It's past time for UW to apologize to the Black 14

One of the biggest stains remaining on the University of Wyoming's athletics department is the way it -- and the state -- treated black football athletes in 1969 when they sought to protest racism by Brigham Young University.

By Rodger McDaniel 

You may or may not agree with Colin Kaepernick’s beliefs, but the truth is he risked his career to say what he believed. When did any of his harshest critics ever take

Ten members of the Black 14 at UW in 1969.

such a risk? Instead, they sit safely in the cheap seats, screaming along with Pontius Trump, “Crucify him!”

Sports figures have often been more willing to take a personal risk than politicians. Before Kaepernick was Muhammad Ali. History proves Ali right for refusing to serve in Vietnam. Olympians Tommie Smith and John Carlos were ostracized when they raised clinched fists protesting racism while receiving their medals at the 1968 Mexico Olympics.

Then came Wyoming’s Black 14.

In the midst of the current debate over whether black athletes have a right to express themselves in the land of the free, the University of Wyoming has some unfinished business. Another football season is nearing an end without an apology to the 14 football players whose UW careers were sacrificed to “Equality State” bigotry.

It was 1969. Skin color divided the nation. Wyoming wouldn’t be permitted to remain on the sidelines. The controversy visited Wyoming’s most sacred shrine, UW football.

The Cowboys were one of America’s best, ranked 12th nationally. The Pokes were 4-0 to begin a season after they nearly upset Louisiana State University in the Sugar Bowl, then one of the four major bowl games played on New Year’s Day. UW was preparing to play its biggest rival, Brigham Young University.

Though the policy has since changed, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints barred blacks from its priesthood. Many of the black players said that a year earlier, when the Cowboys defeated BYU in Provo, Utah, they had been subjected to racial taunts from BYU players and fans. In October 1969, BYU, an LDS school, was headed to Laramie to play the Pokes. Fourteen black UW players asked to protest what they felt was racism by wearing black armbands.

Coach Lloyd Eaton didn’t take time to hear them out. He had no interest in their concerns.

Eaton had previously demonstrated a racist penchant when one of his black players planned to marry a white woman and asked him to approve a request for married student housing. “That’s not gonna happen,” Eaton barked. “I can’t let you marry this girl on Wyoming’s money.” Eaton was apparently referring to the scholarship he believed purchased the young man’s constitutional rights.

When the black players appeared in his office, a quick-tempered Eaton dismissed all 14 from the team, depriving them of their scholarships. Everyone from UW’s board to the governor, legislators, white teammates, Cowboy fans and much of the public promptly sided with Eaton.

Much of the opposition to the 14 had unmistakable racial overtones. Many fans followed the example of the politicians taunting the 14 student-athletes. At least one proudly waved a Confederate flag during the following week’s game.

Martha J. Karnopp, a Denver lawyer, was a Laramie schoolteacher in 1969. Karnopp recalled the ubiquitous bumper stickers reading “I Support Lloyd Eaton.” She said, “I didn’t have bumper stickers, my views were known, and it was NOT fine! I later lost my teaching job, partially due to this incident. The only group in the state who saw the injustice and did NOT support the coach was the law school faculty. So, I chose to go to law school.”

It took years before UW could recruit exceptional black players and many more seasons before they won another conference title. The Black 14 incident remains a stain on Wyoming’s reputation.

Nothing ever damaged UW’s image so much as the Black 14 incident. If those men were invited to stand at the 50-yard line of the stadium where they once played to receive a formal apology from the governor and UW’s president, affirmed by a standing ovation from today’s fans, much of the stain would be removed.

It has been 48 years. But it’s never too late to do the right thing.

Rodger McDaniel is the pastor at Highlands Presbyterian Church in Cheyenne. He resides in Laramie.

May those who care always tilt at windmills

Effort to declare Cheyenne a "compassionate city" was defeated by those who fear monsters under their beds. Caring for others will always frighten some, but the Don Quixotes of the world must keep up the good fight.

By Rodger McDaniel

My most cherished book is “Don Quixote,” so much so that I have Picasso’s painting of the knight and his sidekick, Sancho Panza, tattooed on my forearm.

The classic was written by a 16th-century Spanish writer,

Miguel Cervantes. His early career was rather checkered. Exiled from his beloved Spain, Cervantes worked in Rome as a cardinal’s assistant. Having enlisted in the Spanish Navy, Cervantes was captured by Barbary pirates. After his family paid a ransom, he was an accountant for the Spanish Armada. A “discrepancy in the books” caused him to be jailed for a time. After all of that, he began writing. Who wouldn’t?

Cervantes’ timeless character, Don Quixote, became the most chivalrous of knights so that he could fearlessly tilt at windmills.

Don Quixote came to mind when Cheyenne’s mayor and one of the City Council members brought about the demise of a resolution declaring Cheyenne a Compassionate City. They were building windmills based on what they feared they saw in the shadows.

Another councilman knows the meaning of those shadows. Richard Johnson said, “We live in a city that is perpetually afraid of itself. We’re scared of our neighbors. We’re scared of each other. We’re scared of the outside world.”

Were it possible to speak across time to Señor Cervantes, I’d tell him how his writings prove that God inspired more than that one great book – and how they inspired some to tilt at windmills.

Don Quixote’s story, like that of Jesus of Nazareth, demonstrates the risks of becoming compassionately unafraid in a world that distrusts the motives of those attempting to do good.

Literary critic Harold Bloom wrote an introduction to one English translation of the book, which has been translated into more languages than any other with the exception of the Bible. Bloom said, “We cannot know the object of Don Quixote’s quest unless we ourselves are Quixotic.” Irony begets irony in the story of humanity.

Thankfully, there are those in this age who find fulfillment and purpose in the compassionate work of tilting at windmills.

Just as Cervantes’ knight was inspired by reading books of chivalry, so it is that many of the Quixotics of our day are inspired by reading the Gospels. Don Quixote reminds them of Jesus who, upon completing his days of temptation in the desert, went about preaching good news to the poor and liberty to the oppressed.

And so, Don Quixote, having completed his preparations, writes Cervantes, “did not wish to wait any longer to put his thought into effect, impelled by the great need in the world that he believed was caused by his delay.”

Much of the pain and suffering in our world is likewise caused by our delay in serving others. As it is in our world, Don Quixote recognized that in his, “the greatest adversary love has is hunger and continual need.”

The writer Thomas Oppong observed, “Over the course of our lives, we make millions and millions of decisions that are essentially bets, some large and some small.” Don Quixote placed his bets on doing good, though his friends and family, like those of Jesus, thought he was without his wits for doing so. That is the risk we take when following our faith and placing our life’s bets on the words of the Gospel.

In Cheyenne, people of good faith placed their bets on encouraging compassion. They found some politicians were so uncomfortable with the idea that they began searching for ghosts lurking in the shadows. Thus, compassion itself became a windmill.

Alas, it was so for Don Quixote, whom Cervantes wrote, “ventured for God and the world” in the face of those who could not “be made to understand the error” of their suspicions of that work though it was “founded on articles of faith.”

Compassion can be troubling, especially to those who build windmills. Yet compassion means being thankful for the windmills and for those who fearlessly tilt at them always.

Rodger McDaniel is the pastor at Highlands Presbyterian Church in Cheyenne. He resides in Laramie.