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SN 140 Moments: No. 74 - USC brings fully integrated team to Alabama, crushes Crimson Tide originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Alabama coach Paul "Bear" Bryant and USC's John McKay had combined for five national championships in the 1960s, and they scheduled a season-opener to be played at Legion Field in Birmingham, Ala., on Sept. 12, 1970.
Why was this significant? USC was a fully integrated team, and Black players scored all six touchdowns in the Trojans' 42-21 victory. Sam "Bam" Cunningham had 135 rushing yards and two touchdowns. Bryant would go to the USC locker room and congratulate the team afterward, and this was a racial awakening on the football field. It's not clear whether Bryant or an Alabama assistant coach said it first, but there's a saying that stuck after that victory
"Cunningham did more to integrate Alabama, in 60 minutes, than Martin Luther King Jr., did in 20 years."
There is no doubt Cunningham's efforts against the all-white Crimson Tide helped speed up integration on the football field in the Deep South. Bryant adjusted, and he and McKay combined to win five more national championships in the 1970s.
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