Michigan State athletic director announces plan to honor former team

On Monday’s episode of “The Drive with Jack,” show, Michigan State athletic director Alan Haller announced plans to build a statue to honor former head coach Duffy Daugherty’s teams from the 1960s that helped integrate college football.

“As we look at the renovation of the football building, one of the things that are included in the plans is we’re going to put a statue out front of the new football complex of the iconic picture of Duffy (Daugherty) and the five athletes,” Haller said on the show. “That’ll be the first thing you see as you go into the building, so the history of who came and what came before us is going to be really, really important as we move forward.”

The statue will commemorate an iconic photo of Daugherty and five of Michigan State’s black student-athletes.

Those athletes were Bubba Smith, Clinton Jones, Bob Apisa, Gene Washington and George Webster. Each of those players were All-Americans during the Spartans’ 1966 national championship run and all of them are in the MSU Athletics Hall of Fame. Under Daugherty, the Spartans captured back-to-back national championships in 1965 and 1966.

The championship in 1966 is actually split between Michigan State and Notre Dame, as the game is now infamously dubbed “The Tie” as both teams finished the game knotted at 10.

Daugherty finished his career at Michigan State with a winning record of 109 wins, 69 losses and five ties during his tenure from 1954–1972, according to Michigan State Athletics.

In his 18 seasons, Daugherty coached 33 first team All-Americans, but is known best for the fact he recruited 59 black players to play football at Michigan State. This was during a time when most teams in the country were yet to begin integration.

He also was credited with starting an African American quarterback, one of the first for a major university in college football. The quarterback, Jimmy Raye, said in his autobiography that Daugherty “was color-blind.” Ultimately, four black players from Michigan State were selected among the first eight players taken in the NFL draft throughout his tenure.

“The history of who came and what came before us will be really important as we move forward not just in football complex, but everything we do in athletics,” Haller said. “Making sure we’re paying attention to what has been done in the past and making sure that has a big part of what we do in the future.”

If you’d like to learn more about the integration of Michigan State during the 1960s, you can find more information in Tom Shanahan’s piece, as he details more information about the statue.