Sidelined (13 page)

Furthermore, student activism at Berkeley itself was something of a tradition. The San Francisco Bay Area was one of the most left-leaning and liberal regions in the United States and this was reflected on the Berkeley campus. It was the only university in the country to sustain a faculty revolt against anticommunist policies in 1949 and 1950. A year before the Berkeley revolt of 1965, students from the campus were heavily involved in a series of successful sit-in campaigns that were designed to secure jobs for blacks with local business firms.
⁶
Therefore, the Berkeley campus provides a clear example of an environment that can be characterized as post–Civil Rights Movement. Support for the principles of racial integration and equality was long established on campus. The manifestation of
the black athletic revolt at Berkeley revolved less around issues of racial segregation and was more focused on team discipline and racial identity.

Unlike the events at San Jose the previous year, when Edwards had used the threat to a sporting contest as leverage to force some change to university policy, at Berkeley the black athletic revolt emerged from a specific incident involving confrontation between a player and a coach. That coach was head basketball coach Rene Herrerias and the player was black star center Bob Presley. Events were not interpreted racially in the first instance, however. Indeed, as black player Waddell Blackwell remembered, “It turned racial quickly but I don't remember it being racial starting out.”
⁷

Herrerias suspended Presley after a breach of team discipline—he had missed a practice session. After serving two days of that suspension Presley was reinstated. The coach explained, “The matter is personal in that it is a coach-player situation and I feel that the violation involved and the penalty imposed are comparable.” Herrerias expressed hopes that the matter was now closed.
⁸
Nevertheless, it became apparent that the matter was far from closed and in fact provided the spark to ignite racial tensions that lay beneath the surface of the athletics department. The white players on the team announced that they believed pressure had been put on the coach to reinstate Presley simply because he was black. They argued that they would refuse to play any further games until the constraints placed on Herrerias had been lifted. The white players were soon talked around by their coach but the following day twenty-five of the school's black athletes, including Presley and football star Bobby Smith, presented a list of grievances and demands.
⁹
The actions of the white players provoked the response of their black teammates and showed the depth of racial tension in the athletics department. The preamble to the black athletes' document argued, “Black players are sick and tired of giving their talent without receiving appreciation and due recognition from the athletic department and the mass media.”
¹⁰
Several coaches were singled out for criticism and called on to resign.

The statement went on to outline the financial problems black athletes faced, alleging that summer jobs were given out to white players first and calling for the removal of business manager Pat Farran. It was further argued that coaches showed a lack of “cultural sensitivity” and assumed black athletes were academically inferior. Black students were left to fend for themselves when it came to finding accommodation. The statement went on to issue a demand for teams to be composed of the best
players regardless of race and—potentially paradoxically—called on the university to hire coaching staff from a “minority background.”
¹¹
Quoted anonymously, one black athlete alleged, “There is no fraternal feeling on the athletics teams among the players, and the coaches have been unable to cope with the problem.” Another stated, “This was the straw that broke the camel's back. The basketball team, as well as other school teams including football, will only allow one star and that star is always white.”
¹²

There had been tension between white and black players on the basketball and football teams before the Presley incident. Indeed, the swift way that incident was dealt with was expressly designed not to be provocative. Rather than sport being used as the arena to dramatize issues of wider racial conflict and injustice, at Berkeley the revolt emerged from within the athletics department and was focused specifically on the dynamic among players, coaches, and administrators. It was the complaints of the white players that their coach had been pressured to reinstate Presley that evoked the list of demands from their black teammates. They felt that the university was being too sensitive toward the black players and that fear of being accused of discrimination was compromising discipline. There were obviously racial tensions simmering under the surface in the athletics department; however, using the short-lived suspension of Presley as the trigger for a protest ensured a flawed strategy. The complaints of the black athletes expressed a clear desire for equality and a color-blind team ethic. Nevertheless, the focus on Presley and the expression of a particularly strong black identity militated against any sense of understanding from the white players on the team. More importantly, this racial identity and the public manifestations of it were perceived as excuses for indiscipline—indiscipline for which white players would be punished and for which they had no ready-made racial excuse.

The black athletic revolt at Berkeley developed a shape different from that at San Jose, but that is not to say that Edwards did not have some influence on events. He writes in
The Revolt of the Black Athlete
that his Olympic Committee for Human Rights lent its support to the “indigenous revolt” of the black students of the University of California.
¹³
In a fine article that covers events at Berkeley, David Wiggins states that he can find no independent written confirmation of the claim that Edwards gave support to the black athletes at Berkeley in any tangible, practical way.
¹⁴
While there appear to be no contemporary sources that corroborate Edwards's claim, basketball player Robert Abright explained that he saw Edwards on the campus “all the time.”
¹⁵
Furthermore, Blackwell recalled phone calls
between the San Jose professor and some black players on the team.
¹⁶
With the incident at San Jose, the demands of the OCHR, and the move to boycott the NYAC, events were not happening in isolation. It is therefore sensible to conclude that Edwards did have an influence on the events at Berkeley, even if the incident was “indigenous” in the first instance. Nevertheless, the primary focus on team unity and discipline provided far greater obstacles to the success of the revolt at Berkeley and raises questions about how that success should be defined. The dynamic of this protest was different from the OCHR's boycott against the NYAC and was certainly far removed from the kind of engagement with the civil rights struggle seen in the NAACP campaign against segregated spectators in the early 1960s. Focus on the breaking of team rules by black players provoked an extremely volatile situation.

The white players' perceptions of Presley shaped their responses to the black athletic revolt. Bob Wolfe remembered, “Presley had just been such an incredibly bad teammate all year…. He had been given every possible second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh chance.”
¹⁷
Tom Henderson described Presley as “a real problem.”
¹⁸
Robert Tannenbaum, a spokesman for the white players, argued that Presley had constantly violated team discipline. He argued that Coach Herrerias, far from being racist or incompetent, as some black athletes had alleged, had in fact shown great restraint in putting up with Presley's attitude and consistent transgressions.
¹⁹
Essentially what the white players saw in the black players' behavior, and specifically the behavior of Presley, was the use of the race card and the targeting of their coach as a scapegoat.

The disharmony between white and black players emanated from a distinctive dynamic revolving around the relationship between the white coaches and their white and black players. It was reported that “black athletes and white athletes have taken polar stands, partly in response to one another, partly in response to their coaching staffs.”
²⁰
We see at Berkeley a significant element of the black athletic revolt on the campus and one directly addressed neither by Edwards at San Jose nor in the Olympic boycott movement; namely, the issue of team discipline. Racial explanations and justifications for conflict with coaching staff created considerable disharmony and damaged the aims of the black athletic revolt because they allowed white athletes to focus on a double standard that worked to their detriment rather than appreciating a real racial inequality that could be protested against by black athletes.

Nevertheless, the responses of the athletic administrators at Berkeley
seemed to signal success for the black athletes in relation to their initial, specific demands. Basketball coach Herrerias and athletic director Pete Newell resigned in a move that Edwards described as a “victory for the rebelling Afro-Americans.”
²¹
Herrerias was replaced as head coach by his former aide, Jim Padgett. Padgett was well liked by the black players, many of whom he had personally recruited from the Deep South. The black coach and former Cal basketball and baseball star Earl Robinson was appointed as Padgett's assistant and a black coach was also added to the football squad.
²²
Further recommendations were made by the chancellor's fact-finding committee, including the establishment of a more wide-ranging black studies program and plans to bring more black students to the Berkeley campus.
²³
The university responded in order to defuse the tension and ensure that the basketball team continued to function.

The changes made by the university were in some respects superficial, and while the tension on the team was reduced, the progress toward racial understanding would appear limited. In his account of events at Berkeley, David Wiggins concludes that the black athletes had a lot of respect for Padgett and recommendations were followed in order to improve relations with black students. He paints a picture of generally improved conditions on the basketball team and the campus as a whole. Herrerias was used as something of a scapegoat by the black athletes, and once they had drawn attention to the wider problems of discrimination and seen the university make changes, things improved with Padgett and Robinson in charge.
²⁴
Indeed, Blackwell argued that Earl Robinson was a “unifying” force on the team and that things were more “harmonious” under Padgett's leadership.
²⁵

This harmony was only surface deep, however. The dissipation of tension on the team was perceived by some white athletes as a result of Padgett's more relaxed attitude toward discipline. Robert Abright explained that the new coach “put up with … Presley's actions because of his desire to win.”
²⁶
Many white players felt that a clash of ideas between Padgett and Herrerias provided part of the explanation for the roots of the tension on the team.
²⁷
The feeling that black protests had pushed university administrators to change coaching staff and to be more lenient on the black players meant that a truly unified interracial team was compromised. The white players on the team had protested originally that their coach had been pressured into reinstating Presley just because he was black.

The events at Berkeley represent an element of the black athletic revolt very different from the stand by Smith and Carlos on the Olympic victory
podium, the principled decision of Lew Alcindor, or the attempt to engage in dialogue pursued by the Harvard rowers. At Berkeley, black basketball and football players were attempting to assert their racial identity to express the double-consciousness of being both black and American. In this way they were engaging with the racial changes taking place in wider society. Theirs was not, however, an idealistic stand. It lacked the dignity and integrity of other attempts to use the sporting arena to further the cause of civil rights. Oral histories reveal a dynamic to the events at Berkeley that had roots in a power struggle indirectly influenced by racial matters. These recollections also reveal the extent to which young men struggled to shape their own identity in new and difficult surroundings.

The initial friction on the team appears to have emanated from something of a power struggle between Herrerias and Padgett. This was intimately intertwined with the disciplinary problems surrounding Presley and provided for the initial team disunity that then became a racial incident. Herrerias favored the use of a small man up front who could move the ball around and execute set plays. Assistant Coach Padgett and the black players were pushing for a different offensive tactic that utilized Presley's height and looked for fast, incisive breaks.
²⁸
The white players felt that this clash of ideas was undermining Herrerias's position as the head coach.
²⁹

Tom Henderson argued that Herrerias was stabbed in the back by his assistant, Jim Padgett, who became the new head coach.
³⁰
Abright described Padgett as “in the ear of a lot of the black players.”
³¹
Wolfe argued that the tension on the team “amplified right from square one with Padgett's arrival as assistant coach.” In Wolfe's opinion, “the sense of all the white players was that he [Padgett] just wanted all of his guys in there and he was constantly working at Herrerias to get his guys in there.”
³²
Padgett knew how to relate to the black players better than Herrerias, but this was perceived by the white players as detrimental to the team. The dissipation of the tension on the team with Padgett in charge was somewhat superficial. The lack of tension came from the fact that Padgett did not demand as much from the black players. He was willing to allow Presley to opt out of certain practice drills and other training routines.
³³