Mack Dalton

Professor Bruner
English 001
24 November 2014

A Long Road

Racism has been a central theme in sports for decades. The film Glory Road
highlights the struggle faced by African American athletes during the 1960s by
focusing on the Texas Western College mens basketball 1966 national
championship winning team. Throughout the film, the audience is shown various
examples of blatant racism which ran rampant during the mid 20th century; the film
also shows the changes in race relations in America since the time period when it
was set (Glory Road).

The film, Glory Road, is set in Texas during 1966. The head coach of the Texas
Western Miners mens Basketball team Don Haskins sets out to recruit the best
players in the nation regardless of their race. After a highly successful regular
season The Miners make it to the NCAA tournament. During the tournament they
are taunted and assaulted by various fans of other teams who are turned off by the
large Black presence on the Miners roster. Finally, after making it through some
Dalton1

tough games Texas Western faces Kentucky in the final, Coach Haskins makes a
controversial decision to start an all-black team. The miners end the game with a
72-65 victory over the Wildcats. When the team arrives home, they are greeted by a
huge crowd which offers its praise to the players and coaching staff for their
unlikely NCAA tournament victory (Glory Road).

After the real 1966 Miners won the NCAA championship, they were still
subject to criticism and ridicule from various sources. Adolph Rupp (1966 Kentucky
mens basketball coach) described the Texas Western black players as being urban
street thugs, quasi-professionals imported from Northern cities to win Haskins a
championship (Rupp Quoted by ESPN). James Michener a widely known sports
writer also described the story 10 years after it occurred as one of the most
wretched (stories) in the history of American sports (Michener quoted by ESPN).
Michener went on to describe the Miners players as being Loose-jointed
ragamuffins who were Hopelessly outclassed (Michener quoted by ESPN).

The US Civil Rights Movement increased greatly during the 1950s and 60s
partly due to schools becoming desegregated. In the wake of Martin Luther King Jrs
I have a dream speech, the United States and more specifically the southern states
were in a state of civil unrest and racial tension. As a result of the various protests
Dalton 2

and public pressure the civil rights act was signed in 1964 which made it
illegal to force segregation of races in schools, housing or hiring (Civil Rights
Movement). This further exacerbated the public backlash of a predominately black
team (The Miners) being crowned national champions in a major college sport.
The example of oppressed African American athletes in Glory Road is just one
of many examples. In baseball during the early 1900s Negro leagues were
established for black baseball players to compete in after they were barred from
competing at a professional level. The Negro leagues were eventually disbanded in
1949, due to an increasing amount of black players being allowed to play for major
league teams (A Complete History Of The Negro Leagues). Although in America over
time the majority of racism in sports has been Black/White in the 1936 Berlin
Olympics, the US track team pulled two of its Jewish Athletes over fears that they
may win gold and embarrass Adolf Hitler (The Life And Death Of Adolf Hitler).

If we move forward to the present day it is fairly obvious that the state of
racism not just in America but across the world is far better than it was 60 years
ago. However there have been various incidences over the past few years which
may lead some to question whether racism has been completely eradicated from
Sports. Namely, the Donald Sterling incident, which took place in April 2014 when
Sterling made racist comments which were recorded and released publicly. This
Dalton3

sparked public outrage, causing NBA commissioner Adam Silver to force Sterling to
sell his team (The LA Clippers). Although this particular incident may be an example
of racism by one individual, it is also evidence of the lack of public tolerance for
racist behavior which now exists.

Finally, Glory Road may simply seem to be a film about basketball, however it
manages to capture the struggles of a coach and his players through a difficult time
in American sport due to racial tension. The film not only shows the ugly side of
prejudice in sports during the mid 20th century but also helps people to understand
how far society has developed to accept people from various backgrounds since
then. When examining this particular examples as well as others similar to it, it is
clear that racial barriers did act as a crutch for African American athletes during the
mid 20th century. The 1966 Texas Western Miners paved the way for many other
African American athletes to be able to compete at the highest level. Despite the
obvious progression of acceptance by people in America, there is still a lot of work
to be done before we can say that we live in an all-accepting society without its
prejudices.

Dalton 4

Work Cited
"Civil Rights Movement." History.com. A&E Television Networks, n.d.
Web. 14 Nov. 2014.

Glory Road. Dir. James Gartner. Perf. Josh Lucas and Derek Luke. Walt
Disney Pictures, 2006. DVD.

"Glory Road." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2014.

"Martin Luther King Jr Bibliography." Bio.com. A&E Networks Television,

n.d. Web. 13 Nov. 2014.

Payne, Robert. The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler. New York: Praeger,
1973. Print.

Dalton 5

Ribowsky, Mark. A Complete History of the Negro Leagues. S.l.: Citadel,

2002. Print.
"Texas Western's 1966 Title Left A Lasting Legacy." ESPN. ESPN Internet
Ventures, n.d. Web. 24 Nov. 2014.

Dalton 6

Rhetorical Analysis
Overall, I am happy with how my investigate paper turned out. After lacking
a significant amount of information, sources and evidence in my rough draft, I added
various book and Internet sources through the school library. These helped me to
fill a lot of gaps I had both in my writing and research.

Similar to other informals and process pieces I feel like I couldve managed
my time better while completing this assignment. I especially feel that my rough
draft was too rushed, this meant that I didnt hand in a piece of very high quality and
as a result my peer and teacher reviews mainly highlighted basic errors as a pose to
structural and layout floors of the essay. I prioritized my time better between
receiving feedback and the final hand in however there is still much improvement I
can make in that area.

I feel Glory Road was a good film to use because it gave me great evidence to
answer my research question To what extent did racial barriers act as a crutch for
African American athletes throughout the 20th century? Through watching and
studying the film as well as carrying out background research I found that there
were large racial barriers during the 20th century which prevented many African
American athletes from achieving their true sporting potential.
Dalton 7

I had no trouble finding any of the sources, two of my sources were books
which I find in Everett library, the other4 were from websites. All of my sources
were credible because they either came from respected websites or published
books, the sources I used also helped me to develop a greater diversity of
information for this assignment which meant I was able to answer my research
question in a more informed manner.

Dalton 8