<div dir="ltr"><div>All,<i>.</i></div><div> Please find below and attached my review of Derrick White's <i>Blood, Sweat, & Tears: Jake Gaither, Florida A&M, and the history of black college football.</i></div><div>Thanks,</div><div>Duncan</div><div><br></div><div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">White, Derrick E.<span> </span><i>Blood, Sweat, & Tears: Jack Gaither,
Florida A & M, and the history of Black college football</i>. Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 2019.<span>
</span>Xi + 303 pp.<span> </span>Illustrations,
Tables, Notes, Bibliography, Index. <span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">Reviewed by Duncan R. Jamieson, Ashland University<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:200%;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">Dabney Coleman
played the boss, Franklin Hart, in the 1980 comedy “9 to 5.” In one scene he
explained to the women who worked for him they would never rise to managerial
positions because they didn’t play football, which taught men teamwork and
resilience, key leadership traits.<span>
</span>Legendary football coach Jake Gaither (1903-1994) at Florida
Agricultural and Mechanical University (FA&MU), would have wholeheartedly
agreed.<span> </span><span> </span>In
post-Civil War America the freedmen and women sought political integration for
the resources that might accrue and racial autonomy for
self-determination.<span> </span>As dejure
segregation developed in the 1880s South, it did have one positive impact, and
that was to encourage black autonomy.<span>
</span>Founded in 1887 as Florida’s State Normal College for Colored Students,
the institution benefitted financially from the Second Morrill Land Grant
Act.<span> </span>The funds awarded allowed the
school, soon to become FA&MU, to purchase the former plantation of
ex-governor William D. Duval, located on a hilltop overlooking Tallahassee.<span> </span>During the 1920s Florida’s economic woes
limited funds for the university and it limited employment for black high
school graduates, who as a result decided to continue their education.<span> </span><span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:200%;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">One of the
Historical Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU), Florida A&M rose to
dominance in football, which had been introduced to the school in 1899 by
mathematics instructor, George M. Sampson. The sport was largely student led
until 1926 when Frantz “Jazz” Byrd was hired as Athletic Director and head
football coach.<span> </span>As a star player at
Lincoln University (PA), Byrd was known as “the black Red Grange” and “the
Phantom of the Gridiron.” <span> </span>Unfortunately
the team, the Rattlers, did not turn around its losing record under Byrd. <span> </span><span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif""><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:200%;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">In 1933 Florida
A&M’s I. R. E. Lee organized the Orange Blossom Classic, a bowl game for
the HBCU teams.<span> </span>Then in 1937, the same
year Gaither earned his Master’s Degree at Ohio State University, FA&M
hired him as assistant football coach, head basketball coach and athletic
director.<span> </span>Gaither had several years’
experience playing football in both high school and college, during the era
when play between high school and college teams was a common occurrence.<span> </span>The year before Gaither’s arrival head
football coach William Ball began what became one of the most popular and
successful football coaching clinics in the South.<span> </span>Taken over by Gaither, coaches both black and
white came from far and near to attend the annual event.<span> </span>Thus began the decades’ long phenomenal
success of its football program.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:200%;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">In 1937 FA&MU
went 6-1-1, won the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference title as well
as the Orange Blossom Classic.<span> </span>Their
rise to prominence came at the same time football at the University of Florida
was posting losing seasons, as well as being beaten by its arch rival, the
University of Georgia. Looking for positive news, Florida’s sports writers
latched on to FA&MU, publicizing the athletic prowess of the Rattlers.<span> </span>The HBCU’s excelled during segregation because
black athletes were not welcomed on the predominantly white institutions (PWI)
teams.<span> </span>Generally the PWI’s refused to
play HBCU’s until integration strengthened the former while weakening the
latter.<span> </span>Still, FA&MU beat the
University of Miami just as integration began to take hold.<span> </span>FA&MU never repeated that success.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:200%;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">FA&MU’s hope
for the future, however, was tempered when Gaither developed a brain tumor. While
coaching Florida’s equally successful basketball team, Gaither began suffering
debilitating headaches which revealed the tumor.<span> </span>Despite segregation and limited opportunities
for blacks to receive competent medical care, Gaither went to Nashville where
the tumor was removed successfully, though the recovery was slow.<span> </span><span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:200%;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">With the outbreak
of World War II the number of male students on all college campuses plummeted,
but FA&MU continued its athletic prowess.<span>
</span>Travel restrictions led to military teams playing college squads.<span> </span>The war created the Double V campaign: defeat
the enemies of democracy abroad and defeat the enemies of democracy at
home—segregation and racism.<span> </span><span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:200%;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">Despite being
appointed interim head football coach just before the 1945 season, which meant
Gaither did not have an opportunity to do much recruiting, his team went
undefeated in the regular season, putting his Rattlers atop the Black college
polls.<span> </span>Gaither created “the sporting
congregation, which combined athletes, fans, sports writers, coaches and
administrators to further black achievement.<span>
</span>At the conclusion of the war Gaither took over as head football coach,
began his generation long winning dominance as he became one of the highest
paid black coaches.<span> </span>Between 1957 and
1964 the team won outright or shared five national titles.<span> </span>The team motto, “Blood. Sweat, and Tears,
which dated from 1945, came to symbolize his three platoon coaching strategy;
Blood was a mostly offensive unit, Sweat went both ways, and Tears was
predominantly defense.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:200%;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">The G.I. Bill of
Rights brought new talent to FA&MU, but the civil rights movement of the
1960s began to dismantle segregation at the collegiate level, creating
opportunities for talented black athletes at predominantly white Division I
schools, but progress was exceptionally slow in Florida.<span> </span>Gaither did not approve of what he saw as
more radical and confrontational activities, which made him appear as an Uncle
Tom, an appellation he received when he agreed with FAMU’s president and other
administrations who refused to sponsor Stokely Carmichael speaking on campus.<span> </span>He also opposed the Black protest at the 1968
summer Olympics in Mexico City. <span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:200%;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">Derrick White,
visiting associate professor at Dartmouth College, has written an engaging
biography of Jake Gaither.<span> </span>White
analyzes succinctly the role of the HBCU’s, focusing on Gaither and Florida
A&MU.<span> </span>White connects these schools
with the impact civil rights had on their athletic programs.<span> </span>Rightly or wrongly, Jake Gaither believed in
the positive role of football at black colleges and universities.<span> </span>Until now this has been an understudied
aspect of sport history.<span></span></p>
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</div><div><div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">Remember to smell the roses as you recumber past<br><br>Duncan R. Jamieson, Ph. D.<br>Professor of History<br>Book Review Editor<br><i>AETHLON: The Journal of Sport Literature</i><br>Ashland University<br>Ashland, OH 44805<br>USA<br></div></div></div></div>