University of Virginia Library

Progress Polemics

The article that appeared in Sunday's Daily
Progress alleging that the Purdue football
team had been fired up by a note sent to them
from Charlottesville which contained a
clipping from The Cavalier Daily was, at best,
misleading in several ways.

Our statement, which appeared in the
Orientation Issue of September 11, was that
Purdue's players were bigger, faster, and
"often times blacker" than the Virginia squad.
The Progress article implied that Purdue might
have been caught napping had it not been for
the article, and that Leroy Keyes was
especially aware of it and had spoken of it
Friday with a Virginia sportswriter.

We tend to place more credence than the
Progress did in Purdue coach Jack
Mollenkopf's statement that he had not
mentioned the note to his team. We talked at
length with Keyes on Friday afternoon about
his attitude toward the game and whether the
racial problems at his state's university would
give him any extra incentive. He categorically
denied that they would, and never mentioned
the clipping that had supposedly been shown
to him and had supposedly been such a source
of inflammation.

Any implications drawn from the article
were drawn in the mind of the reader. The
Cavalier Daily's editorial policy in this regard
has been consistent and clear. The fact is that
Negro athletes are indeed talented, and that
Purdue's black student-athletes are a distinct
asset to their team and, more important, to
their school. The implication intended, if
there was one, was that it is a deficiency of
the University that its team has never been
integrated. R.B.C.