Luận án Tiến sĩ: Race, Region, and College Football in the U. South (1945-1975) bởi Samuel Zebulon Baker

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Signature: ________________________________________ _______________ Samuel Zebulon Baker Date Fields of Contest: Race, Region, and College Football in the U. South, 1945-1975 By Samuel Zebulon Baker Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts _____________________________________ [Advisor’s signature] Dana F. Advisor _____________________________________ [Member’s signature] Joseph Crespino, Ph. Committee Member _____________________________________ [Member’s signature] James L.

Committee Member Accepted: _____________________________________ Lisa A. Dean of the Graduate School _______________________ Date Fields of Contest: Race, Region, and College Football in the U. South, 1945-1975 By Samuel Zebulon Baker M., University of Alabama, 2003 B., Georgia Southern University, 2001 Advisor: Dana F. An abstract of A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School fo Emory University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts Emory University 2009 ABSTRACT Fields of Contest: Race, Region, and College Football in the U.

South, 1945-1975 By Samuel Zebulon Baker This project explores how ideas of race and region suffused the popular enterprise of college football in the U. South, from the end of the Second World War to the days of desegregation in the seventies. It stands as the first full-scale scholarly consideration of how the racial integration of southern football unfolded, principally assessing the social and cultural dynamics which impelled, and impeded, black participation at traditionally white institutions (TWIs). In so doing, I fix my gaze on the politics of sport — the game away from the game that shaped institutional policies of race and competition.

From College Station to College Park, gridiron ambitions were indissolubly bound by the same vicissitudes of law, custom, and popular will which governed the relationship between African Americans and the university itself. Situated as it was at the intersection of institutional politics and social revolution, the rise of the black athlete is justly appreciated as of a piece with the always complicated, ever maddening, and intractably deliberative process through which African Americans were brought into the life of the campus. I establish how the dilemmas of race consumed the university, from classroom to locker room, long before, and long after, black students first enrolled in it. In turn, this project not only lengthens the timetable by which the struggle for civil rights occurred in southern higher education, but widens the scholarly viewfinder, surveying the trends — competitive and commercial, academic and athletic, racial and regional — that ultimately dismantled the segregated culture of gameday.

Fields of Contest: Race, Region, and College Football in the U. South, 1945-1975 By Samuel Zebulon Baker M., University of Alabama, 2003 B., Georgia Southern University, 2001 Advisor: Dana F. A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Emory University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts Emory University 2009 for My mother and father Elizabeth Ann and Josie Mama and Papa and Dana F. White ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In developing, researching, and writing a project of this kind, one obviously incurs a number of debts.

This is no less true for me than for any other soul intrepid enough to write a dissertation. In my case, I am most indebted to the members of my dissertation committee — Dana F. White, Joseph Crespino, and James L. All three of these professors gave me more than ample time and space — and encouragement — to produce this dissertation.

Crespino and Roark took time out of their own work and obligations in the Department of History to serve on this committee, providing invaluable guidance and support throughout. Though I know he thought I was a wee bit crazy to have an expert on slavery in antebellum South Carolina serve as a reader on a project about college football, Dr. Roark — the consummate scholar and gentleman — dispensed his duties with great aplomb and good cheer, reading the complete manuscript in a matter of days. His positive impressions of the finished product will always be one of my most valued achievements.

In the same way, Dr. Crespino consistently proved a useful sounding board for ideas, given both his expertise in the period and his passion for football. It was a great pleasure and honor for me to work and study with someone undoubtedly destined to become a giant in his field so early in his career. As for Dr.

White, to whom this dissertation is, in part, dedicated, there really isn’t any adequate way for me to express what he has contributed not only to this dissertation as its director, or in my six years as a graduate student at Emory, but (as maudlin as it might sound) my life. I simply couldn’t have made it through this program without his steady hand and unfailing counsel. Aside from my father and grandfather, there is no man I admire more than him. Like Eugene Gant’s realization about his Pulpit Hill professor, Vergil Weldon, upon his graduation, Dr.

White has no less been for me “the last of those giants to whom we give the faith of our youth, believing like children that the riddle of our lives may be solved by their quiet judgment.” Two other professors, Matthew Bernstein in Film Studies and Ronald Schuchard in English, likewise deserve mention here, particularly for teaching me that all good scholarship should possess a relevance beyond the Ivory Tower. Schuchard once put it, “we are all writing for a generally educated, generally interested audience” — precisely for whom I always believed I was writing here. I am similarly grateful to the selection committees for the A. Worley Brown Southern Studies Fellowship and the Office for Undergraduate Education Program Assistant Fellowship, which I held, respectively, in 2007-2008 and 2008-2009.

In both cases, the financial support I received from these fellowships helped me complete this work. I might say a word of thanks (again) to Dr. Roark, who was the Brown advisor in 2007-2008; Joanne Brzinski, who acted as my direct supervisor for most of my time working in the OUE; Dee McGraw, with whom I worked most happily in the winter of 2008; and Philip Wainwright and Mollie Korski, to whom I was assigned in the spring of 2009, and graciously allowed me ample leeway to complete the final stages of dissertation writing. Many friends lent a great deal of their time and energy to helping me realize this project.

The greatest single contribution was made by Sarah Toton. Her suggestion, in April 2008, that we form a writing group — whose sole members would be she and I — became a pleasant surprise, supplying me with a dutiful audience and sharp-eyed editor. She read every word of this dissertation far too many times, bringing to each reading a freshness and sense of purpose which made the writing better and clearer and rooted firmly in the human dimension of this history. To put it frankly, this is a better dissertation because she read it.

But, then again, in every way possible, my time here at Emory was better because she was here. In different ways, Jay Hughes simply made life for a cloistered writer better. Whether it was concerts, ball games, or our (near) weekly lunches, I could count on him to pull me out of a life of the mind and back into living in the here and now. Since he joined the program in 2005, we have seen each other through some personal highs and lows and, at the end of my tour of duty in the ILA, Jay’s friendship is one of those things I’m proudest to come away with.

Like Guy Clark sings, “I got a pretty good friend who’s seen me at my worst / And he can’t tell if I’m a blessing or a curse / But he always shows up when the chips are down / That’s the kind of stuff I like to be around.” Manuel Montoya similarly became a close friend and invaluable colleague — thanks, in part, to Jay. He has taught me that great intelligence should come with great humility. I simply cannot think of anyone who combines such boundless achievement — for God’s sake, he’s a Rhodes Scholar — with such boundless sincerity and decency. A better man you will not find.

I might say a special word about Michael Thompson and Erica Bruchko. In our first two years here, the three of us were among that small vanguard of Southern Studies students on campus — me in the ILA, they in History. In almost every class on the South, you would likely find two or more of us. From this experience, I already considered them friends and colleagues.

But my relationship with them was enriched exponentially when we shared the Brown Southern Studies Fellowship in 2007-2008. As I was writing in the fall of 2007, and they were off in the various archives of South Carolina, I enjoyed nothing more than hearing back from them on what they were uncovering. In the spring, when we gathered for our periodic sessions with Dr. Roark, they couldn’t have been better critics or more unfailing personal supporters.

After we finished those meetings, we would wander down to the Emory Village, and eat lunch, still chatting away about our mutual interests. Those were happy days, spent in the company of two people who will surely prove lifelong colleagues and (more importantly) friends. Still others did more than their part. Pellom McDaniels and Molly McGehee supplied early and enduring models for surviving the ILA with the integrity of your work (and sanity) still intact.

Aukje Kluge provided a necessary spur at important moments — academic and otherwise. Michelle Miles offered constant, consistent encouragement. Jean-Paul Cauvin contributed theory, vocabulary, and laughter. Elizabeth Milewicz listened and listened.

Shlomit Ritz Finkelstein exhorted. Yolande Tomlinson beamed. Shan Muhktar regrettably arrived too late. Others who added to this work in their particular way: Ju-Hwan Kim, Erin Sells, Jennifer Hughes, Elizabeth Chase, Levin Arnsparger, Leah Rosenberg and Nathan Hofer, Haipeng Zhou, Lillien Waller, Jere Alexander, Kwesi DeGraft-Hanson, Randy Gue, Aimi Hamraie, Megan Friddle, Anne Koch-Rein, Brittney Cooper, Brenda Tindal, Mashadi Matabane, Katie Rawson, Kira Walsh, Betty Woodman, Melissa Anderson, Folashade Alao, Ellen Griffith Spears, Cary Jones, Martin Lüthe, Mary Pinckney Battle, Sarah Franzen, and Jennifer Sarrett.

As for family, I thank my uncle, Buddy Burnett, and my cousin, Stephanie Burnett, for their encouragement and interest. (Now that it’s finished, they finally get to read it!) During this project, I gained a brother-in-law in John Codega. Even though he’s a Yankee from Rhode Island, who likes soccer no less, his increasing devotion to college football and the warmer climes of the South — and his deep and sincere love for my sister — evens things out. Simply put, the dedication says everything which one would need to know about the six most important people in my world: my mother and father, Ann and Sam Baker; my sisters, Elizabeth Ann Codega and Josie Baker; and my grandparents, Gaines and Dorothy Burnett.

Happily, everything in my life has always been for them. This dissertation, on the other hand, is but a small expression of everything they have done for me — mostly, always, of and by and through and in their love.