There Were Five of Us

During today’s Missouri game at Sanford Stadium, Georgia will recognize the first group of African American football players who became part of the program beginning with the 1971 season: locals Horace King, Clarence Pope, and Richard Appleby, who all hailed from Athens, Ga.; Chuck Kinnebrew from Rome, Ga.; and Larry West from Albany, Ga. Each of the five players would eventually be distinguished as starters for the Bulldogs, including King and Appleby, who were three-year starters. The group as a whole was ultimately considered by the university to be “Pioneers.”

Coming off a disappointing 5-5 season in 1970, Georgia executed what was described as "the best move the Dogs have made lately," when the five black players were signed during Christmas break of that year. The school had apparently come a long way since its segregated past.

The actual signing of the five players has been well-documented in the annals of Georgia football history. However, the difficulties and hardships the Pioneers encountered at the school are rarely discussed.

It was only a decade before their signing when U.S. District Court judge William A. Bootle ordered that the first two African American students—Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter—be admitted to UGA. That day in 1961, approximately 200 white students had gathered at the Arch and, there, while hanging a black-faced Holmes in effigy, chanted, "Two, four, six, eight, we don't want to integrate!” Later that night, students flocked to the home of President O.C. Aderhold in an attempt to burn a fifteen-foot high cross in his front yard.

By 1970, a few black players had been members of the Georgia program—although only temporarily. In 1966, Ken Dious tried out for the squad, but eventually quit. A year later, James Hurley walked on the team and made the junior varsity squad, but he later transferred to Vanderbilt. Approximately a year prior to the signing of the five players, Georgia awarded its first football scholarship to an African American when the Bulldogs offered John King, a six-foot, four-inch, 220-pound bruising fullback from Alabama. However, as with the others, King was a Bulldog for only a handful of months. He transferred to Minnesota, where he'd become a star back for the Golden Gophers.

Around the time of King’s transfer, three players from Georgia’s all-white football team were charged with repeated assault, when two UGA African American students claimed the attacks occurred one night in late January in the “Russell Hall [dormitory] parking lot and around the city [of Athens].” The case was eventually referred to state court, whereupon the two black students curiously didn’t show up for the proceedings. “They didn’t appear . . . They couldn’t be found,” according to the solicitor general for Athens and Clarke County. The case was dismissed.

Soon after the alleged attacks on the African American students, the initial group of black players joined the program as true freshmen. When interviewed, all of them agreed they were "happy" at the university; however, Kinnebrew (apparently, the most outspoken of the bunch) interestingly added that his attending college had been his parents' dream—and "when my parents are happy, I'm happy."

The players were also asked if they specifically had encountered any problems since their arrival on campus. They all shook their heads, while Kinnebrew added, "And, I didn't come here to be the first." Yet when the group had first arrived at the school’s athletic dorm, McWhorter Hall, they were welcomed on the front steps by a group of upperclassmen dressed in Ku Klux Klan attire, including a "Grand Dragon" holding a shotgun. "It was something we didn't like," Pope said.

The black players always claimed they were treated fairly by the Georgia coaches. However, according to King years later, there were some teammates who were "rotten apples"—juniors and seniors, who would be leaving the school soon and "didn't have to face it (the program’s integration)."

Despite the efforts of racial integration by head coach Vince Dooley and his staff, the 1972 Bulldog squad was hardly diverse. The freshman class consisted of just one African American recruit, wide receiver Gene Washington, a last-minute signee who would ultimately become a member of the team in 1973, after spending a couple of terms at a military preparatory college.

In the third game of the 1972 campaign, Georgia defeated a good North Carolina State team led by King, a sophomore. Making his first varsity start, the versatile wingback caught six passes for 70 yards (five for 59 by rest of team), ran back a kickoff, completed a halfback pass for 25 yards, and became the first African American to score a touchdown in the varsity program’s history when he rushed for a 1-yard score, breaking a 14-14 tie in the third quarter. A newspaper article from the Associated Press the next day declared, “Negro Back Lets Georgia Click, 28–22.”

King’s touchdown against the Wolfpack was his first of what would be 19 career rushing scores (20 total) from 1972-1974—a total which remained ranked in Georgia’s all-time top 10 until the mid-1990s.

King has stated that he never thought of himself as a "Pioneer" just because he signed to play football at Georgia. "There were five of us," he declared.

In handling the long process of adjustment and getting comfortable at UGA, each of the five signees benefited from what the previous black football players, like Hurley and King, could not—a university in close proximity to their family and, perhaps more importantly, four others going through very similar circumstances. "Our people usually keep pretty close," Kinnebrew said in November of 1971. “And if a prospective black recruit asks me what it's like [at Georgia], I'll tell him like it is."

In the early 1970s, Coach Dooley was in charge of a program in which racial discomfort persisted. Still, the situation was seemingly improving, and tensions were beginning to wane—if only slightly.

After Georgia signed just one black recruit in 1972, three African American newcomers became Bulldogs the next year, followed by seven in 1974, including the program’s first black quarterback signee, Anthony (Tony) Flanagan, and the first African American signee hailing from outside the Deep South, running back Kevin McLee. In 1975, Georgia signed a dozen African American prospects, or nearly half of its entire incoming class, including Mike Hart of LaGrange, Ga., the Bulldogs’ first black quarterback to see playing time (junior varsity level).

Finally, as the 1975 football season loomed, Calvin Jones, who had been a highly successful basketball coach at a predominantly African American high school in Atlanta, became the university’s first black coach when he was hired as a “Football and Basketball Assistant.” Although Jones, who served primarily as an assistant coach for Georgia’s basketball squad, had little to do with the on-field operations of the football team, he played an important part—if not the most integral—in assisting Georgia football in recruiting.