The late Thurgood Marshall, a sports fan with a vastly broader perspective, called the shots about the significance of a Barack Obama presidency 50 years ago during a visit to Lawrence.
I was too dumb and non-visionary to recognize the importance of his comments about athletics, minority status and the need for more role models beyond the realm of jocks. I finally got it.
The feisty Marshall, internationally known director-counsel of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, was secured as the speaker at the ’58 Lawrence Brotherhood Banquet. He’d been the legal point man in the world-shaking Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education in 1954. In 1967 he began a 24-year career as the first black member of the U.S. Supreme Court.
I was assigned to report on Marshall during that ’58 visit; we discussed athletes we’d encountered. He followed athletics knowledgeably.
Kansas racially integrated its modern football program in 1955-57 with halfbacks John Traylor and John Francisco from Massillon, Ohio. Massillon fullback Homer Floyd (1956-58) is often labeled as the zone-breaker. Not so. Traylor and Francisco were a year ahead. KU’s actual first? Center Ed Harvey in 1893, honest.
Basketball-wise, Phog Allen introduced Lavannes Squires in 1952, about the same time Kansas State featured Gene Wilson. Kansas City’s Maurice King (1954-57) was followed by Wilt Chamberlain (1956-58). I covered them all for the Journal-World and, myopically, figured their mere presence had done miracles for racial equality, and would do more. So I asked Thurgood Marshall if he didn’t agree the cause of civil justice was improving via sports.
Marshall was a spirited civil-rights fighter who didn’t suffer fools, which I was that day in particular. He wasn’t nasty, but when I turned to leave, my head almost fell off due to his firm, scythe-like reply.
“Athletes – all well and good, they have a role and do help,” Marshall began. “But what black children need is to see doctors, lawyers, bankers, corporation executives, entertainers like Etta Moten from Kansas, more Jackie Robinsons so they will aspire to push beyond sports, as Jackie did, and REALLY achieve big things in life.
“Our young people must look past athletics and find role models who will inspire them to become top-flight citizens in every field. You make good points about the fine young men at Kansas in sports, but that won’t make things happen the way they must.”
He was polite but gimlet-eyed insistent that it would be better if I gained a more expansive view of life in these United States. Saw him at a couple newspaper conventions after that, and we laughed at the important social science lesson he’d taught me. At age 33, I hadn’t known nearly enough. Still don’t.
Marshall already had made a major mark in our society and was to become even a greater role model after Lyndon Johnson appointed him to the Supreme Court. He died in 1993 at age 84.
He must be up there all-aglow this week after seeing a journeyman basketball player named Barack Obama jump-shoot his way into the White House. Now that’s a role model, right, Thurgood?