. Negative columns get written and coaches lose jobs when that happens.)
To his credit, Sid Hartman didn’t agree (writing the day before Smith was fired that it would be a “big mistake by the Gophers”). Coach Smith went deep into the tournament last year, losing only in the third round, the “Sweet 16,” three games from the championship. Next day: fired.
(Sorry Mr. Edwards, but this is where your column, your point, your credibility absolutely fell to pieces. The NCAA tournament's third round is creative wordsmithing in an attempt to make play-in games seem more relevant. But yes, let's say they reached the third round-they won one game, they were in the round of 32, and they would have needed to win four more games to reach the championship. One win, over a decimated and disinterested UCLA squad does not make for a March Madness of glory.)
The century-long peculiar smell in the UM athletic culture raised the bar so high so that if he didn’t win the National Championship he would no longer be UM Men’s Head Basketball Coach.
(HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA....HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...did I miss something while living in Bangladesh? Is the culture around the offices of the "U" championship or bust? Is expecting more than one tournament win in the six years of a very well compensated run at the "U" equate to Edwards ridiculous statement?)
For those who know the University of Minnesota history with Black coaches, this was not surprising. In 1951, Head Basketball Coach Ozzie Cowles said no African American would ever step on his court of competition. His teams played slow, “control basketball.” There are still those slow at acknowledging either civil rights or Blacks as Minnesota team’s head coaches.
(1951? Seems contextual and germane to this conversation-I am certain that Cowles was the sole backwards thinking coach in America in 1951.)
When the great All American Quarterback, Sandy Stephens arrived in 1959 as a UM freshman, and was designated by Mississippi-born Head Football Coach Murray Warmath as the next QB, replacing Smokin’ Joe Salem, White alumni and the White media in MN put up a howl. They hadn’t won a championship in nearly 30 years.
Sandy Stephens, along with fellow Black All Americans Bobby Bell, Carl Eller, Bill Munsey, and Judge Dixon, put up with the hatred and venom directed towards them. They led the U to a Rose Bowl win and its last national football championship. None, now for over 50 years.
Four years later, the greatest trio of basketball players ever to select UM basketball — all African Americans — Lou Hudson, Archie Clark, and Don Yates, led the Gophers to three successive winning seasons. The constant besides winning: criticizing and attacking Black players.
The culture: There were too many “shadows” on the court. Five years later, Brewer, Turner, Young, and Taylor came to the Gopher basketball program. The White media in this city said there was too much racial imbalance on the basketball court. How to balance? White coach.
(Wikipedia tells me that the first D-1 black college basketball coach was hired in 1970 by Illinois State. The first black coaches of major programs I can recall were John Thompson and George Raveling in the early '80s.)
And then there was Clem Haskins, brought here to rejuvenate and breathe life back into UM men’s basketball — also forced out. When Lou Holtz left he told Clem that these folks don’t want a winning program — football or basketball — if Blacks are given starting and star roles. And soon, Clem Haskins was sent on his way.
(WTF???? Absolutely no acknowledgement of Gangelgate? Or the fact that the NCAA effectively banned Clem from coaching college basketball? WTF, WTF, WTF!)
Little has changed. A decade later, when Tubby Smith came here from Kentucky and turned around a basketball program that had fallen on hard times, he too, despite winning, was told to move on (in one of the most cowardly displays in big-time sports).
(Huh? How was it cowardly? Mr. Edwards should check out how Bobby Petrino leaves jobs)
Tubby’s replacement was not negatively critiqued by the White media, so, in the final analysis, the dark shadow of Raymond “Red” Presley, a friend of mine who was the legendary UM three-sport athlete not always allowed to play, continues to speak volumes about a culture that really doesn’t want too many Blacks, and certainly doesn’t want them in positions of power and leadership, and that never wants to refer to them as heroes.
(Quite a statement-in my years as a Gopher fan, I have idolized/admired Trent Tucker, Daryl Mitchell, Tommy Davis, Roland Brooks, Willie Burton, Richard Coffey, Melvin Newburn, Walter Bond, Townsend Orr, Ariel McDonald, Randy Carter, Jayson Walton, Voshon Lenard, Bobby Jackson, John Thomas, Eric Harris, Courtney James, Charles Thomas (neither of whom ultimately deserved such admiration), Quincy Lewis, Aaron Robinson, J'Son Stamper, Vincent Grier, Al Nolen, Lawrence Westbrook, Andre Hollins, Austin Hollins, and I know I'm missing many more; I know I haven't been alone. I would assume that many of these Gopher alums would not have such a negative appraisal of the U of M as Mr. Edwards)
It’s why, other than hockey, the U of M will have a hard time winning championships. The late, great Bobby Marshall stated in 1903 about how difficult it was to be a Negro in the culture of Golden Gopher Sports. It still is.
Outside of Tubby Smith, Mr. Edwards doesn't reference any current or recent African-American alum of the University of Minnesota. I would assume Quincy Lewis would provide a different point of view, if one wants to hear it.
