With the Martin Luther King Days of Dialogue and Black History Month happening so close together on the calendar, the UW community has had a lot of time to think about issues of equality lately. Part of the Days of Dialogue week, the Black 14 panel, highlighted a specific instance of racial prejudice that took place on the UW football team in 1969. The Branding Iron recently had an opportunity to speak one-on-one with John Griffin, a businessman, UW alumnus and member of the Black 14 to hear his story.
To start off, can you tell me your account of the events of the Black 14 incident?
Well you know we went over to the field house on Friday morning when we were scheduled to play BYU. All of us went over to Coach Eaton. We were sitting there, and within 5 minutes we were no longer Wyoming Cowboys.
Of course then what followed were racist overtures and demeaning overtures that we would never amount to anything and we would end up on public assistance. And we sat there and listened to that madness.
We all went back to the locker room and we took out all our gear and all our equipment and we threw it into the middle of the floor, and that was the only time we showed any act of defiance. We didn’t yell or scream at Eaton; we didn’t act violently. We weren’t about that.
And we walked back from the field house – and you know how far of a walk that is – and by the time we got back, the spin was on that we had quit the football team.
The whole decline in the football team and the whole negativity that was laid on the university began that day that he talked to us.
And then later on of course that day a lot of us [were] at Washakie dinner… And of course the White players [were as well]. And I saw one of my friends, George Herrick, and he was coming toward me with tears in his eyes. And even talking about it today it still affects me.
It was a division between the White players and the Black players, but it was also a division among the Black players.
Five of us stayed the university, but there were only three of us who went back to play football.
We had to petition the team. The coach allowed us to return but the players had to decide yes or no.
So we all got our degrees, but there were only three of us who went back to the football team
About 8 years ago or so I was in Washington, D.C. with my kids, and I made sure I met up with Tony McGee. And Tony and I were talking and he wanted to know why I went back to the football team, and I told him I had no other choice. Back then if you transferred to another school you had to sit out for a year, and I was a junior.
After several conversations with Don Meadows […] I elected to stay at the university and not move on. Chances are I would have never played football again.
How else did the incident affect you?
I just found out recently from Ed Pollard we were given jobs. I was offered a job to work in the library. I did not know that there were several members of the university that rallied around us and kept us on scholarship but we were offered scholarship, room and board.
I had to petition with the dean of education 9 1/2 hours to be able to get my grades back up to where they needed to be and to be able to play.
He asked ‘are you sure you can do this?’
And I said ‘yes, sir, I can do it.’ And I did. I had a 3.7 GPA that semester. And all I did was study, work, play football and that was it. There was nothing else to my life.
It made me stronger, but that strength was always there.
[T]he sad part about this is we were all separated. We were really a pretty tight group of guys, and that continuity was destroyed by a five minute conversation.
How were the rest of the 14 affected?
I would image they were affected similarly. Everybody was trying to find a university to land in to play football. One nice thing for Joe Williams is he was a senior and getting ready to graduate. A couple guys wound up not going back to school. But the majority of us found a place to go and further our education.
How was the remainder of the football team affected?
Well I think some of the White players were cast into a situation they had absolutely no control over. If you look at the White players, they were trying to survive too. I know for a fact some of them would never ever talk to us again. Some have passed on and were still angry about a situation that happened so many years ago.
After the Black 14 the university only won two more games in two years. They never articulated to me or to anyone else, I don’t think, how they were eventually affected by this, but I’m sure they had some feelings like “my goodness, the whole program’s destroyed now.”
How was UW football affected?
Oh, it was affected immeasurably for, oh, a good 10-15 years I think, and there’s still some remnants of that going on even today.
You know the university did not do well for years until Paul Roach returned, and eventually Joe Tiller brought the program back to prominence.
Players were no longer interested in going to the University of Wyoming, and a lot of that had to do with the stigma of the Black 14.
How was the university affected?
Well it had this huge racist – and I know during [previous conversations] the R word was never mentioned. We never viewed Eaton as a racist until after the incident and what he said to us about public assistance. That’s when the racist part of him came out. I’m sure it had always been part of his DNA, but that’s when it came out.
It’s taken the University of Wyoming took a long time to shed that. It’s come a long way, and you know the healing started quite a while ago, and you know the healing still continues.
The Days of Dialogue I experienced a month ago – that was one of the healthiest experience I’ve had in my nearly 66 years of life.
How you and your student body fellows, how you guys have responded – it’s a wonderful thing to see.
The flame is still lit. It hasn’t gone out because you guys still have interest; your professors still have interest. I just saw an email from a professor of the law school who would like me to come down in two weeks along with Phil White to talk with his students about the legal ramifications of what happened.
What did you study at UW?
I studied Physical Education.
What did you do after your time at UW?
I was recruited by the YMCA in Denver.
And how that came about, my adviser Dr. Bruce Dick called me one summer and mentioned the YMCA in Denver was looking for a physical educator. They were looking for an African American physical educator. He was going to submit my name, but he wanted to ask me first to see if I was interested in moving back to Denver.
After a couple of months I ended up flying back to Denver for an interview, this is in August, and after 3 or 4 days I got the job.
I also minored in English Literature. I got my degree in physical education, but I was a couple hours short of my English Literature minor.
Not many football players studied English Literature.
What was your interest in English literature?
I like Shakespeare and I like Chaucer.
One of my favorite classes, unfortunately, was offered 8 o’ clock in the morning, was history of the English language. It was this dry class, and it was this professor who had this monotone voice. It was a tough class for 8 o’clock in the morning.
You’ve mentioned before that many of the 14 would likely have gone pro.
There was probably 8 of us who probably could have made the NFL.
Yeah, there was Tony Magee and Joe Williams [who played in the NFL].
I ended up going to Canada and Lloyd Eaton, ironically, provided that connection for me to go to Canada. Surprised the heck out of me when that happened.
He sat me down in his office and he said to me “I know you can still play, and I’m going to make contacts on my folks in Canada to see if I can’t get you a contract to play up there.” And he did.
My interest in football was there, but the flame went out. And after two weeks I just didn’t have the desire anymore. That part of me – I wouldn’t say died, but the fire in my belly was no longer there.
How do you feel about UW, Laramie and Wyoming?
I have great feelings for the university. I love the university. I would never say anything negative about the University of Wyoming. I had some negative feelings against Eaton certainly, but I love the city of Laramie and the city of Wyoming.
When we were up there, my wife, she fell in love with Laramie.
She hasn’t stood in winter up there, but she experienced a couple days where it got as cold as it could be, and that didn’t deter or prevent her from really looking into “I think I might like to retire here.”
She said “I love the lifestyle. People are so nice up here.” That’s the way they are.
I still have very dear friends there, and I love going up there. I certainly don’t have anything against the state of Wyoming.
Where do you live now?
I live in Denver. I’ve been in and out of Denver over the last 40-some-odd years. I moved back to Los Angeles in 1989 and got a corporate job out there for four years.
I eventually come back.
Is there anything else you would like to add?
I’ve had a blessed life, you know, I’ve done some great things. I changed direction years ago from education to business, and I’ve had a very successful business career and I have absolutely no regrets.
The Black 14 incident still resonates in me as I know it does in… the other guys. For me it’s just one big piece of history in my life that was a negative for a while that I turned into a positive for me.
I’m happy to still be on this Earth.
The reality of life really hits you. So being able to participate in Days of Dialogue – that was a wonderful time for me and my wife.
