Times don’t always change for the better.
Fifty-three years ago, when Jim Crow still plagued the old South, the city of Fayetteville, N.C., demonstrated it was ahead of the times down the slow, painful march to the new South. The segregated city gave a parade and key to the city to Jimmy Raye, an African-American.
In that 1966 college football season, Raye was the South’s first black quarterback to win a national title at Michigan State. The National Football Foundation declared the Spartans and Notre Dame co-champions following their 10-10 tie in the Game of the Century.
Raye was a new kind of hometown hero in the South.
He was a three-sport star at then-segregated E.E. Smith High who left home in the fall of 1964 to play at a school that led the integration of college football under College Football Hall of Fame coach Duffy Daugherty. Daugherty showed courage to play a black man at a leadership position over the objections of racists. Raye validated that courage with his play to break ground for future black quarterbacks.
Back then, Fayetteville’s key to the city represented a color-blind city.
Now, Fayetteville city officials have shown the key they grant is colored green – money.
They gave the honor to Dennis Smith Jr., a disgraced former Fayetteville Trinity Christian and N.C. State basketball star playing in the NBA. The timing is ugly.
Only a month ago, the NCAA delivered to N.C. State a Notice of Allegations involving Smith and his family having received $40,000 in shoe money through an assistant coach along with $6,600 in impermissible benefits from the university.
The kid from Fayetteville brought greedy shame to the city and the university up the road, but Fayetteville mayor Mitch Colvin and the city council chose to look the other way. In Colvin’s Fayetteville, the new kind of hometown hero only has to wave money.
Let’s also not overlook Under Armour, which Smith represents, was involved with the day, making it unclear if Smith actually opened his bank account that last season deposited $4.5 million in NBA paydays.
The still unfolding case began in September 2017 when the FBI investigated several schools and charged former assistant coaches, shoe company executives and “runners.” The NCAA is following up on evidence from trials and convictions.
Smith made no comments when he was presented the plaque with a ceremonial key. In fact, he has never said anything about the NCAA/FBI scandal that likely will end with N.C. State suffering penalties and Smith skating free. Take the money, run and shut up.
Seaside Park, like any city park, certainly can use the financial help, but that’s not enough to award Smith a key to the city. How about a little honesty to be followed by more projects before earning such a special day?
When Jimmy Raye grew up, Seaside Park was a proving ground for black athletes in a segregated city. Monk Smith, for whom the Recreation Center was later named, was a coach and mentor for years to kids.
In a legendary Seaside story, Raye was home one afternoon when James “Shack” Harris – the future pioneering NFL black quarterback from Grambling – showed up at Seaside. Harris was in town from Louisiana while his family visited his older brother stationed at Fort Bragg.
“Some friends came over said I had to see this guy who could really shoot,” Raye says in our book, “Raye of Light,” on Michigan State leading the integration of college football. “When I met Shack, he says, ‘Let two great hands meet – and he shook his hands. We started playing games. Word started to spread and more and more people kept coming to watch. We had a thousand people watching.”
That was Seaside Park in innocent days.
For Raye’s “key to the city day,” then-Fayetteville mayor Monroe E. Evans read a proclamation:
“WHEREAS, Jimmy Raye has, through his efforts and ability, brought success, fame, and honor to himself, to Michigan State University and to Fayetteville, North Carolina; and;
“WHEREAS, Jimmy Raye has become a stellar quarterback and exemplifies the top in college sports activities;
“NOW, THEREFORE, I, Monroe E. Evans, mayor of the city Fayetteville, do hereby proclaim Monday, Dec. 19, 1966, Jimmy Raye Day.”
It’s hard to see how Colvin views Dennis Smith having brought anything but shame to himself, to North Carolina State University and Fayetteville, N.C.
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I invite you to follow me on Twitter @shanny4055
Tom Shanahan, Author: Raye of Light http://tinyurl.com/knsqtqu
— Book on Michigan State’s leading role in the integration of college football. It explains Duffy Daugherty’s untold pioneering role and debunks myths that steered recognition away from him to Bear Bryant.
http://shanahan.report/a/the-case-for-duffy-and-medal-of-freedom
Don’t believe the myths at Duffy Daugherty’s expense about Bear Bryant’s motivation to play the 1970 USC-Alabama game or myths about the Charlie Thornhill-for-Joe Namath trade. Bear Bryant knew nothing about black talent in the South while he dragged his feet on segregation.
http://shanahan.report/a/myths-that-grew-out-of-1970-alabama-game-with-usc
http://shanahan.report/a/mystery-solved-in-thornhill-and-namath-myth
David Maraniss, Pulitzer Prize winner and biographer; “History writes people out of the story. It’s our job to write them back in.”
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