In recognition of Black History Month, we honor Georgia’s first group of black football signees to play at the varsity level: Horace King, Chuck Kinnebrew, Clarence Pope, Larry West, and Richard Appleby. Upon the quintet signing on to become Bulldogs just about this time a half-century ago, the black players were promptly distinguished in the media as “pioneers”—and the rest, as they say, is history.
Unfortunately, most of what has been publicized regarding such a historical movement generally omits mention of those African-American individuals who were at least briefly part of the Bulldog program even earlier. Their presence might have been brief, but it was still significant.
Accordingly, we salute Georgia football’s “pre-pioneers,” as well.
In April of 1966, Kenneth Dious of Athens made national news by walking onto the Georgia football team. A 6-foot-2, 185-pound sophomore who was trying out at the end position, Dious became the first black player to don a UGA athletic uniform. At the time, Georgia head coach Vince Dooley recognized the newcomer as “a fine prospect.” In a tragic twist of fate, Dious lost his father to a heart attack on the day he tried out.
As Dious joined the squad 55 years ago, an odd notion persisted. A black player had tried out for the team, but that didn't suggest a trend. The program wasn't going to start signing black players anytime soon. By the late 1960s, Georgia’s recruiting process carried a firm whites-only understanding—and, reportedly, “active recruitment of Negroes [was] still in the future.”
As it turned out, Dious departed the program following spring practice. It would be another year-and-a-half before James Hurley, “the second of his race to try out for a Georgia football team” (Atlanta Constitution), became the first “Negro competing for a berth on the [UGA] freshman squad” in the summer of 1967.
Hurley, a freshman out of Atlanta’s Carver High School, started at defensive end on the Bullpups’ freshman squad as a mere walk-on. That season, he was praised in the press for his defensive performance in a 24-7 win over Auburn’s freshman team, and later made a key fumble recovery versus Georgia Tech in the Scottish Rite charity game.
Hurley was awarded the Bill Mundy Award for having the highest academic average on the entire team. He and Jack Nicholson, a white teammate, were recipients of the Freshman College Friendship Award, given by Atlanta’s 100% Wrong Club.
For the 1968 G-Day spring game, Hurley started at left end for the Red team alongside future All-American defensive linemen Bill Stanfill (left tackle) and Steve Greer (left guard). Still, he was curiously never given a spot on the Bulldogs' varsity, because "the competition was too keen," according to then-freshman coach John Donaldson. Georgia’s first black player to see game action soon earned a scholarship and transferred to Vanderbilt, where any “problems of adjustment and acceptance” for Hurley were “minimal or non-existent.” He earned a letter on the 1970 Commodores team.
In February of that same year, John King of Toney, Alabama, became the first black athlete to receive a football scholarship, or a grant-in-aid, from UGA. Listed to be as tall as 6-foot-4, and weighing 220 pounds, King was a bruising, all-state fullback, who was believed to be perhaps an even better linebacker. Georgia’s head freshman coach, Byrd Whigham, signed the player without him even having toured the campus.
“This kid hasn’t seen our school, but he was so happy about coming,” Whigham said at the time. “I feel real sincere that we have a real fine boy.”
The player who didn’t hesitate in coming to Georgia seemingly didn’t hesitate in leaving the university either, informing the coaching staff just prior to summer practice that he had decided to transfer to the University of Minnesota. Subsequently, as a member of the Golden Gophers, King rushed for nearly 1,200 yards as a junior in 1972, when he was named the team's MVP.
When the first group of black freshmen finally appeared on a gridiron for Georgia in 1971, it was natural to ask why it took the school so long to recruit African-American athletes. The football coaching staff indicated it had been trying to do so for years; however, according to The Red and Black, the coaches "just couldn't find any that could get in school."
"It's not that black athletes haven't been approached before," Donaldson said. "They have, but most of them couldn't make the team for academic reasons."
Yet during the same period, UGA athletic director Joel Eaves may have offered a slightly better assessment: "I think [Georgia was] just cautious [in recruiting black players]. We were just not sure how it would work out." Eaves added that the athletic department had been especially cautious about "the mixing [of races] and the fact that we're in a section [of the country] that was slow in integrating."
Despite being “slow in integrating," Georgia signed a combined four black recruits in 1972 and 1973. These two cycles were followed by seven black newcomers in 1974, including the program’s first black quarterback, Anthony (Tony) Flanagan, and the first African-American signee hailing from outside the Deep South, running back Kevin McLee. Just a year later, in 1975, Georgia signed a dozen black players, or nearly half of its recruiting class. That same year, the Bulldogs also hired their first black assistant coach, Calvin Jones (although serving in only a figurehead role). Georgia football employed its first full-time, on-field black assistant in 1986 with receivers coach Ray Sherman.
The “Five Pioneers” will always be recognized and praised as the group synonymous with the integration of the Bulldog program—and rightfully so. They paved the way for the subsequent black players and coaches to represent University of Georgia football.
Still, let's not neglect those black players prior to the pioneers, UGA football’s “pre-pioneers”—those who initiated the program’s integration process to begin with.
