This link needs an outraged subject line....

[cto]

Bnoro posted this great link below ... under a very benign subject line. It deserves a subject line of pure outrage. Read it... and realize what Jim Crow was like not so long ago.

http://deadspin.com/76-years-later-...source=deadspin_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

 

[HtownOrange]

You called it, CTO. Very good story, not repeated enough in history nor in Syracuse lore. Thanks for refreshing my memory, I need to to read this more often and this is a well written version, to boot!

 

[orange79]

I understand the times back then, but it's sad that SU didn't stand up and refuse to play.

 

[PeteCalvin]

If I were going to the game I would make my own "Remember '37" T-shirt with Sidat-Singh's name on the back and the 53-0 score.

 

[OrangeTarheel]

Do we still have to ask permission to play our "negro" players?

There's a headline for you.

 

[bevosu]

I first read/heard about him in the 90's...and I was at SU in the 70's. The guy had a fascinating and heroic life and I think, in the right hands, a pretty good movie could be made. Amazing how under the radar his story seems to be.

 

[OrangeXtreme]

I understand the times back then, but it's sad that SU didn't stand up and refuse to play.

I'm going to guess that if SU refused to play, they wouldn't get paid for the trip, and they'd have to eat all the travel expenses to and from College Park.

 

[mountaincuse]

I'm going to guess that if SU refused to play, they wouldn't get paid for the trip, and they'd have to eat all the travel expenses to and from College Park.

So, that's what you do if you believe in something.

That part of the story bothers me most.

 

[CuseTroop]

I understand the times back then, but it's sad that SU didn't stand up and refuse to play.

As I was reading the story I expected to see "Syracuse refused to play"... Bummed out when I saw they played. Different times tho... I don't know what it was like back then, but I still feel the man deserved better.

 

[orangedave]

I attended SU 20 years after the shameful incident and recall hearing/reading about it at the time.

 

[retro44]

this sentence is kind of misleading..

"Seventy-six years later, the school is again bringing in Syracuse for a football game, and the hosts will finally get around to righting one of college sports' all-time wrongs"

it should have included "that finally in their 14th visit back to college park, Maryland decides to right a wrong''

the last visit was in'91

we have won 4 straight against them outscoring them 96-53

 

[orange79]

this sentence is kind of misleading..

"Seventy-six years later, the school is again bringing in Syracuse for a football game, and the hosts will finally get around to righting one of college sports' all-time wrongs"

it should have included "that finally in their 14th visit back to college park Maryland decides to right a wrong''

the last visit was in'91

we have won 4 straight against them outscoring them 96-53

I thought the same thing.

 

[sutomcat]

As I was reading the story I expected to see "Syracuse refused to play"... Bummed out when I saw they played. Different times tho... I don't know what it was like back then, but I still feel the man deserved better.

As the article refers to in passing, Marty Glickman was on the 1937 Syracuse football team. He said one of his biggest regrets in his life was accepting SU's decision to comply with Maryland's demand to bench Sidat-Singh.

He knew it was wrong and he thought about refusing to play to support his friend and teammate, but couldn't find the courage and conviction to do it. As one of the team's stars, his refusal to play might have been a difference. The angst and sorrow in his face as he talked about the situation some 50 years afterwards haunts me to this day.

Glickman had felt the sting of racism himself the year previous when he was benched from participating in the 4 x 100 relay for the US team in the 1936 Olympics, allegedly because USOC chairman Avery Brundage wanted to avoid embarrassing Adolf Hitler by having Jewish athletes win gold medals in Berlin.

I wish the journalists at the time focused more on exposing the racist administrators at Maryland that made this decision (Maryland wasn't even integrated until 1951 and then only by court order) rather than the people they ended up victimizing with their stories.

Good Story on Glickman and Sidat-Singh

 

[PeteCalvin]

So, that's what you do if you believe in something.

That part of the story bothers me most.

Yes, that part bothers all of us. I have to believe that if it were Ben Schwartzwalder as coach, you would have seen a more definitive reaction to the request that Singh be benched. After all, he supported the team's boycott of the awards dinner at the Cotton Bowl in support of their black teammates.

It's easy to look back and judge others when we have zero context of what it was like to live then. Who knows why the university did what they did? Could have been money, could have been the quest for a national title and the team not wanting to give the game up. Who knows? Maybe the players felt they had no choice? It was a different time. The important thing is that Sidat-Singh's legacy is now bigger than all that. He may not have had the chance to win on the field that day in 1937, but he did ultimately win. His legacy has endured and transcended the blind hatred of his day. We may not be proud of how the university handled the situation at that time, but we can be proud of how Wilmeth Sidat-Singh represented the colors of both his alma mater and his country. To me, the players spoke on the field in 1938...53-0 says it all.

 

[HtownOrange]

Hind sight being 20-20, I wish the Syracuse team had simply stated they would be on the field with Sidat-Singh and Maryland could choose whether to play the game. Then if Maryland used the police to stop Sidat-Singh from playing, the game would have had the taint that it should have now, win or lose.

 

[longtimefan]

Bnoro posted this great link below ... under a very benign subject line. It deserves a subject line of pure outrage. Read it... and realize what Jim Crow was like not so long ago.

http://deadspin.com/76-years-later-...source=deadspin_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

I am always struck by the similarities in the lives and careers of Sidat-Singh and Nile Kinnick, of Iowa. Except Kinnick was revered in his time (Heisman Trophy) and posthumously (stadium named after him).

Kinnick http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nile_Kinnick

Sidat-Singh http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmeth_Sidat-Singh