EAST LANSING – They came from Beaumont, Texas and Fayetteville, North Carolina. From Anderson, South Carolina and Roanoke, Virginia. Bubba Smith, Jimmy Raye, George Webster, Charlie “Mad Dog” Thornhill and more.
They came to Michigan State as trailblazers and left as champions with an enduring legacy. The Spartans’ 1965 and 1966 teams not only won back-to-back national titles, they were instrumental in the integration of college football. And last week, those squads were formally inducted into the Michigan State athletics Hall of Fame as part of the 2024 class as the first full teams honored.
“It’s unbelievable that it’s happening some 60 years after the fact but better late than never,” said Raye, who quarterbacked the Spartans to their 1966 title. “I’m really proud of the effort to get this done by the committee that championed this cause and gives all the teammates that were part of that ‘65-’66 team, that run, it gives them a chance while they’re still here to smell their flowers and deservedly so.” Nearly 60 players from those teams returned to campus last week and gathered inside the Clara Bell Smith Center.
They arrived with smiles and family members, then swapped stories with their former teammates. “It’s amazing,” said Raye, who was individually inducted into the hall of fame in 2018. “It’s like we went to practice yesterday, came back and just started right where we left off.
Great friendships, great camaraderie, a band of brothers that stood the test of time and been together for a long, long time.” The architect of those pioneering teams was coach Duffy Daugherty, who recruited Raye and other Black players to leave the South where they were denied equal rights. The 1965-66 teams posted a 19-1-1 record, culminating in a 10-10 tie against Notre Dame dubbed the “Game of the Century.
” Four of the top eight picks in the 1967 NFL draft were Spartans and all were Black – Smith, Webster, Clinton Jones and Gene Washington. “It changed intercollegiate football at the Division I level, particularly in the South. It had a tremendous impact in the Jim Crow South where we came from, ” Raye, who lives in his native North Carolina, said before listing off former teammates.
“There’s a lot of guys who couldn’t go to school, get an education and play athletics in the South and Duffy’s courage and conviction to stand in the face of the wind and give us an opportunity took a lot of courage and was a tremendous accomplishment.” Daugherty was a unifier who trampled across the Mason-Dixon Line and beyond. He tapped into talent-rich Hawaii, leading to players experiencing a culture shock more impactful than just seeing snow for the first time.
“At that time, Martin Luther King was marching in Selma, he was marching in Montgomery for us to have the rights to vote as citizens,” said hall of fame fullback Bob Apisa, who was born in American Samoa before moving to Hawaii at age 7 . “It was during that time that we played but we knew that we had a whole mixture of ethnics in our team. That’s the beauty of it.
I had never played with African Americans before, nor had I played every played with Caucasians. ..
. When I came up here, I grew as a man.” Raye recalled freshman coach Burt Smith gathering his players in the Case Hall lobby before taking them to see the varsity squad practice for the first time.
A green tarp around the fence obscured the view until the gates were opened. “I thought to myself, ‘Oh my God, what did I get myself into?’” Raye recalled with a chuckle. “It was like, wow, I’d never seen people so large in my life, but it worked out well.
” That would be an understatement. Raye was the first Black quarterback from the South to win a national championship, played in the NFL and then spent nearly four decades coaching. He was at the heart of teams that transformed the sport after coming to Michigan State just looking for an opportunity denied at home.
“I think what we did during that era of civil rights and what we accomplished had far-reaching effects in the country and changed the landscape of college football,” Raye said. “To that, the credit goes to Duffy Daugherty.”.
