Race, Kansas and Basketball.
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Thinking of learning a bit on this topic as Black History Month is upon us.
Might be interesting to learn what others know or have observed.
I'm thinking more back to the era of segregation, Jim Crow, integration, etc.
Does Kansas, as an institution have skeletons in its closet?
This is a developing thread which I'll add to and feel free to add to.
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@wissox83 I believe every closet in America has skeletons.
America! Where you have the right to be wrong.
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@wissox83 I’m sure there are skeletons in closets everywhere. But at the same time Kansas had minority players before a lot of schools. Heck The Glory Road movie is set in 1966 when Ku had half the team as minorities. That was over a decade after Wilt and King were here. I think fondly of the stories I’ve both read and heard about Phog going down to Mass Street and telling shop and restaurant owners they better let in his guys regardless of their color back in the 50s. I’m sure we have had plenty of racist ADs and administrators before and the civil rights movement. But so did everyone else in those times, people were raised to think less of people that were different than them.
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KU's past is as checkered as any "northern" school. Here is an article with Prof Bill Tuttle discussing the subject in 2014: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://flatlandkc.org/news-issues/separate-equal-ku-professor-explores-universitys-complicated/&ved=2ahUKEwiyzPnix8WSAxWymSYFHSjkFB4QFnoECB0QAQ&usg=AOvVaw0dY-Ad0D-wlGo7tgSBQ_CW. (Tuttle was my prof for my history senior thesis in 1978...loved that guy!)
Here is an article about John McClendon, a Hall of Fame coach denied the opportunity to play at KU in the '30s because blacks weren't allowed to play until 1951: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McLendon
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@nuleafjhawk Yes but you can change America to "the world"
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Wilt had a very bad experience when KU played at SMU. Texas Tech didn't have a black basketball player until 1969 . . . and when they did, he was good. Averaged 21.1 points per game.
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@Jayhawk_69 that may or may not have been prompted by an election.
