(soft music)
(audience clapping)
- [Gene] Family, that's what it's all about.
You people will understand that as you get older,
as you get out into the world.
'Cause I'm representing so many people
that fought for me to be where I am.
(soft music)
I tell you this, you young people out there,
go back and look up and find out where you came from.
(soft music)
- [Maya] So how would you describe my dad?
- I always felt that Gene
shouldn't be a football player,
he should be a classical pianist.
(soft music)
When the good Lord was making pass receivers,
he had Gene Washington in mind.
Gene had this long, beautiful stride.
He had these long, beautiful fingers.
- I just have, you know, visions of Gene,
just going down the field and catching the ball.
I mean, he would stretch that field out.
And it was very, very tough to defend against.
- I'll still put lots of those old players
against any of these new guys.
And one of those players that would qualify would be Gene.
They're nobody faster or bigger or taller
or better looking than Gene Washington.
(crowd cheering)
(soft music)
- [Maya] So you have three daughters
and none of us are athletes.
How do you feel about that?
- I love my kids regardless if they're boy or girl.
- [Maya] That's good to know.
- So you don't go through that,
but it would have been nice to have a son.
But in the meantime,
I'm very, very proud that I had three daughters.
The most important thing is that there's a life
and I love my three daughters.
- [Robotic Voice] Take the next right turn.
Take the next right turn.
- No, I don't wanna take it, lady.
- [Robotic Voice] Take the next right turn.
(upbeat music)
(crowd cheering)
(upbeat music)
- I'd never really developed an appreciation for football,
my dad didn't show me the game.
He didn't sit me down in front of the TV
and explain how football works.
His whole football career ended before I was born.
(crowd cheering)
(upbeat music)
- When our players meet a guy like Gene Washington,
there's little bit of a feeling of awe.
It's about their past,
and the history that they've brought here.
- Without people like your dad,
it would still be, primarily just a white sport.
- Is something that we really take for granted,
and I think that it's really important
that we take time aside and step back
and say, you know what,
if it weren't for these guys, we wouldn't be here.
- Yay!
(people chattering)
- Isaac, had them all the way, bro.
- Hey. Congratulations. - How're you doing, mate?
- I know it's been long, I know it's been a long year, man.
- But hey, we're very proud of you, man.
I know it's been a struggle.
- It's been tough. - Yeah.
- But, you know, our players, they're resilient.
- [Maya] Football is like this whole other language
that I don't really understand.
Since I don't speak his sports language,
I know he doesn't speak my language at all.
- They shot, and shot and shot and shot,
and kept on sh**ting!
- And breath and breath and breathing and heaving.
- The city done bad, son.
They hurt a Black man.
Ain't we Black dad?
- When you refuse me and mine, you bring out my shadow.
- [Maya] I have friends who never met their fathers,
or they've had fathers that were in and out of their life.
And so having a dad that was there all the time
has been great for me.
But being an artist,
I think I felt like he just didn't get me.
He may still not get me.
- Thanks for coming.
- Yeah, are you okay? - I'm good.
- Did you see the whole thing?
- Yeah. - Yeah?
- [Man] He did, sure.
- I'm on this quest to really understand how football,
which I am so removed from,
had such an incredible impact on my life.
(upbeat music)
(g*n blasting)
(crowd cheering)
(upbeat music)
- [Crew] Camera speed, Gene, take one.
- [Maya] So dad, tell me about your childhood.
- My uncle had a farm in Louisiana.
I spent one summer there,
working in the fields about five o'clock every morning,
it was a very tough work, strenuous work.
And that convinced me right away
that I wanted nothing to do with farming.
I wanted to make sure I had an occupation
where I wouldn't have to be out in the heat.
I was born in La Porte, Texas.
My dad was a handed man,
mom worked as a maid,
the only relationship you have with white people
is when you work for them.
Since it was completely segregated,
whatever we wanted to do,
we try to do it within our community.
But once you go downtown,
there are certain things that you could not do.
So if you went to a store,
you would always have to enter a side door.
It was separate restroom facilities.
If it was a theater, same thing.
The facilities that we had and the track gear
and the football gear, everything that we had
really kind of like a hand-me-down type thing.
And that goes also with the books.
- Until the civil rights movement burst open,
we were people of false obedience.
False obedience it's only for the safety
of your person and the safety of your children.
It was always motivated by fear
because we knew if white people got mad,
the bad conditions that we already had would only get worse.
(sad instrumental music)
(soft instrumental music)
(people chattering faintly)
(soft instrumental music)
- My mother is from a nearby town called Baytown,
and they were bused to the same high school
in ninth grade because there was no Black high school
in my dad's small town.
So the only Black high school was in Baytown
at Washington Carver High School.
- Come on, now, everybody get out of the way.
I've always wanted to be in movies.
Hi, there.
- Hi, how are you?
- Hi, Maya.
- Say hey, I'm so glad to see you.
- Good to see you, too.
- You gonna give us some sugar, Maya?
- Both my mother and father were from Louisiana.
They were both from Creole backgrounds.
We didn't have very much
but we had that laughter and that culture.
(upbeat music)
- Do you wash them before you cook them, Jason?
- I'm about to purge them right now.
- They'll feel bad.
Do you like prawn fish?
- I don't know if I do.
(chuckles)
- It tastes like shrimp.
(slow upbeat music)
(Aunt Arvia screaming)
- See you later, gotta get her.
(car radio playing)
- Sometimes I think about,
how different my life would have been
if my parents never left Texas,
very different lifestyle.
- Where's your mama?
- There she is.
- Hi
- You can pet her, just don't go like that to it,
go like this.
- Come to me.
- That's red.
- Oh, he's big.
- Y'all wanna touch him?
- Sure, should I?
What will happen?
- Nothing.
- Hi piggy.
- This deer was k*lled by my husband Carl Richard.
The fish was caught in Acapulco, this skelton head,
this antelope, that deer behind you,
so I have a room full of animals,
by my husband with hunting.
He loved to hunt,
end of story.
- [Maya] What did you think of matters of my dad?
- What did I think of him?
I thought he was a very nice,
intelligent young man.
- When they started dating,
did you feel like, oh, that's the one she's gonna marry?
Or you just thought he was just a nice, weird guy?
- I didn't say weird guy,
you said that about your own dad.
(both laughing loudly)
- A boyfriend back in those days was like,
he would come over and visit you at your house,
but you didn't go any place with them.
You didn't go to the movies with them.
You didn't go and have a hamburger with them.
And usually the parents sat in the room
while they were there.
There was no handholding or are touching
or anything like that.
That was totally inappropriate,
'cause our mother would give you an evil eye
if you sat too close.
And you know, in too close would be like,
Maya is sitting here,
and if this was the space that was too close,
that was too close.
It was like this,
or even better yet you were across the other room.
- How do you, I don't understand how you marry somebody,
if you don't, you haven't spend more private time with them?
- They looked at the stability of the family.
If the family was stable, then yeah, that's okay.
That's just the way it was.
And because we didn't know any different,
you didn't question.
- I regret that I didn't get to spend a lot of time
with my dad's family growing up.
- You got to be and older to live here.
- This one?
- Yeah you got one more year, right?
- Yeah
(chuckles)
- Okay let me see if I can find something...
- Look at this, you've my dad's thing.
- Look at that one over there.
- Oh you're such a nice brother,
that's really nice uncle John.
- I got a whole bunch of pictures.
- Where are they?
- You haven't seen this, haven't you?
- No.
- Is your grandfather.
- [Maya] My dad has always been, not a tough nut to crack.
That's like it's not the right expression.
I'm trying to find a way to connect to my dad.
There's a part of him, that's just not accessible,
and a intimate way or in an emotional way or whatever.
- I think we all are like that.
Essie, and myself, and Gene,
we had our place and that's the way it was.
We weren't lovable people,
hugging and embracing all the time.
We got that from our dad.
Our dad was more or less standoffish
when it comes to embracing and stuff like that.
- Dad didn't want him to play football.
They had told him, "No I don't want you playing that sport,
can't you something else?"
He said yeah, and then he started on track.
He was good on the high hurdles, he was good on the relay.
He was good on everything that he went into with sports.
He was good at.
- We have some Black history right here in report.
This special day to honor Mr Washington.
(audience claps)
Having a parade and a day for me,
it's, I'm moved by that.
I'm very, very appreciative.
This is quite an honor for me and my family,
thank you very much.
(audience claps loudly)
- You may not have heard it from us,
but these guys have been pioneers,
for us, for my children, for other children.
- The major universities in this area,
were not recruiting African-American athletes,
they could only go to historically Black colleges
and universities.
- As long as the schools remained segregated in the South,
they were not going to be competing in their home state
in the South.
If they wanted to play
what was considered big time football,
they were gonna have to go north,
and Duffy Daugherty knew this.
- Mr. Duffy Daugherty, of Michigan State.
(audience claps)
- Tell me a Red...
- He is Red, I'm Duffy.
(audience laughs)
- Michigan State has been recruiting Blacks
since my dad got there, since the late s.
- There was a lot of Black coaches
who coached at all Black schools down
in Texas and Louisiana and Mississippi,
all those places.
Duffy would have coaching clinics for these Black coaches.
And the whole idea was to provide pointers,
to help them develop their skill as coaches.
They didn't have that opportunity
because everything was segregated.
And if there were any Black players
in many of the Southern states like Alabama
and Mississippi and Texas,
those coaches would let Duffy know
that there were Black athletes
that he should really look at.
- He knew that if he recruited Black players
out of the south,
when no other coaches were doing it in the north,
he was going to have access to an untapped talent pool.
And it was going to give him an advantage, and it did.
- Not only did he find it politically advantageous,
he truly believes in what Martin Luther King was preaching.
- I cannot help thinking
about a hundred years from now,
the historians will be calling this not the big generation,
but the generation of integration.
(audience claps)
- In , Duffy Daugherty met Willie Ray Smith,
who was an outstanding African-American coach in Texas.
- Anybody is giving a football father
of the year award Bubba's dad,
a Texas high school coach would appear a natural candidate.
- I was able to go to Michigan State
mainly because of Bubba Smith.
We played against each other
because of the segregated leagues.
Bubba was being recruited all across the country.
Bubba told me that he would put a good word into Duffy
for me to go to Michigan State.
- They came and they talk with my dad and my mother
about Gene going to Michigan State.
- [Maya] So what was that like
to have these two white men come to your house?
- Strange 'cause we didn't have white men
coming down anybody's house on the North side,
but they came.
- Michigan State was making a kind of a decision,
like a sight unseen because they didn't have
a lot of experience to know how good I was,
or if I could really make a contribution.
I think they relied more on Bubba's recommendation
because they definitely wanted Bubba.
- Baba Smith, a native of Beaumont, Texas
was one of the biggest players in college football.
Ironman, Bubba Smith, carries his pounds,
yards in just over seconds.
- And I'm glad that they trusted his recommendation.
- [Commentator] He goes through blockers
like a tank through a wheat field.
(crowd cheering)
- It was a great trip, had never been on airplane before,
and as a matter of fact,
I'd never been out of the state of Texas.
- Ladies and gentlemen we're about to take off
please fasten your seatbelts, thank you.
- It was a little different,
the old saying is just go with the flow.
And that was my first experience of having
a white person pick me up from the airport
until we go got to the hotel, I check into the hotel.
I'd never done it before.
And I was very excited that I had a chance
to go into front door.
My first time in a restaurant,
two of the coaches met me for breakfast.
I'd never seen a menu before it,
when a waitress was waiting for me to place my order.
I just told her that I'll just have with the coaches
is having, 'cause I didn't feel comfortable.
We started meeting each other one by one,
Clinton was a halfback from Cleveland, Ohio.
We got to be very good friends.
- We always joked about, he was better looking
than any girls on the campus.
But he was a good looking guy with nice looking hair
and build like a brick house,
but he never took advantage of that.
- Gene was very mature and disciplined.
Bubba used to call him Senator Cranston.
(chuckles)
- And of course I knew Bubba all along,
we grew up competing against each other all of those years
in high school.
- Bubba was always pissing somebody off,
that's his nature.
Georgia Webster was our linebacker in South Carolina.
- George was quiet, and he would attract
the ladies to him, to his quietness.
It was like, we are two sets of twins.
George and Bubba were as close and as different
as Gene and I was close and different.
Duffy would call me Gene and call Gene, Clinton.
- They didn't have any more football scholarship,
so really I was brought in on a track scholarship.
I ran indoor track, I ran outdoor track
and I played football.
- At the time of like about two or kids who were Black,
and just by all of us up here,
either on an academic scholarship or athletics scholarship.
The first Black player at Michigan State was Gideon Smith,
in .
Early Black players, they were lone integrators,
much in the same way that Jackie Robinson was
when he broke through with the Dodgers.
These men were by themselves.
From the time that Smith arrived in
through post-World w*r II,
there were just a few players at different points
throughout that period of time at Michigan State.
When John Hannah becomes president and throughout his tenure
at Michigan state,
he does a number of things subtly to change the culture
at Michigan state.
If he did not support Daugherty in integrating his teams,
it would not have happened.
You had to have the leadership from the very top
because Hannah and Daugherty both would feel pressure
from outside critics who thought that Michigan State
was giving too many scholarships to Black players.
In , Daugherty had Black players
and only one of them was from the South.
Four years later in ,
he has Black players and of them are from the south.
- I had not been around young guys like your father
who would come out of Texas
or guys would come out of South Carolina
where they had never been
and around people of the opposite race.
And because that was not my experience in growing up
in Michigan.
- I never spoke to a white person before Michigan State
never had a conversation, never had anything,
any social contact with white person
until I got to Michigan State.
- Being next to a white person in class
was intimidating at first.
- Cultural shock.
You know, being in a classroom with people,
I couldn't grasp anything.
It took us a while to find our stability.
- One of the things that pushed me more than anything
was that I felt that I was just as good as anybody else
in the classroom.
I had been dealt with blow because of where I grew up,
but I wasn't going to disappoint myself.
I wasn't going to disappoint my family.
- All the time, I was at Michigan State.
Everything was still segregated in my hometown.
We didn't want to go back home.
Our home was East Lansing, Michigan.
(drums rolling dramatically)
- Find out where you came from, find your heritage,
find it unfort.
- I tell you this, you young people out there,
you have to outwork every guy on your team.
You have to outwork every guy in your league.
You have to be the best of everything to have a chance.
I can't promise you you can get there,
you have a chance if you do that.
- [Announcer] Trey Waynes.
(audience claps)
- [Announcer] Lawrence Thomas.
(audience claps)
(audience chattering)
- They're afraid of the weather.
- I got in, I was accepted.
- A part of me didn't want to go to Michigan State
because there would've been no way
to really be there and be under the radar.
It was really important to have my own experience
and to go somewhere that was a new and fresh.
Good job, good game.
Aw!
It's kind of hard
(laughs softly)
I think that's it, yeah.
It's so weird, my dad is like wallpaper,
wallpaper, so weird.
This could have been my life.
(chuckles)
Could have been a contender,
I guess it is my life, huh?
Go Green.
- The team, tremendous defense.
I think the greatest defense in college football history,
they play Ohio State minus yards rushing Michigan
minus yards rush Notre Dame,
minus yards rushing this wasn't just
another Notre Dame team,
this was a Notre Dame team that was ranked number four
in the country,
Michigan state ranked number one in the country.
- Let's face it, when you look at the talent
that was at Michigan State
from to , the years that I played,
it's just hard to imagine that you could have
that many superstars together and have it work.
But it worked and it worked well.
- There's intangible sport called chemistry
and it's like in marriage and anything else,
if it's there, it's there,
I don't think anybody can really plant that.
- And you make no more than five or six appearances
before , people.
That's where you make your reputation.
That's where you represent this universe,
that's where you represent the team.
The thrill of coming on the tunnel, the crowd goes crazy,
and it does something to your head.
- Duffy Daugherty face some criticism.
The idea that the team was too Black,
there were people all across America who are watching this
and saying, where's this going?
Oh, it was going to lead to a national champion.
(Drums rolling)
(crowd applauding)
- Nowadays you go on a field and you see
all the athletes playing together, and it's nothing to us.
It's kind of second nature.
But back in the day, you didn't have that.
And it's important to know that Michigan State
was a place where it started.
And we were the one who kept it going.
- We had so much success and really built
the Michigan State tradition that we talk about now,
you know, you talk about the Michigan state tradition
and you go back to the s.
- To have people like your dad and those guys
up in the rafters, it means a lot.
- What it is now is nothing compared to, you know,
what they had to deal with.
- This generation of kids coming up now,
I don't know if they understand
the sacrifices their parents had to make.
I think people need to understand that more and understand
what people like your dad did, all the sacrifices he made.
And some of the sacrifices my parents made just for me
to have life I had.
(crowd cheering)
- [Announcer] Final score, Michigan State,
and Youngstown State , the Spartans are -
heading to the big game next week
in South bend against Notre Dame.
(people chattering)
- [Maya] So how if at all, does football
come into play as a father of daughters?
- My daughters grew up with it pretty much,
so they understand the game.
You know, they sort of live and breathe it.
It's tough, sometimes I think especially tough probably
when they're in college and their dad's,
the college coach,
you know, but I think they're doing okay with that.
- This is essentially what a room
would have probably looked like when my dad was here.
- You lived in this building?
- Yes.
- I love the school,
but I didn't really like want to come here
and have everyone be like,
"Oh, you're Marc Antonio's daughter."
But my dad was like, if you want to be here,
you're gonna come to football games, but if you're not,
then like, you're not really gonna be a part of that.
Now that I'm here, I wouldn't go anywhere else.
I love it.
But it was definitely the weirdest decision to make.
- At USC, nobody knew my dad even played football
and I just was like completely anonymous
and I kind of loved it.
Now I'm seeing you guys as well, it's like, well,
maybe that wouldn't have been so bad.
Maybe it would have been a lot of fun.
- Yeah.
- We had great times,
I remember wander and Wilson dorms being built.
Yeah, from the ground up, yeah,
and I was so proud of the guys,
all the Black football players.
So yeah, this is Juday.
- Oh, Steve, Juday, I remember him.
- That's making Mickey, George Webster, Bubba,
Gene...
- Where was your boyfriend?
- At that time, oh, Jerry Rush was gone,
then I was dating Jim Summers after that,
I had to have a football player.
Don't look at me if you weren't a football player.
- What's so funny when I was at college,
I stayed away from the football players.
- You did?
- I was like, I didn't wanna have anything to do with them.
- You were smart, girl.
- I remember staying with my,
'cause I would stay with Sherry and her dorm.
And I remember like let's say,
walking out of the dorm on the weekend
and coming into the dorm and all these kids,
couples, boy, girl, boy, girl, boy, girl, all outside.
I had to kind of like, like a crowd,
I had to kinda like push my way through.
They'd be just kissing, making out.
Yeah, they'd be making out in the front.
And I say,
"Wow, I thought these kids just wanna get away from home
and go to school so they can make out."
(laughs softly)
- Because the Black community was so small,
every weekend, one of the fraternity,
the sorority would have a party.
Okay, and at those parties, that's when I got a chance to,
you know, meet with everybody and you know,
we all kind of socializing and hanging out.
- Sometimes it was like, when I get back to my room,
I was like, oh, whoa, stop, spinning, stop spinning,
(laughs loudly)
I'll never do that again.
And of course I did.
- [Maya] Good for you.
- Bubba was struggling with a lot of issues,
being a football player at Michigan State,
they had some rules about who they could date,
who they couldn't date.
And they weren't supposed to date white girls.
They could mess around with white girls,
but they weren't supposed to date them seriously.
And so he was basically hiding me.
We went to the Michigan theater in downtown Lansing.
There's a big, long walkway to get out of the theater.
And he kept disappearing in the crowd behind me.
And I kept, where are you?
Finally, I saw that he was just kind of motioning me
to keep going and just keep walking.
And then it dawned on me what he was doing.
So I stopped and he caught up to me and he said,
"just keep going."
And I said, "No."
He said, "Well, you don't want people to know
you're with a n*gg*r."
- [Announcer] From East Lansing, Michigan
it's Duffy Daugherty's revelations.
- Hi, everybody,
I'd like to talk to you a little while on
our philosophy of football at Michigan State.
In fact, we like to think of it as
more than a philosophy of football,
we like to think of it as almost a philosophy of life.
At Michigan State,
we talk about our three Bone's philosophy.
And all of our players,
we'd like to have them possess a funny bone.
We want them to enjoy playing the game.
We want them to enjoy themselves every day of their lives.
The second bone we'd like to have our boys possess
is a wishbone.
We'd like to have them think big,
so their dreams will grow.
We want them to dream of going to the Rose Bowl.
We want them to dream of being the greatest player
ever to play for Michigan State
or ever to represent their hometown.
But the third and the most important bone of all,
is a backbone.
Because if they have a backbone,
they'll have the gumption to get up and go
fortitude the stick-to-itiveness
to make all these wonderful dreams
and all these wonderful ambitions come true.
A wishbone, funny bone, and the backbone.
- They're hard to handle with the gloves on.
So these are negatives?
Oh my gosh, I see him.
Whoa, football action, Washington Eugene,
and pounds, -, age years old,
it's a sophomore.
Playing their little football, look at my dad,
that's my dad, George Webster, Jim Summers, Bubba Smith,
Jerry West, Bob Whiny.
Let's see this, man of the year.
- Welcome to the Duffy Daugherty memorial awards.
- It's something that we both can be so proud of
that we were part of at least a legacy of pioneers.
I spent my childhood trying to be identified
as Dree Daugherty and not Duffy's daughter.
And it took me a very long time,
probably till my mid twenties
before I was able to let that go and be just proud
that being Duffy's daughter is good enough is great enough,
it's a good thing to be.
(instrumental music)
(man singing)
(instrumental music)
(kids cheering)
- Did dad ever teach you about football?
- No.
- I've always been interested and I think it has to do
with our cousins too, 'cause when we'd go to Texas,
I'd play sports with them.
- What happened to us?
- When you guys were growing up,
you're faced with making a decision.
Should I go out for the track team,
should I go out for the baseball team
or should I go for the choir?
So you have to ask yourself,
because you expose all that
and you know I played sports,
but how many of you took the initiative to say,
"Well, dad, you know, I think I want to play softball."
- I did.
- She did play softball.
- One time we were playing T-ball outside
and I thought you didn't know anything about softball.
So I thought it was a safe sport for me
'cause you couldn't...
- You couldn't ice your feet.
- And then I found out that you,
were playing baseball too.
I think I had a natural athletic ability.
I don't think I was passionate about softball
or any sport, really,
I think my dad was just a little overzealous.
I just didn't want coaching from him.
- As a dad, I have to respect the fact that
does she know anything about football?
Does she want to know anything about football?
- [Maya] If I would have been a son,
do you think it would've been different?
- Well, it probably would have been,
you'd have been in some activities
that probably a boy would be more involved with
because it's sports really, growing up.
So that makes a difference.
- Feel like we missed a lot of games
we could have been going to.
(laughs softly)
- This is where I go to sleep, oh Lord.
- You want your corn on your, up here?
- Yeah, and you can put that little random pumpkin
down there by the other pumpkins.
- You don't want the pumpkin by Jesus?
- But the whole thing about simplicity
is that Jesus stands alone, okay?
This kind of statue,
you know, you can have different pictures
that are really more modern and for different feel,
but this is the Sacred Heart
and this is supposed to be alone.
- You want me to move Jesus?
- No, Jesus is fine, because...
- Jesus is heavy.
- I'm telling you Jesus is heavy, you know, it's best...
- What happened, he broke?
- That's been broken a long time.
Help us Lord,
(laughs softly)
- So this is like what you do all day,
you just watch football.
- Yeah, so it starts at o'clock and ends at .
(laughs softly)
- [Maya] What is it like when you see that,
knowing that you couldn't go there?
When you see all Black men touching the Hook 'Em Horn?
- I guess the bottom line, they treated so bad,
I was glad to leave the state.
You know, it was really a bad situation.
Maryland Terrapins, Turtles.
- There are mascots and turtle?
- Yeah, well they're called the Terrapins.
(Maya laughs loudly)
- What's a terrapin?
- Well that's I guess it's short for turtle in Mascot.
Look at the bottle maker, What is a bottle maker?
- What is a bottle maker?
- What is a bottle maker?
- At least Spartans and Trojans, we got some good mascots.
- Yeah.
- We need an interception.
We need an interception.
We need an interception.
Come on now, that's good, that's good.
- Help me understand that.
Why they try to go straight down the middle?
Why they don't try to swing it out.
- There's an opening in the middle
that we can't see that you have to block your man, see.
- I wish we could have had the moments
that we're having now when I was a kid.
- You might have a chance to make up for that.
- [Announcer] This is for the big championship folks.
Commissioner Tim Delaney is presenting the Leadership
and Humanitarian Awards.
Michigan State's Gene Washington,
helped lead the Spartans to consecutive big
and national championships in and .
(crowd cheering)
- Oh man!
(crowd cheering)
We were national champions in and
in the years that we played.
We could not play any school in the South,
we could only play the big schools
and some of the teams out west.
(crowd cheering)
- Racism in the s and today,
is not a Southern problem, it's an American problem.
And Daugherty feels the effects of it.
- Dad was looking at starting a Black quarterback,
Jimmy Ray, and that would be the first time
in Michigan State's history.
This supposed friend of my dad said,
"You know, Duffy, the day that you start a Black quarterback
at Michigan State, we will no longer be friends."
- When Duffy called my mom,
she ask, is my boy going to be allowed to play quarterback?
And the response from him was,
"Yes, he will be a quarterback,
until he decides he's not a quarterback."
And little did I know
that that answer was loaded at that time,
but it was enough to convince my mom
that I was going to be given a chance to be a quarterback.
- Daugherty's teams have shattered the myth
that you have to have more white players on the field
than Black players.
Alumni see a team that is fully integrated,
which meant to some whites
that Black guy is getting a scholarship
that could have gone to a white guy.
- [Gene] ] We wanted to prove to ourselves
and to everybody around the country
that we could be the best.
(soft instrumental music)
- Going to Rose Bowl, I mean, that was a big deal.
Those years you would not have five or six
big teams going to bowl games.
You can only go to one, and that was the Rose Bowl.
- We were kind of like how rock stars are viewed now,
they nicknamed us the Jolly Green Giants.
They thought we were huge,
only because it was Bubba or Webster .
But they thought all of us were like that.
I mean, here I was - and they said,
"Oh, look at the Jolly Green Giants,"
and I'd look, are you talking about me?
(chuckles)
You couldn't be.
- Duffy took us and gave us culture like that.
I'd never been to restaurants before,
we had blazers, we were a classy team, very classy.
- They had us at Disneyland,
and Whiskey A Go-Go and Sunset Strip
and Lou Rawls and I mean, we were having a great time.
- There was parties here and there.
And you know, we had a curfew obviously,
but man, when you walk in there the minute
before you had to.
(laughs loudly)
- The last two days,
they took us up to this monastery.
- I think it was a last minute effort on Duffy's part
to get us away from the media.
- The Los Angeles writers were saying
the little UCLA Bruins,
how can they possibly compete against these giants,
these Goliaths from Michigan State.
And everything that could go wrong did go wrong.
- I don't think we took UCLA as seriously as we could,
and as we should have,
and we didn't exactly blow them out of the ballpark.
- By the time Michigan State realized what had happened,
it was behind to nothing.
- We had a quarterback who had an awful day.
Steve Juday had just an awful day.
- It was very difficult for me
because I was the backup quarterback
and had a good season and played extremely well done
in a supportive role to Steve Juday.
And it was one of those days as a quarterback that you have,
and he had one that we liked to all assume forget.
My recollection of that game,
and Duffy calling me to warm up to go in the game
which Steve was struggling on three different occasions
and he didn't put me in.
We were coming out of the tunnel
and then he put his hand on my shoulder and he said,
"I know I told you,
we were going to start you to second half,
but I'm going to give Steve one more series
and see if he can get it going, how he's going."
And he said, "I know you don't understand it now,
but you will."
- Steve Juday was his starting quarterback the entire season
in all American, he wasn't going to embarrass him
on national television.
- It's about six minutes to go in the game
and we're down to ,
and he finally says, okay, go.
- [Announcer] As Jimmy Ray is in there at right quarterback,
number finally pitches back to Bob Apisa,
the sophomore and fallback is off and running.
(crowd cheering)
He goes right down the sideline for a touchdown
for Michigan State.
- And then we made a tremendous mistake
after the first school.
And we went for two, it didn't make it.
Which meant that if we scored again,
we had to go for two less than three or four minutes
to go in the game.
And we go back and we score again to make it to .
He calls time out and he said,
"Whatever you do, pitch the ball to Bob Apisa."
And I said, okay.
So I started to go on the field,
he pulls me back and he said, "Did you hear what I said?"
I said, "Yes."
He said, "Whatever you do, pitch the ball to Bob."
And I said, "Okay, okay."
- [Announcer] Jimmy Ray comes in the right quarterback.
Number he tries to roll out right,
can't find running room,
gives to Apisa a pullback and Bob is caught a yard short.
- It was a pitch out Bob Apisa was stopped
short of the goal line,
and people were stunned that this mighty Michigan State team
had lost -.
- He carried that burden with him for a long time,
thinking that he had let us down and failed us
because he didn't make it in.
But he had his, I think his inside his left knee was bad.
- On Bob's good day,
Bob would have totally just annihilated guy,
run over him and just swatted him away like he was a flag.
- I always felt, and my dad was there at the game
and I knew I could have run all the way to Fayetteville
from Pasadena, with that ball inside,
if I don't pitch it.
You know, there was a cavity there
that was as wide as the San Gabriel mountains,
but I was good soldier and I pitched it to Bob
and we lost the game to .
And it was one of the most disappointing evenings,
I think I've ever experienced in football.
- Michigan State's season started the day
after the loss in the Rose Bowl.
It was pretty clear they were on a mission.
- In late November, ,
Michigan State takes the field
with eight Black players on defense
and for an offense that has a Black quarterback.
Jimmy Ray is one of Black quarterbacks
in the entire country.
Duffy Daugherty's two captains on the team are Black.
Clinton Jones and George Webster.
Notre Dame, another Northern team,
they have one Black player in Ellen Page.
He's a great player in all America,
but on Michigan State, one on Notre Dame.
So when the Spartans take the field
in the game of the century against Notre Dame,
all across the country,
Black fans are cheering for Michigan State.
They are Black America's team.
And much in the way the Dodgers
were Black America's baseball team.
- [Announcer] Duffy Daugherty is undefeated,
the number two ranked Spartan.
As head on with Arap Asigi,
an undefeated and number one ranked fighting Irish
for the national Collegiate championship.
- Big moment for me was my dad was flying up for the game.
I was more excited about that than I was about the game,
because dad had never seen me play college football
in a live situation.
- Million people watch this game on ABC.
That's more people than would watch the Superbowl that year.
- Back then the big had a rule that no repeat rule
in terms of going to the Rose Bowl.
The only thing really we had to play for
was the big championship and the national championship
going into that year,
our sights were set on that avatar surround our neck
from the Rose Bowl, and we were going to finish the job.
- If you really stopped and started thinking about
how good the players on the Michigan State team were,
you'd probably want to go home and, you know,
pull the blinds and shades, lock the doors
and don't let anybody in.
We knew we were going to be in a dog fight
one that was gonna take an incredible effort
to not get blown out of the stadium.
- I think I was scared about their passing game,
more than their running game.
I worked really hard with the defensive backs
and the linebackers on hem ready the quarterback.
So we went along, and handled it very well,
and then all of a sudden Bubba hit him.
- [Announcer] Plays a trick on Han Roddy and Notre Dame.
As the Irish passer turns the corner,
a big number , Bubba Smith
lambs them down, causing a shoulder separation.
- And then they brought in this Cole Bryant,
didn't know him, didn't know anything about him
because he played very little.
- [Announcer] On a second down one situation,
the year old quarterback r*fles,
a touchdown pass to Gladio.
- He brought Notre Dame back
from a nothing deficit
tied the game on the first play of the fourth quarter,
Eric Parsigan coaching, Notre Dame,
very smart realized, "Hey, we're number one,
we're not gonna lose this.
And we've got a game the next week."
- And all of a sudden, they're not trying to score
and Hank says that our guys frustrated as heck,
how come they did not try to win?
Why aren't you trying to win.
- [Announcer] The collegiate football, game up a decade,
end in a - time.
- It was tough, it was hard.
I was beat up in the end feeling disappointed
that we didn't win, but also happy that we didn't lose.
- A lot of the Spartans were upset because
they perceived like a lot of us did,
that Notre Dame was just running away.
Saying, we'll settle for a tie.
- Usually as a quarterback,
you remember for great games that you play and win,
but I'm remembered more for the game
that I didn't, win that ended in a tie.
And I'm okay with that,
because it has live plus years
and the bond that was established during that time,
and during that time period with the players
that I played with the very special feelings
and something that has been a part of my life
and our lives and our history
that you can't ever really adequately put into words.
(crowd cheering)
- Took us off at football team.
(crowd applause)
(upbeat music)
(instrumental music)
- Go Green, go white.
- Are we going to win this game?
(crowd applauding)
(upbeat music)
(music)
(crowd cheering)
(man singing)
- It was really fun to be a part of that
because it had been so long
since we had been out there before.
- [Maya] So was the NFL, a goal?
Where their press conferences, how did you get the news?
- Well, we knew that a draft was ongoing
and I was on campus,
Clint and Georgia Webster and Bubba Smith, all of us,
we felt that we would have an opportunity to be drafted,
but we didn't have a lot of people telling us
that it was a sure thing.
- And the part that really reflected what this class
was all about, what this great experiment
of Duffy Daugherty was all about,
was the national football league draft
from that class, first time only time never be another time
four players from one school in the top eight,
the number one, number two,
number five and number eight picks unprecedented.
- There was a call that came into the football office,
"Congratulations, you have been drafted in the first round
by the Minnesota Vikings."
I said, "Well, who is this that I'm talking to?"
"My name is Sid Hartman,
and I'm with the Star Tribune here in Minneapolis."
And then about five days later, the Vikings called me.
The first person I told was Claudette.
- I said who?
He said the Minnesota Vikings.
So when we get married, you know,
we'll be living in Minnesota.
- That's class, brought in a paradigm shift
and Gene and I brought the same kind of energy
that the guys brought to Michigan State.
- When they came, we knew we had a team.
We had Joe Kapp from up in Canada,
Gene Washington, and John Henderson and Clinton Jones.
And those guys were sprinters fast and quick and good hands.
And we just loved it.
- It was a heck of a good team
and there really weren't any stars.
So that attitude took us a long way.
- Everybody wanted to be Chuck Foreman, Gene Washington,
Fran Tarkenton, Jim Marshall, Carl Eller,
the purple people leaders.
That's who we grew up with.
That's who we wanted to be.
- Viking World Order we're probably
the die hardest group of viking fans there is,
having a tattoo as part of the deal, there's mine.
- Is that real?
This is actually a temporary,
there's a longer story than you have camera time.
- Can I get you sign this ball?
- Yeah
- I've got Carl on there...
- You got all the guys, huh?
- You know, it's the old school guys.
- Nick was the center center.
- Snap the ball.
- So we're all in office together.
We was a real good team, we won most of our games.
- And then we ended up playing for Superbowl.
- That's correct.
- Yeah.
- And you know what the Vikings have accomplished
to get here in the Super Bowl,
we're going to meet the Minnesota team right now.
The first to be under dosed will be Gene Washington
our outstanding wide receiver, number .
- I remember the NFL championship.
We played Cleveland because it was about eight below zero
and we played them here in our stadium.
It was very convincing win.
The next game, after that particular game was a Super Bowl.
It was eight below zero,
we had to go to New Orleans right away to get ready to play.
The Kansas City Chiefs,
of course, we didn't know a lot about Kansas city
and I don't think they knew a lot about us.
But we were favored by two or three touchdowns,
and I still don't understand that.
- We didn't play particularly well on defense
and offensively, we didn't score enough points.
- I was too young to really understand
what it was to be different,
but I knew I was.
Being out here and growing up
being the only Black family in this neighborhood.
- I think probably the hardest part was kind of growing up,
feeling like I was always on display.
- Boys in the neighborhood would wanna hang out with me
and play with us,
and it was specifically because dad was a football player.
- I would describe it as a paradox,
not being able to be anonymous, but also not having a voice.
- There were just a few children that tormented me every day
and called me n*gg*r every day.
- All through the first seven or eight years of my career,
there are certain hotels we couldn't stay in.
I'll never forget the name of this hotel
was the Peach Tree Manor in Atlanta, Georgia.
We were getting off the bus to go into the hotel
after flying down there
and the manager came out and started screaming.
"No, no, no, no."
I thought somebody was getting ready to sh**t him or rob.
I'm looking around to see what,
and he was saying no Black players.
- And at the time I arrived to the Vikings,
I think there were about eight African-American players
on the team.
And it was interesting because they were all roommates.
If there was an odd Black player,
he would have a room by himself.
If there was an odd white player,
he would have a room by himself.
And I thought I was going backwards.
And it was very obvious that in the NFL,
you still had that kind of thinking.
- Just upset me that I couldn't protect my children,
but we persevered, and for the most part,
people responded positively to your dad
simply because he was a professional athlete.
And we were shielded
from a lot of the raw types of discrimination.
- Part of the struggle for Gene Washington's generation
was that they could not negotiate their services,
their playing skills, their labor in any way they wanted.
Their careers as football players was one that was defined
by boundaries, and they challenged those boundaries.
- There was a rivalry between the American Football League
and the National Football League
in terms of signing players.
While the salaries at the time of the rivalry,
weren't what they are today,
they dropped dramatically when the two leagues merged.
And as it turns out, that agreement took place
just before your dad and I and Clinton Jones
and George Webster and all of those people
got our first contracts.
- My first contract was $,,
but , was the bonus, and then , was the salary.
It probably took me three seasons
to reach the $, salary per year.
- To make some extra money I went in the off-season
back to Michigan State and worked on a career counseling
and services office.
And I did my graduate work
and college student personnel administration.
During the season, I worked part-time with the M Company.
So I would report to practice at o'clock
and I would spend the mornings working at M,
five days a week, Mondays, I worked there all day,
and Saturday we traveled to whatever city we played at.
We had a little brief practice if we stayed at home.
And Sunday, I played the game
and every Monday after the game we played on Sunday,
I was in the office, first thing Monday morning.
- [Maya] You think I can do it?
- No, I don't think you can.
- I'mma try.
- Ready, set.
- That is a long way.
- It took you about five minutes, five minutes.
- I can't imagine doing that, like for a job
- For a job?
Well, you start in high school,
college, and then all of a sudden you're professional.
So you're brought up doing that.
So that's easy.
- It was always easy, it was never hard for you?
- Yeah, it becomes a part of you, yeah.
- This is just so cool to me.
Yeah, well, that's so cool to me too,
because I had never seen this energy.
(laughs softly)
- Is this where you actually practiced?
- No, no people didn't have indoor fields.
This is a yeah, we're from the old school.
Yeah, the weight rooms and a facility like this,
no, we never experienced that.
- So where did you work out?
- We worked out on the baseball field,
over at Met stadium by the airport.
- And what about your weights and stuff like that?
- Oh, we didn't have weights, we never lifted weights.
- What did you do, push ups?
- Yeah, we didn't have a weight room.
- That's crazy.
- Oh, we didn't have a strength coach back in those days.
- So how did you treat, how did you know what to do?
- We just did our exercises
in terms of running past patterns and plays
and that's about it, you know?
And not only us, the whole league was like that.
Yeah, I mean all of these nice facilities,
we didn't have this.
But you also got to realize that the monies,
the monies that's in the game now is much greater.
We only had about three networks, NBC, ABC, and CBS.
Now they have at least four or five
other brand new channels,
plus the NFL have their own channel
and they televised games on their channels.
So that brought a lot more revenue into the game say,
and now they can have these nice facilities.
- It's really cool.
- Big, big changes.
- Well, thanks for the sacrifice, dad.
- Wow.
- Catching all those ba*ls
and working on every day in the snow.
- Yeah, you're welcome,
it wasn't easy, it wasn't an easy task.
- I can imagine how would be.
- A lot of hard work,
but I'm glad I had a chance to go through it, you know.
- I am too.
- I think one of the reasons that salaries are
what they are today is because of the work that the players
back then did to move the league, to allow players,
to play where they chose,
as opposed to playing where they were chosen.
Players came together and brought a number of lawsuits.
The first of which was Mackey versus the NFL.
- Federal judge in Minneapolis rule today,
the National Football League so-called Roselle Rule
violates federal antitrust laws.
The rule prohibits a team from signing a player
who's a free agent without compensating
the player's, former team.
The rule thus discourages team switching.
Owners say it prevents rich teams
from overwhelming the competition.
- The cooperation can not own the individual
and that he has to have the right,
the freedom to go out and to earn his living
based on his ability.
And I think that this is what that really means,
and that it's a victory for all of us.
I mean, not just athletes,
but a victory for all Americans.
- I'm going beyond the first four years,
I thought I was a better player.
I made the all pro team two years in a row
and played in a Pro Bowl two years in a row.
So I thought that my next contract should be bigger
than my first.
Clint was in the same situation,
and Charlie west was the same situation.
As a matter of fact,
they offered me personally less money than I made
the first four years, a smaller contract.
And the rationale behind that was that
that's the first round pick and bonus and all of that,
the salaries have become much lower.
And so I disagree with that
and we decided not to go to training camp
and not to play until a fair situation was offered.
- Well, we got out of it with a guaranteed contract,
no matter what happened, they had to pay us.
But I knew that the next thing
that they're going to get rid of us.
- After one of our exhibition games
I scored a couple touchdowns
and came back to the locker room
and Bud Grants told me that I was traded
to the Denver Broncos.
And so that's how I got the word.
So I cleaned out my locker and I went home
and told Claudiatte, I said,
"Well, I've been traded to the Denver Broncos."
- I said, "As at today?"
"Yeah, right now, I'm no longer with the Vikings,
I've got to pack up and go."
So it was just cut and dry.
- I knew that I was gonna be traded.
Bud Grant said,
"You know, we have self, you know, situation."
And that's the day I was on the plane going to San Diego.
- You know, that was a huge loss for us, huge loss,
because that was one of our main threats.
You know, we had the fastest guys that,
that played the game and we had them on our team.
- It's not a good feeling.
It's a terrible feeling it's around all this work we put in
and a relationship you have with people,
which you still have, you don't lose them.
You don't lose those relationships, but they change.
- Gene had injured his ankle,
his foot on the foot and ankle
kind of connected together here with this injury.
And he was starting to slow up a little bit.
And so that's when he was traded.
The best part of Gene Washington was before that trade.
- Being traded to Denver,
I played one year and I wasn't a hundred percent
that year that I played.
And at the end of that year,
I had major surgery where the bones were all fused together,
which ended my career.
That was the most frustrating part of my career
was the fact that when I first got hurt
my fifth year at the Vikings,
I had never been injured in my life.
- And today's medicine
with the use of the fine arthroscopes,
maybe they could have been able to,
maybe go in there and clean that ankle up a little bit.
It might've given him a few more years.
- [Gene] My injury got worse and I had to go to Mayo clinic
to get another full fusion operation,
which led to my retirement,
led to my not being able to play at all.
- What's your favorite job you've ever had?
- Retirement.
(Maya laughs loudly)
Retirement is my favorite job.
- He really good at it.
I worked years, you know,
in all these companies I worked for
and Toro and M and Dayton Hudson's and Michigan State.
Now all this work I did years, you know?
So this is the best job I've ever had, the retirement.
Yeah, we can go into a great business.
I'm gonna have a business of making popcorn ba*ls.
- How would you call it?
- I don't know, Spartan ba*ls.
(laughs loudly)
Round flavored spartan ba*ls,
You know that you can do it some green stuff too.
- I'll bur these molasses.
So what does it mean to you to be a Spartan?
Everything is Michigan State with you.
- That's where I hit my start,
you got to support to people who support you,
that's who supported me early on.
You get great support, so you appreciate,
you very thankful that you hit that opportunity, right?
- Yeah, make them big like you or small, like me?
- Me make them in between.
That's too small.
- They're too small?
- You gotta make a big, you gotta squeeze them.
- That's medium to you.
- Yeah.
- I can't do it, like I got to just make them small.
- Yeah, these are for the little people.
(instrumental music)
(man singing)
- Life goes by so fast.
I really miss Bubba, George Webster,
Charlie Thornhill, Maurice Haynes.
Probably or of our guys are dead now.
And we're young and we're relatively young.
- It was a real blessing being Bubba's friend and teammate.
We had an exceptional run as Spartans.
- Everyone came together to support each other
and create a real team full of love for one another.
- That success established a bar
that still the standard of excellence
for Michigan State football teams some years later.
- [Maya] Would you be willing to sing a little bit
of the fight song?
- [Gene] Yeah,
*On the banks of the Red Cedar
*there's a school as known to all *
*their specialty is winning
*and Spartans play a great ball *
*Spartan teams are never beaten *
*all to the game they play
*Rah, rah, rarrara
*Victory for MSU, yeah
(both laugh loudly)
- [Maya] Nice
(instrumental music)
(dramatic music)
- Love you.
- Love you too, okay?
- Now get in a little bit of car and take off.
- All right, don't take any, I can't get in my the car.
- Where's your key, your remote?
- Hey man, we could have one for a ride.
(laughs softly)
(soft instrumental music)
- * On the banks of Red Cedar
* There's a school that's known to all *
* Their specialty is winning
* And the Spartans play great ball *
* Spartan teams are never beaten *
(baby crying)
Oh no, no.
(instrumental music)
- Y'all ready for me now?
Mr. Washington, please meet me on his track right now,
I'm challenging you.
I know you as a world-class sprinter,
you know, everything else you did great,
but I'm challenged you,
I want to meet you right here, so you let me know.
Just get in touch with me and I'm ready to race, anytime.
- He's a hurdler, you got hurdles too,
he might have you on the hurdles.
- Yeah, he got me on hurdles.
Just give me a month to train, I got it.
You know, he ain't in his prime no more,
so I can get it now.
(laughs softly)
- I believe you.
(instrumental music)
- Dad, you're supposed to drop these in the mailbox.
This says drop in the mailbox.
- This is years ago.
This is a key for my room at Michigan State hotel.
- That is so cute.
- My first stay in hotel, so room .
Every time I go back to campus,
I go to this room
and hope that nobody's there and get a chance to look around.
(Maya laughs softly)
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Through the Banks of the Red Cedar (2022)
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