But the coaches could see Michigan State and other teams doing well with the black players from Texas they were prohibited from recruiting.

The other SWC did a good job upgrading basketball before the arrival of UH.

quote='bbaker' pid='12090690' dateline='1432913750']
Agreed. Segregation did have a lot to do with it. Lots of SWC coaches were comfortable with all white teams.

A smaller problem was that the SWC would have to start spending money on basketball, which they subsequently did, building new arenas and hiring top coaches and of course recruiting black players.
[/quote]

(05-29-2015 10:35 AM)bbaker Wrote:  Agreed. Segregation did have a lot to do with it. Lots of SWC coaches were comfortable with all white teams.

(05-29-2015 06:16 PM)75src Wrote:  But the coaches could see Michigan State and other teams doing well with the black players from Texas they were prohibited from recruiting.

In particular three from Beaumont: Bubba Smith (Michigan State) and brothers Miller & Mel Farr (Wichita Sate and UCLA, respectively).

Mike, you remind me..

When Jess retired, one of the top candidates to replace him was Tommy Prothro of #2 UCLA (he wanted out from underneath John Wooden). Interesting that Rice could attract the coach of the #2 team in the country. Times have changed a bit.

Prothro had another reason for being interested in Rice. He had established a recruiting pipeline for black athletes from the Golden Triangle area to UCLA, of which Farr was one. He expected that he would be able to milk that pipeline much more easily and productively from Houston than from Los Angeles. Had Prothro come to Rice, we would certainly have moved from the rear to the front in recruiting black athletes. Hayden Fry built a strong program at SMU by recruiting many of the people who would have been in Prothro's pipeline. Bo Hagan was in the driver's seat for Jack Mildren, Joe Wylie, and Lucious Selmon (recognizing that two of those are white, but just making a point), and missed on all three. My guess is that Prothro would not have missed.

Prothro would have been a good fit in several respects--he was a Duke graduate, and a world-class bridge player, among other interests. But he was a jerk of Todd Graham proportions, and wore out his welcome very quickly everywhere he went. He would have moved on in a few years, probably to the Oilers (he left UCLA for the Rams and moved later to the Chargers) about the time that the up-and-coming young coach in Texas was Grant Teaff.

Doesn't take much to envision a drastically different last 50 years for Rice football.

(05-26-2015 10:45 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(05-26-2015 10:17 PM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  I don't recall the final SWC football game being a night game either. I know we turned off the lights on the SWC after the game but I thought it was a day game (just started a bit later than the rest of the games that week in the conference).

It was night. And it was even later than the usual night start, because we wanted to be sure it was the last SWC game.

Per the Thresher, it was a 4 pm start. I also remember it being dark at the end, but I think that's just a function of the game taking place on December 2.

My somber article about the final SWC game.