Looking Back at Loyola
University’s 1963 NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship
JOHN C THOMAS
Throughout
1962-63, the Loyola Ramblers played four African-American starters in every
game—in defiance of a non-verbal compact among teams that set quotas for the
“appropriate” number of Black athletes to play at any time. In a Christmas
tournament, Loyola made history by playing five African-Americans at once for
perhaps the first time in major college basketball. And the Ramblers’ thrilling
overtime championship game victory over two-time defending champions Cincinnati
was one of the most exciting in NCAA Tournament history. But Loyola’s 1962-63
season marked a sea change in college basketball not only because of the
players’ success on the court, but also their success in the classroom.
Although
the victory of an all-Black Texas Western team’s victory three years later over
an all-White Kentucky squad is much better known—thanks to the book and
film Glory Road—Loyola’s victory was likely much more significant.
During the course of the 1962-63 season, Loyola played and defeated segregated
squads from Arkansas, Memphis State, Loyola-New Orleans, Houston, Tennessee
Tech, and Duke. In the NCAA Tournament, another Mississippi
university—Mississippi State-- had to secretly leave the state under cover of
darkness to evade a state legislature injunction against playing Loyola. After
Loyola won the championship, the “gentleman’s agreement”—a compact among major
college basketball coaches that compelled most college teams to play no more
than three black starters at home and two black starters on the road-- was
history.
The
1963 Ramblers set an NCAA record that still stands for the largest margin of
victory in an NCAA Tournament game when they beat all-White Tennessee Tech in
the first round, 111-47. They beat three top 10 ranked teams to reach the
tournament final, and then they beat the two-time defending champions-- the #1
team in the country that had won 47 consecutive NCAA Tournament games-- on a
court in their opponent’s backyard. And they did it while coming back from an
eight-point halftime deficit and a 15-point deficit with less than 11 minutes
left to play—before there was a shot clock or a three-point line.
Assembling the team
Loyola
Coach George Ireland wasn’t necessarily looking to break new ground—he was just
looking to win. Loyola had featured several great African American players
through the 1940s and 1950s, almost all of whom were not only great players but
great students. Ben Bluitt helped the Ramblers reach the NIT final in 1949, and
later became one of the first African American major college coaches at Cornell
in the 1970s. Art McZier became co-captain of the teams of the mid-50s before
establishing a prominent career in Washington, DC with the Department of
Commerce and the Small Business Administration. Clarence Red was a prolific
rebounder in the late 1950s who became a dentist.
Having
seen success by African Americans on the court and in the classroom, and
understanding the difficulties of Black players in finding slots to play
basketball on teams that had strict racial quotas against “too many” Black
players, Ireland took the leap of throwing out the unwritten rules by
recruiting three great African American players in 1960.
Ron
Milller was a talented 6’2” center on his Bronx high school team. Ireland
recruited him and turned him into a shooting guard. Six-foot, six inch Vic
Rouse was an athletic and academic star at Pearl High School in Nashville, and
his 6’7” teammate Les Hunter was a beast of a center. Coming from the South,
neither of them had much of a chance playing for a non-historically Black
college, as there were no major basketball schools in the South willing to take
them. These three Black players would join a White fellow 1961 recruit--
scrappy playmaker John Egan from the South Side of Chicago—and a silky-smooth
All-American, 6’4” junior Jerry Harkness, on Loyola’s 1961-62 team.
The
1961-62 Ramblers, the first major college team composed of four
African-American starters, played a demanding schedule that took them all the
way to the NIT semi-finals. They gained valuable experience together as a unit
through the 1961-62 season, undergoing shocking conditions on the road, both in
their accommodations and the treatment they received from opposing fans. They
learned to play through taunts, separate accommodations for the White and Black
players, harassment, and disappointments. But they were all ready, willing, and
experienced coming back for the 1962-63 season as four juniors and a senior.
Loyola began the 1962-63 season ranked #4 in the country, and
soon moved up to #2—behind defending champions Cincinnati—as both Loyola and
Cincinnati began the season undefeated through January. On February 16, 1963,
the 21-0 Loyola Ramblers suffered their first loss of the year to Bowling
Green, featuring future NBA All-Star Nate Thurmond, on the road. The same
night, #1 Cincinnati also lost at Wichita State, breaking their 37-game winning
streak over two seasons. Two weeks later, Loyola also lost to Wichita State in
the final game of the year, dropping the Ramblers to a #5 ranking in the AP
poll with a record of 24-2.
Several
weeks before the end of the season, Loyola accepted their first ever invitation
to the NCAA Tournament. The Ramblers had been national runners-up in the 1939
and 1949 NITs, and had reached the semi-finals in 1962. As late as the
mid-1950s, the NIT was considered a more prestigious tournament, and as an
Independent team not affiliated with a conference, Loyola was at a disadvantage
in the NCAA Tournament.
In
spite of the Ramblers’ #2 AP ranking at the time of their NCAA Tournament
acceptance, Loyola would be required to play an extra round in the 24-team
tournament, as large conference winners received a bye in the first round.
Loyola made a statement by throttling their first round opponent Tennessee
Tech, 111-47, in their first round game in nearby Evanston, Illinois. It was
not as close as the score might indicate-- at the halftime break, it was Loyola
61, Tech 20. The first round victory won Loyola a matchup with SEC Champion
Mississippi State, setting up one of the most remarkable college basketball
games in history.
Defying State-Mandated
Segregation: Loyola vs. Mississippi State
On
March 2, 1963, Mississippi State announced to the crowd at their last home game
of the year that they would accept the bid to represent the SEC in the 1963
NCAA Tournament, which would mean they would potentially play against an
integrated team.
But
even before it was certain that Mississippi State would face Loyola and their
four black starters, racist elements in the Mississippi media got into the act.
On Thursday, March 7, 1963—four days before Loyola’s game against all-white
Tennessee Tech that would decide who played Mississippi State—the Jackson Daily
News printed a five-column wide picture of Loyola’s starters to show that four
of them were African Americans. As a caption to the picture, Daily News editor
Jimmy Ward wrote that “readers may desire to clip the photo of the Loyola team
and mail it today to the board of trustees of the institution of higher
learning” to prevent the game from taking place. The Jackson paper editorial
included an apology to readers for misleading them in a previous editorial that
all five of Loyola’s starters were African-American. The editorial said “maybe
a lucky white boy graduated to the first team.”
Mississippi
State President Dean Colvard decided to accept the automatic bid to the NCAA
Tournament on March 2, 1963-- a bid the school had previously declined three
times before when faced with the prospect of playing one or more integrated
teams. After Mississippi State declined the invitation the year before, the
same Jackson Daily News wrote that “a change of heart by Mississippi’s
politicians” was the key to Mississippi State playing in the NCAA Tournament.
Just three weeks earlier the Daily News lamented, “racial problems appear to
doom the talented Maroons’ chances of representing the league in the
post-season tournament.” But when the Maroons faced the prospect of meeting
Loyola, however, the newspaper changed its tune to instigate political pressure
against MSU’s participation in the tournament.
The
College Board of Mississippi met March 9, 1963 to uphold President Colvard’s
decision to accept the NCAA bid by an 8-3 vote. But on March 13—the day before
the team was scheduled to travel to the tournament site at East Lansing-- State
Senator Billy Mitts and former State Senator B.W. Lawson obtained an injunction
against the team leaving the state. The temporary injunction was issued by
Hinds County Chancellor L.B. Porter-- the same person who issued the injunction
preventing James Meredith’s enrollment at the University of Mississippi the
previous fall.
Several
other all-white teams from the SEC, such as Kentucky, had never flinched at
playing integrated teams. In 1949, an integrated Loyola team upset Adolph
Rupp’s all-white Kentucky team en route to the NIT Final, and Loyola beat
eventual national champion Kentucky in 1958. Georgia Tech—another all-white
team—was quite willing to accept the SEC’s bid if Mississippi State declined.
But
Mississippi was different-- one of only three states in the country that had
yet to integrate elementary and secondary schools according to the 1954 Brown
vs. Board of Education decision. The state was still reeling from three days of
rioting the previous fall, when African-American Air Force veteran James Meredith
tried to simply enroll at Ole Miss. Between 1954 and 1960, the state
legislature passed 14 separate laws designed to get around Brown vs. Board of
Education. The most draconian of the state laws included a poison pill
provision allowing the governor to abolish all the state’s public schools,
colleges, and universities rather than submit to integration.
Meanwhile,
according the Bill Jauss in the Chicago Daily News on March 15, 1963, cards and
letters addressed to Loyola players were arriving in Chicago, suggesting that
they “bring their shoe shine kits” to the game, or “come down here and pick
some cotton.” Some of the letters were signed, “KKK.” Loyola forward Jerry
Harkness told Jauss, “I expected that. I’m getting a little immune to it. They
called us names when we played in Houston, called Jack Egan names too. The
players are all right. I think that Mississippi State wants to play us. If they
don’t, they’ll never know how good they are.”
The
team’s original plan was to leave Starkville early on Thursday morning. But
learning that the Hinds County sheriffs would be expected to arrive in town
late Wednesday night, MSU implemented their elaborate escape plan. The
president and vice-president of the University drove across state lines to
Birmingham, Alabama and checked into a hotel under assumed names to prevent
them from being served with the injunction. The head coach, the athletic
director, and the assistant athletic director drove to Memphis and took a plane
to Nashville. The team itself sent the freshman squad to the airport as
scheduled—posing as the varsity team-- to serve as decoys. The real varsity
team hid in a dorm on campus, and the next morning boarded a private plane to
Nashville where they met up with the coach and team officials. From Nashville, the
whole group took a commercial flight to East Lansing, Michigan.
Some
have said local county officials, who were required by Mississippi law to be
present at the service of an injunction, had no intention of assisting with
preventing the team from leaving. But later that afternoon the Mississippi
Supreme Court invalidated the injunction anyway..
Up
in East Lansing, there were no incidents. The Loyola players were very gracious
to the Mississippi State players and coaches who defied their courts and state
legislature to simply play a college basketball game. 12,143 spectators
attended, with flashbulbs lighting up Jenison Fieldhouse as the two team
captains shook hands.
The
game was a tight, back-and-forth contest until Mississippi State’s 6’ 4” senior
leader Leland Mitchell fouled out with 6:47 left. Mitchell had scored 14 points
and made 11 rebounds in his limited time on the court; his replacement was
scoreless and without a rebound through the rest of the game. Loyola advanced
to the regional finals with the 61-51 win.
“I
remember the [Mississippi State] guys being nice,” Ron Miller recalled in a
2002 interview. “I remember the guys wishing us luck [after the game], and
wanting us to win it all. And during the game it was polite. They played a very
hard, very aggressive, very strong defensive game-- very clean, and they didn’t
back off. I always thought that they were a lot like we were when we went to
New Orleans [the previous year]-- we just wanted to play basketball.”
"Game of Change"
Advancing to the NCAA Final
While
the Ramblers were defeating Mississippi State in one of the most remarkable and
historic games in college basketball history, #8 Illinois had defeated Bowling
Green, 70-67, for the right to face the Ramblers the following night. The
Illini had strength, height, and toughness on their side—those three attributes
were the deciding factor in their victory over Bowling Green. But Loyola
matched the size and strength of the Illini with quickness and a graceful
shooting touch. Loyola won 79-64, in a game that wasn’t nearly as close as the
score, vaulting Loyola into the Final Four in their first NCAA Tournament
appearance.
Loyola’s
semi-final appearance came against #2 Duke, featuring national player of the
year Art Heyman. The Blue Devils reached the semi-finals with a 27-2 record.
Their only two losses came in the same week in late December, when they lost to
unheralded Miami and Davidson. But since those two defeats, Duke had run the
table in the ACC with a 14-0 record and won the ACC tournament. They had
reached the Final Four by defeating NYU 81-76 in the East Regional semi-finals
and beating St. Joseph’s 73-59 in the East Regional Final to extend their
winning streak to 20 straight games—the longest winning streak in the nation at
the time.
The
Ramblers built a 13-point first-half lead by busting Duke’s zone defense with
great ball movement and outside shooting from the corners. When Duke defenders
drifted out to cover Harkness or Miller shooting from long distance, the
outside shooters whip-passed down low to Les Hunter, who rarely missed his jump
shots from just outside the paint. Loyola led 44-31 at the break.
But
behind their All-American forward Art Heyman, the Blue Devils mounted a
second-half comeback. With 4:19 left to play in the game, Duke cut Loyola’s
lead to 74-71 on a basket by Heyman.
That’s
when the Ramblers dazzled the Freedom Hall crowd in Louisville. Ron Miller
scored one basket on an outside shot from the baseline, and another on a drive
to the basket. After Hunter blocked a shot by Heyman, Harkness scored at the
other end on a breakaway. Hunter and Egan made two free throws apiece, and
before anyone knew what happened, Loyola led 84-71. It was a 10-0 run in crunch
time against the #2 team in the country. With the win secure, the Ramblers
outscored Duke 10-4 down the stretch for an impressive 94-75 victory that sent
them to the tournament final.
David vs. Goliath: The Cinncinnati Bearcats
During
the previous four seasons leading up to the 1963 final, there was no more
accomplished team in the country than the Cincinnati Bearcats. They were the
two-time defending national champions, and they had accumulated a 110-7 record
in the previous four seasons heading into the game. They had beaten Jerry Lucas
and the #1 Ohio State Buckeyes in the 1961 tournament, and when the two met
again a year later, #2 Cincinnati again knocked off the #1 Buckeyes in a rout.
In the 1962-63, the Bearcats were ranked #1 from the pre-season poll to the
final poll of the year, receiving several unanimous #1 poll results. They would
have been undefeated in 1962-63, but for a one-point loss on the road to a top
10 team that broke their 37-game winning streak. And the Bearcats had
accumulated a perfect 11-0 NCAA Tournament over the previous three years. The
team was composed of three seniors and two juniors who had played in a combined
47 NCAA Tournament games without experiencing a single loss, and they were
playing for their third straight title only 106 miles from their campus.
A
standing room only crowd of 19,152—the majority Cincinnati fans-- showed up in
Louisville for what promised to be a coronation. The tip-off for the national
championship came at about 8:30 p.m. Eastern Time, about 7:30 p.m. in Chicago.
Although the game was televised live in many parts of the country, Chicago’s
WGN-TV-- the Tribune-owned station-- decided to show the game on tape delay
following the Illinois High School State Championship in Champaign.
Loyola
missed 13 of their first 14 shots from the field in the first half. The
Ramblers couldn’t find any space on the floor to shoot against the number one
defensive team in the country. Open jump shots were impossible to come by with
Cincy’s experienced floor spacing. The best shots the Ramblers were able to get
off were shots off the dribble that didn’t go down. And shockingly, Loyola’s
consensus All-American-- senior Jerry Harkness, who led Loyola with an average
of more than 21 points per game-- had not made a single field goal in the first
half. Loyola was lucky to be trailing 29-21 at the break.
The
Ramblers scored the first two points of the second half, and after the press
forced a turnover, Loyola had a chance to cut the deficit to four. But Les
Hunter missed a shot off the glass that was rebounded by Cincy’s Tony Yates.
That’s when the Bearcats went on an impressive run. Yates hit 20-foot jumper,
Tom Thacker hit a lean-in eight footer, and Ron Bonham was wide open for a
lay-up under the basket. Three minutes later it was 45-30. With Cincinnati
ahead by 15 points, and less than 12 minutes remaining until their third
consecutive title, the Bearcats went into their legendary stall.
“At
that point, I was angry, not at anybody in particular, just at us in general,”
Egan recalled many years later. “I was probably more outspoken than anyone about
the value of our team, the quality of our team—and I really believed it, I
wasn’t just saying it. And to get that far and not perform, that just gave me a
sickening feeling. Even to this day, it never really bothers me to lose
something if I perform.”
The
Ramblers responded with a full court press that appeared to rattle the Bearcats
just a bit. The e margin was cut to 45-33 before Cincy’s top player George
Wilson picked up his fourth foul, prompting the only substitution by either
team in the game. With Wilson out of the game for only four minutes with four
trouble, Tom Thacker and Tony Yates also picked up their fourth fouls as the
Cincinnati lead dwindled.
With
six minutes left and Cincinnati leading 48-41, Loyola’s Jerry Harkness hit on a
turnaround jumper from just inside the free throw line-- his first field goal
of the game-- to cut Cincy’s lead to 48-43. Harkness’ long overdue basket
couldn’t have come at a better time, and seemed to undermine the confident
Bearcats. As the Bearcats brought the ball up court, Harkness stepped into the
passing lane for a steal and took it to the hoop for an easy lay-up. After more
than 35 minutes without a field goal, Harkness had two in six seconds.
Suddenly, it was a three-point game with 4:24 remaining.
After
two free throws by Bonham, Harkness responded with one free throw. After
Harkness missed the second crucial free throw, Cincy tipped it out of bounds.
Loyola held possession, and the suddenly-hot Harkness scored again on a
seven-foot jumper over a double-team to make it 50-48 with 2:42 left.
Cincinnati hit one free throw in two separate possessions at the other end, but
when a now red-hot Harkness put up a quick six-foot floater from the paint,
Cincinnati’s George Wilson was called for goaltending-- cutting the defending
champs’ lead to 51-50 with just over a minute left to play. One half of the
Freedom Hall crowd—the Cincinnati fans-- were stunned silent. The other half
was shouting encouragement.
As
Loyola gambled on stealing the inbounds pass, Thacker ran the court and caught
a long baseball pass for an uncontested lay-up to make the score 53-50. The
Ramblers countered with an eight-foot jumper by Hunter that missed off the rim,
giving Cincinnati possession and a chance to open a 55-50 lead. Thacker dribbled
the ball to the free throw line, but instead of taking time off the clock, he
made a long pass to an open Tony Yates alone under the basket. Shockingly,
Yates missed an open five-foot shot off the glass, and Loyola dodged a bullet.
A
now-confident Harkness put up a silky-smooth jumper from seven feet out that
just skipped off the top of the rim; had it landed in the hands of a Bearcat,
the game would be over. But Hunter was there on the glass to tip it in, cutting
the Cincinnati lead to 53-52, with 15 seconds left to play. Harkness
immediately fouled Larry Shingleton on the inbounds play to put the 5’10”
Cincinnati guard on the line with 12 seconds left. His first made free throw
put the Bearcats up by two, 54-54. Making his next free throw—in the days before
the three point shot—would almost certainly put an end to the game.
A
1987 Sports Illustrated article about the game quoted Shingleton on what
happened then: “I have a picture of that scene hanging in my basement. It was
taken through the glass of the backboard, and shows the time on the clock, 12
seconds, and the score, 54-52, and the ball in the air. You know, if I’d made
that shot, I could probably have been the youngest senator in the history of
the state of Ohio. But I flat missed it. And I’ve lived with it all these
years.”
Les
Hunter rebounded the missed free throw, and flung an outlet pass to Ron Miller,
who in turn flipped the ball to Harkness down court. But the outlet to Miller
came in the middle of one of his strides; replays show that he took too many
steps with the ball as he tried to get a handle on his pass to Harkness.
Loyola’s John Egan waited for a whistle to blow, but none came. Meanwhile,
Harkness hit a short open jumper to tie the game at 54 all, and sent it to
overtime.
The
two teams traded baskets in the beginning of overtime, capped by a Larry
Shingleton breakaway lay-up that tied the game at 58-58 with 2:15 left to play.
Now it was time for Loyola to turn the tables on Cincinnati—holding the ball
for a final shot against the team that was most notorious for the stall.
The
Ramblers nearly lost the ball as they ate time off the clock when they got
caught in a jump ball situation, but retained possession when Egan outleaped
Shingleton. Almost everyone in the building expected Harkness to take the last
shot. With eight seconds left, Egan passed the ball to Harkness on the left
wing. Guarded closely by Bonham, Harkness dribbled and took three strides,
passing the ball back to Egan. Decided that Hunter had a better shot from 10
feet out, just left of the lane, Egan passed to Hunter, who put up a rainbow
jumper that bounced off the front of the rim up onto the glass. It came down
into the hands of Vic Rouse on the weak side of the basket, and Rouse--
shoulder to shoulder with Wilson-- laid it in neatly off the glass just before
the buzzer sounded.
"I
was probably as close to Rouse as anyone, I was right behind him when he made
it," John Egan recalled. "I thought, 'It's good!' and I knew there
was no time left. Then it was a sort of different kind of feeling for me. It
wasn't exuberance for having won it--obviously I was really happy, but I felt
like walking off into the locker room and enjoying it. I'm not one that jumps
up with joy and kisses everybody. It was especially nice to see the guys on the
bench so happy about it."
"I
just remember Jerry going for the shot, and it wasn't open, and he made the
pass," Miller recalled in a 2002 interview. "I was surprised that he
passed off, and I thought, 'No!' because I had faith that Jerry was going to
make the shot. And then it was a blur. I remember Les taking the shot, and then
I remember jumping up and down. When it happened, I didn't see Vic tip it in. I
was there, and I'm sure I was looking at it, but I don't remember that piece of
it. I just remember hugging Les and jumping up and down."
Looking Back at Loyola
University’s 1963 NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship
JOHN C THOMAS
Throughout
1962-63, the Loyola Ramblers played four African-American starters in every
game—in defiance of a non-verbal compact among teams that set quotas for the
“appropriate” number of Black athletes to play at any time. In a Christmas
tournament, Loyola made history by playing five African-Americans at once for
perhaps the first time in major college basketball. And the Ramblers’ thrilling
overtime championship game victory over two-time defending champions Cincinnati
was one of the most exciting in NCAA Tournament history. But Loyola’s 1962-63
season marked a sea change in college basketball not only because of the
players’ success on the court, but also their success in the classroom.
Although
the victory of an all-Black Texas Western team’s victory three years later over
an all-White Kentucky squad is much better known—thanks to the book and
film Glory Road—Loyola’s victory was likely much more significant.
During the course of the 1962-63 season, Loyola played and defeated segregated
squads from Arkansas, Memphis State, Loyola-New Orleans, Houston, Tennessee
Tech, and Duke. In the NCAA Tournament, another Mississippi
university—Mississippi State-- had to secretly leave the state under cover of
darkness to evade a state legislature injunction against playing Loyola. After
Loyola won the championship, the “gentleman’s agreement”—a compact among major
college basketball coaches that compelled most college teams to play no more
than three black starters at home and two black starters on the road-- was
history.
The
1963 Ramblers set an NCAA record that still stands for the largest margin of
victory in an NCAA Tournament game when they beat all-White Tennessee Tech in
the first round, 111-47. They beat three top 10 ranked teams to reach the
tournament final, and then they beat the two-time defending champions-- the #1
team in the country that had won 47 consecutive NCAA Tournament games-- on a
court in their opponent’s backyard. And they did it while coming back from an
eight-point halftime deficit and a 15-point deficit with less than 11 minutes
left to play—before there was a shot clock or a three-point line.
Assembling the team
Loyola
Coach George Ireland wasn’t necessarily looking to break new ground—he was just
looking to win. Loyola had featured several great African American players
through the 1940s and 1950s, almost all of whom were not only great players but
great students. Ben Bluitt helped the Ramblers reach the NIT final in 1949, and
later became one of the first African American major college coaches at Cornell
in the 1970s. Art McZier became co-captain of the teams of the mid-50s before
establishing a prominent career in Washington, DC with the Department of
Commerce and the Small Business Administration. Clarence Red was a prolific
rebounder in the late 1950s who became a dentist.
Having
seen success by African Americans on the court and in the classroom, and
understanding the difficulties of Black players in finding slots to play
basketball on teams that had strict racial quotas against “too many” Black
players, Ireland took the leap of throwing out the unwritten rules by
recruiting three great African American players in 1960.
Ron
Milller was a talented 6’2” center on his Bronx high school team. Ireland
recruited him and turned him into a shooting guard. Six-foot, six inch Vic
Rouse was an athletic and academic star at Pearl High School in Nashville, and
his 6’7” teammate Les Hunter was a beast of a center. Coming from the South,
neither of them had much of a chance playing for a non-historically Black
college, as there were no major basketball schools in the South willing to take
them. These three Black players would join a White fellow 1961 recruit--
scrappy playmaker John Egan from the South Side of Chicago—and a silky-smooth
All-American, 6’4” junior Jerry Harkness, on Loyola’s 1961-62 team.
The
1961-62 Ramblers, the first major college team composed of four
African-American starters, played a demanding schedule that took them all the
way to the NIT semi-finals. They gained valuable experience together as a unit
through the 1961-62 season, undergoing shocking conditions on the road, both in
their accommodations and the treatment they received from opposing fans. They
learned to play through taunts, separate accommodations for the White and Black
players, harassment, and disappointments. But they were all ready, willing, and
experienced coming back for the 1962-63 season as four juniors and a senior.
Loyola began the 1962-63 season ranked #4 in the country, and
soon moved up to #2—behind defending champions Cincinnati—as both Loyola and
Cincinnati began the season undefeated through January. On February 16, 1963,
the 21-0 Loyola Ramblers suffered their first loss of the year to Bowling
Green, featuring future NBA All-Star Nate Thurmond, on the road. The same
night, #1 Cincinnati also lost at Wichita State, breaking their 37-game winning
streak over two seasons. Two weeks later, Loyola also lost to Wichita State in
the final game of the year, dropping the Ramblers to a #5 ranking in the AP
poll with a record of 24-2.
Several
weeks before the end of the season, Loyola accepted their first ever invitation
to the NCAA Tournament. The Ramblers had been national runners-up in the 1939
and 1949 NITs, and had reached the semi-finals in 1962. As late as the
mid-1950s, the NIT was considered a more prestigious tournament, and as an
Independent team not affiliated with a conference, Loyola was at a disadvantage
in the NCAA Tournament.
In
spite of the Ramblers’ #2 AP ranking at the time of their NCAA Tournament
acceptance, Loyola would be required to play an extra round in the 24-team
tournament, as large conference winners received a bye in the first round.
Loyola made a statement by throttling their first round opponent Tennessee
Tech, 111-47, in their first round game in nearby Evanston, Illinois. It was
not as close as the score might indicate-- at the halftime break, it was Loyola
61, Tech 20. The first round victory won Loyola a matchup with SEC Champion
Mississippi State, setting up one of the most remarkable college basketball
games in history.
Defying State-Mandated
Segregation: Loyola vs. Mississippi State
On
March 2, 1963, Mississippi State announced to the crowd at their last home game
of the year that they would accept the bid to represent the SEC in the 1963
NCAA Tournament, which would mean they would potentially play against an
integrated team.
But
even before it was certain that Mississippi State would face Loyola and their
four black starters, racist elements in the Mississippi media got into the act.
On Thursday, March 7, 1963—four days before Loyola’s game against all-white
Tennessee Tech that would decide who played Mississippi State—the Jackson Daily
News printed a five-column wide picture of Loyola’s starters to show that four
of them were African Americans. As a caption to the picture, Daily News editor
Jimmy Ward wrote that “readers may desire to clip the photo of the Loyola team
and mail it today to the board of trustees of the institution of higher
learning” to prevent the game from taking place. The Jackson paper editorial
included an apology to readers for misleading them in a previous editorial that
all five of Loyola’s starters were African-American. The editorial said “maybe
a lucky white boy graduated to the first team.”
Mississippi
State President Dean Colvard decided to accept the automatic bid to the NCAA
Tournament on March 2, 1963-- a bid the school had previously declined three
times before when faced with the prospect of playing one or more integrated
teams. After Mississippi State declined the invitation the year before, the
same Jackson Daily News wrote that “a change of heart by Mississippi’s
politicians” was the key to Mississippi State playing in the NCAA Tournament.
Just three weeks earlier the Daily News lamented, “racial problems appear to
doom the talented Maroons’ chances of representing the league in the
post-season tournament.” But when the Maroons faced the prospect of meeting
Loyola, however, the newspaper changed its tune to instigate political pressure
against MSU’s participation in the tournament.
The
College Board of Mississippi met March 9, 1963 to uphold President Colvard’s
decision to accept the NCAA bid by an 8-3 vote. But on March 13—the day before
the team was scheduled to travel to the tournament site at East Lansing-- State
Senator Billy Mitts and former State Senator B.W. Lawson obtained an injunction
against the team leaving the state. The temporary injunction was issued by
Hinds County Chancellor L.B. Porter-- the same person who issued the injunction
preventing James Meredith’s enrollment at the University of Mississippi the
previous fall.
Several
other all-white teams from the SEC, such as Kentucky, had never flinched at
playing integrated teams. In 1949, an integrated Loyola team upset Adolph
Rupp’s all-white Kentucky team en route to the NIT Final, and Loyola beat
eventual national champion Kentucky in 1958. Georgia Tech—another all-white
team—was quite willing to accept the SEC’s bid if Mississippi State declined.
But
Mississippi was different-- one of only three states in the country that had
yet to integrate elementary and secondary schools according to the 1954 Brown
vs. Board of Education decision. The state was still reeling from three days of
rioting the previous fall, when African-American Air Force veteran James
Meredith tried to simply enroll at Ole Miss. Between 1954 and 1960, the state
legislature passed 14 separate laws designed to get around Brown vs. Board of
Education. The most draconian of the state laws included a poison pill
provision allowing the governor to abolish all the state’s public schools,
colleges, and universities rather than submit to integration.
Meanwhile,
according the Bill Jauss in the Chicago Daily News on March 15, 1963, cards and
letters addressed to Loyola players were arriving in Chicago, suggesting that
they “bring their shoe shine kits” to the game, or “come down here and pick
some cotton.” Some of the letters were signed, “KKK.” Loyola forward Jerry
Harkness told Jauss, “I expected that. I’m getting a little immune to it. They
called us names when we played in Houston, called Jack Egan names too. The
players are all right. I think that Mississippi State wants to play us. If they
don’t, they’ll never know how good they are.”
The
team’s original plan was to leave Starkville early on Thursday morning. But
learning that the Hinds County sheriffs would be expected to arrive in town late
Wednesday night, MSU implemented their elaborate escape plan. The president and
vice-president of the University drove across state lines to Birmingham,
Alabama and checked into a hotel under assumed names to prevent them from being
served with the injunction. The head coach, the athletic director, and the
assistant athletic director drove to Memphis and took a plane to Nashville. The
team itself sent the freshman squad to the airport as scheduled—posing as the
varsity team-- to serve as decoys. The real varsity team hid in a dorm on
campus, and the next morning boarded a private plane to Nashville where they
met up with the coach and team officials. From Nashville, the whole group took
a commercial flight to East Lansing, Michigan.
Some
have said local county officials, who were required by Mississippi law to be
present at the service of an injunction, had no intention of assisting with
preventing the team from leaving. But later that afternoon the Mississippi
Supreme Court invalidated the injunction anyway..
Up
in East Lansing, there were no incidents. The Loyola players were very gracious
to the Mississippi State players and coaches who defied their courts and state
legislature to simply play a college basketball game. 12,143 spectators
attended, with flashbulbs lighting up Jenison Fieldhouse as the two team
captains shook hands.
The
game was a tight, back-and-forth contest until Mississippi State’s 6’ 4” senior
leader Leland Mitchell fouled out with 6:47 left. Mitchell had scored 14 points
and made 11 rebounds in his limited time on the court; his replacement was
scoreless and without a rebound through the rest of the game. Loyola advanced
to the regional finals with the 61-51 win.
“I
remember the [Mississippi State] guys being nice,” Ron Miller recalled in a
2002 interview. “I remember the guys wishing us luck [after the game], and
wanting us to win it all. And during the game it was polite. They played a very
hard, very aggressive, very strong defensive game-- very clean, and they didn’t
back off. I always thought that they were a lot like we were when we went to
New Orleans [the previous year]-- we just wanted to play basketball.”
"Game of Change"
Advancing to the NCAA Final
While
the Ramblers were defeating Mississippi State in one of the most remarkable and
historic games in college basketball history, #8 Illinois had defeated Bowling
Green, 70-67, for the right to face the Ramblers the following night. The
Illini had strength, height, and toughness on their side—those three attributes
were the deciding factor in their victory over Bowling Green. But Loyola
matched the size and strength of the Illini with quickness and a graceful
shooting touch. Loyola won 79-64, in a game that wasn’t nearly as close as the
score, vaulting Loyola into the Final Four in their first NCAA Tournament
appearance.
Loyola’s
semi-final appearance came against #2 Duke, featuring national player of the
year Art Heyman. The Blue Devils reached the semi-finals with a 27-2 record.
Their only two losses came in the same week in late December, when they lost to
unheralded Miami and Davidson. But since those two defeats, Duke had run the
table in the ACC with a 14-0 record and won the ACC tournament. They had reached
the Final Four by defeating NYU 81-76 in the East Regional semi-finals and
beating St. Joseph’s 73-59 in the East Regional Final to extend their winning
streak to 20 straight games—the longest winning streak in the nation at the
time.
The
Ramblers built a 13-point first-half lead by busting Duke’s zone defense with
great ball movement and outside shooting from the corners. When Duke defenders
drifted out to cover Harkness or Miller shooting from long distance, the
outside shooters whip-passed down low to Les Hunter, who rarely missed his jump
shots from just outside the paint. Loyola led 44-31 at the break.
But
behind their All-American forward Art Heyman, the Blue Devils mounted a
second-half comeback. With 4:19 left to play in the game, Duke cut Loyola’s
lead to 74-71 on a basket by Heyman.
That’s
when the Ramblers dazzled the Freedom Hall crowd in Louisville. Ron Miller
scored one basket on an outside shot from the baseline, and another on a drive
to the basket. After Hunter blocked a shot by Heyman, Harkness scored at the
other end on a breakaway. Hunter and Egan made two free throws apiece, and
before anyone knew what happened, Loyola led 84-71. It was a 10-0 run in crunch
time against the #2 team in the country. With the win secure, the Ramblers outscored
Duke 10-4 down the stretch for an impressive 94-75 victory that sent them to
the tournament final.
David vs. Goliath: The Cinncinnati Bearcats
During
the previous four seasons leading up to the 1963 final, there was no more
accomplished team in the country than the Cincinnati Bearcats. They were the
two-time defending national champions, and they had accumulated a 110-7 record
in the previous four seasons heading into the game. They had beaten Jerry Lucas
and the #1 Ohio State Buckeyes in the 1961 tournament, and when the two met
again a year later, #2 Cincinnati again knocked off the #1 Buckeyes in a rout.
In the 1962-63, the Bearcats were ranked #1 from the pre-season poll to the
final poll of the year, receiving several unanimous #1 poll results. They would
have been undefeated in 1962-63, but for a one-point loss on the road to a top
10 team that broke their 37-game winning streak. And the Bearcats had
accumulated a perfect 11-0 NCAA Tournament over the previous three years. The
team was composed of three seniors and two juniors who had played in a combined
47 NCAA Tournament games without experiencing a single loss, and they were
playing for their third straight title only 106 miles from their campus.
A
standing room only crowd of 19,152—the majority Cincinnati fans-- showed up in
Louisville for what promised to be a coronation. The tip-off for the national
championship came at about 8:30 p.m. Eastern Time, about 7:30 p.m. in Chicago.
Although the game was televised live in many parts of the country, Chicago’s
WGN-TV-- the Tribune-owned station-- decided to show the game on tape delay
following the Illinois High School State Championship in Champaign.
Loyola
missed 13 of their first 14 shots from the field in the first half. The
Ramblers couldn’t find any space on the floor to shoot against the number one
defensive team in the country. Open jump shots were impossible to come by with
Cincy’s experienced floor spacing. The best shots the Ramblers were able to get
off were shots off the dribble that didn’t go down. And shockingly, Loyola’s
consensus All-American-- senior Jerry Harkness, who led Loyola with an average
of more than 21 points per game-- had not made a single field goal in the first
half. Loyola was lucky to be trailing 29-21 at the break.
The
Ramblers scored the first two points of the second half, and after the press
forced a turnover, Loyola had a chance to cut the deficit to four. But Les
Hunter missed a shot off the glass that was rebounded by Cincy’s Tony Yates.
That’s when the Bearcats went on an impressive run. Yates hit 20-foot jumper,
Tom Thacker hit a lean-in eight footer, and Ron Bonham was wide open for a
lay-up under the basket. Three minutes later it was 45-30. With Cincinnati
ahead by 15 points, and less than 12 minutes remaining until their third
consecutive title, the Bearcats went into their legendary stall.
“At
that point, I was angry, not at anybody in particular, just at us in general,”
Egan recalled many years later. “I was probably more outspoken than anyone
about the value of our team, the quality of our team—and I really believed it,
I wasn’t just saying it. And to get that far and not perform, that just gave me
a sickening feeling. Even to this day, it never really bothers me to lose
something if I perform.”
The
Ramblers responded with a full court press that appeared to rattle the Bearcats
just a bit. The e margin was cut to 45-33 before Cincy’s top player George
Wilson picked up his fourth foul, prompting the only substitution by either
team in the game. With Wilson out of the game for only four minutes with four
trouble, Tom Thacker and Tony Yates also picked up their fourth fouls as the
Cincinnati lead dwindled.
With
six minutes left and Cincinnati leading 48-41, Loyola’s Jerry Harkness hit on a
turnaround jumper from just inside the free throw line-- his first field goal
of the game-- to cut Cincy’s lead to 48-43. Harkness’ long overdue basket
couldn’t have come at a better time, and seemed to undermine the confident
Bearcats. As the Bearcats brought the ball up court, Harkness stepped into the
passing lane for a steal and took it to the hoop for an easy lay-up. After more
than 35 minutes without a field goal, Harkness had two in six seconds.
Suddenly, it was a three-point game with 4:24 remaining.
After
two free throws by Bonham, Harkness responded with one free throw. After
Harkness missed the second crucial free throw, Cincy tipped it out of bounds.
Loyola held possession, and the suddenly-hot Harkness scored again on a
seven-foot jumper over a double-team to make it 50-48 with 2:42 left.
Cincinnati hit one free throw in two separate possessions at the other end, but
when a now red-hot Harkness put up a quick six-foot floater from the paint,
Cincinnati’s George Wilson was called for goaltending-- cutting the defending
champs’ lead to 51-50 with just over a minute left to play. One half of the
Freedom Hall crowd—the Cincinnati fans-- were stunned silent. The other half
was shouting encouragement.
As
Loyola gambled on stealing the inbounds pass, Thacker ran the court and caught
a long baseball pass for an uncontested lay-up to make the score 53-50. The
Ramblers countered with an eight-foot jumper by Hunter that missed off the rim,
giving Cincinnati possession and a chance to open a 55-50 lead. Thacker
dribbled the ball to the free throw line, but instead of taking time off the
clock, he made a long pass to an open Tony Yates alone under the basket.
Shockingly, Yates missed an open five-foot shot off the glass, and Loyola
dodged a bullet.
A
now-confident Harkness put up a silky-smooth jumper from seven feet out that
just skipped off the top of the rim; had it landed in the hands of a Bearcat,
the game would be over. But Hunter was there on the glass to tip it in, cutting
the Cincinnati lead to 53-52, with 15 seconds left to play. Harkness
immediately fouled Larry Shingleton on the inbounds play to put the 5’10”
Cincinnati guard on the line with 12 seconds left. His first made free throw
put the Bearcats up by two, 54-54. Making his next free throw—in the days
before the three point shot—would almost certainly put an end to the game.
A
1987 Sports Illustrated article about the game quoted Shingleton on what
happened then: “I have a picture of that scene hanging in my basement. It was
taken through the glass of the backboard, and shows the time on the clock, 12
seconds, and the score, 54-52, and the ball in the air. You know, if I’d made
that shot, I could probably have been the youngest senator in the history of
the state of Ohio. But I flat missed it. And I’ve lived with it all these
years.”
Les
Hunter rebounded the missed free throw, and flung an outlet pass to Ron Miller,
who in turn flipped the ball to Harkness down court. But the outlet to Miller
came in the middle of one of his strides; replays show that he took too many
steps with the ball as he tried to get a handle on his pass to Harkness.
Loyola’s John Egan waited for a whistle to blow, but none came. Meanwhile,
Harkness hit a short open jumper to tie the game at 54 all, and sent it to
overtime.
The
two teams traded baskets in the beginning of overtime, capped by a Larry
Shingleton breakaway lay-up that tied the game at 58-58 with 2:15 left to play.
Now it was time for Loyola to turn the tables on Cincinnati—holding the ball
for a final shot against the team that was most notorious for the stall.
The
Ramblers nearly lost the ball as they ate time off the clock when they got
caught in a jump ball situation, but retained possession when Egan outleaped
Shingleton. Almost everyone in the building expected Harkness to take the last
shot. With eight seconds left, Egan passed the ball to Harkness on the left
wing. Guarded closely by Bonham, Harkness dribbled and took three strides,
passing the ball back to Egan. Decided that Hunter had a better shot from 10
feet out, just left of the lane, Egan passed to Hunter, who put up a rainbow
jumper that bounced off the front of the rim up onto the glass. It came down
into the hands of Vic Rouse on the weak side of the basket, and Rouse--
shoulder to shoulder with Wilson-- laid it in neatly off the glass just before
the buzzer sounded.
"I
was probably as close to Rouse as anyone, I was right behind him when he made
it," John Egan recalled. "I thought, 'It's good!' and I knew there
was no time left. Then it was a sort of different kind of feeling for me. It
wasn't exuberance for having won it--obviously I was really happy, but I felt
like walking off into the locker room and enjoying it. I'm not one that jumps
up with joy and kisses everybody. It was especially nice to see the guys on the
bench so happy about it."
"I
just remember Jerry going for the shot, and it wasn't open, and he made the
pass," Miller recalled in a 2002 interview. "I was surprised that he
passed off, and I thought, 'No!' because I had faith that Jerry was going to
make the shot. And then it was a blur. I remember Les taking the shot, and then
I remember jumping up and down. When it happened, I didn't see Vic tip it in. I
was there, and I'm sure I was looking at it, but I don't remember that piece of
it. I just remember hugging Les and jumping up and down."
Credit, "howtheyplay.com