University of Virginia Library

the sports scene

Selling
A Bad
Product

by bob cullen

THERE WILL BE no black football players entering the
University next fall. Apprehension became certainty yesterday
afternoon, when Martin Lee signed a letter of intent with the
University of Tennessee. Lee was one of three black athletes
sought by the Athletic Department this winter. Two others,
James Bethel of Danville and Willie Clayton of Hampton will be
freshmen at Duke next fall.

Martin Lee played flanker for Marion High School, in
southwestern Virginia. He was an outstanding student, and his
college boards were over 1100. Among the schools he turned
down were Duke, Carolina, Purdue, and VPI. At the end, he
narrowed it down to Tennessee and the University.

Coach Blackburn and his assistant Tom Fletcher did everything
in their power to sell the University to Lee. Both were
frequent visitors to the home in Marion. Eventually, the boy's
family, his girlfriend, and his coach were won over. The pressure
on Martin Lee to come to Virginia was, to say the least, intense.
As recruiting campaigns go, this one was a model of the efficient
hard sell.

BUT MARTIN LEE chose Tennessee. He had been to the
University three times, twice with his high school basketball
teams, and once as a guest at the Virginia-Maryland football game
this fall. It was during those visits, when he could see the
University as it really was, that Martin Lee decided on Tennessee.

Sitting in the Virginia section at the Maryland game, when the
coaches were unable to select what he would see, Martin Lee saw
students, all of them white, acting as Virginia students are wont
to do at football games. He saw the flasks, the Confederate flags,
and he heard the melodic refrains of Dixie. Somehow, in the light
of all these negative impressions, the Virginia recruiting pitches
lost a little credibility. Tennessee, on the other hand, did not have
to cope with the disadvantage of having him walk in unannounced.
They were able to show him the school on their terms,
and they even convinced him that the students at U.T. don't sing
Dixie anymore.

STEVE SEBO AND GEORGE BLACKBURN must grin wryly
when they hear of the latest demands from the students that they
recruit more black athletes or hire a black coach. They wish they
could, but it's the student body here that is the greatest stumbling
block. It's the students, and not the Athletic Department, that
make the bad impression.

George Blackburn is not an unreasonable man. Reflecting on
the demonstrations here, and the feelings that they represent, he
acknowledged that, "times are changing, and I have to change
with them." If George Blackburn changes, it will not be a shift
from right to middle. He has never been a bigot. Football coaches
know that blacks are the equal of whites; they've seen it on the
field. If George Blackburn changes, it will be from coach to
activist. In the near future, he may hire a black coach whom he
doesn't know because he feels that this is what the times demand.
He will be doing it because the students have demanded that he
do something to improve an atmosphere that they themselves
contaminate.

THIS COLUMN HAS recommended hiring a black coach
before. It would undoubtedly be a step in the right direction, but
it would also be a bit like treating a compound fracture with a
Band-Aid. The Athletic Department has demonstrated its ability
to recruit white athletes. If the same techniques won't work for
black athletes, it would seem that the students are the ones who
fail to sell themselves. To a certain degree, a black coach would
probably be able to mask these deficiencies, but his presence
would not eradicate them. The Athletic Department can undoubtedly
do more in an effort to integrate its program. They can
search out black players of less than blue-chip calibre, provide
special schooling to help the disadvantaged meet the University's
scholastic requirements. Obviously, if they went after more than
this year's total of four, the law of averages would begin to work
for them.

But those who would make demands of the Athletic Department
would do well to remember the kind of product they are
asking the coaches to sell. The task of integration belongs to the
whole community, and most other sectors are doing less than the
Athletic Department in moving towards that goal.