Race and Football in America: The Life and Legacy of George Taliaferro - Part 2

Note: IU Athletics is partnering with IU Press to share chapters from some of their recently-published books on IU Sports. The following is the second part of a chapter from Dawn Knight's book, Race and Football in America: The Life and Legacy of George Taliaferro, published by IU Press in 2019. The third and final part of this chapter will appear in the coming days on IUHoosiers.com. Additional details about this book can be found here.

The first part of the chapter can be read here.

I made up my mind, 'If I can't go there, I can go to class.'" Although Bloomington was segregated and Taliaferro was not able to live in the dorm with his white teammates, in many ways Indiana University seemed to be ahead of other major Indiana schools. Neither Purdue nor Notre Dame had black players in their football programs in 1945. At Indiana University, however, there had been black football players since Preston Eagleson became the first to play both football and baseball for the Hoosiers in 1890. Eagleson started what Herman B Wells, George Taliaferro, and Bo McMillin would continue. On a trip to another Indiana college, Eagleson was denied accommodations in a hotel because of his race. He filed suit against the hotel and received damages, setting a precedent in Indiana. He set another precedent by becoming the first black man to receive a degree from Indiana University when he received a master of arts degree in philosophy. Like Taliaferro, Eagleson understood that education was the means to his self-determination.

According to a book by Frances V. Halsell Gilliam, the Eagleson family continued to fight social injustice when Eagleson's younger brother attended IU in 1921. Halston Eagleson Jr. didn't play football but played in the band instead. Probably to prevent him from earning his letter sweater, he was kidnapped on his way to Lafayette, Indiana, for the 1922 game at Purdue. He was taken to Spencer, Indiana, and jailed. The kidnapping managed to keep Eagleson from getting to Lafayette for the game, and thus from earning his letter sweater, an honor the kidnappers apparently did not want bestowed on a black man. It wasn't until 1982 that a retired Halston Eagleson was finally awarded his sweater.

Aside from Preston Eagleson, there were other early black football players for IU. Jesse Babb, a halfback, and Fitzhugh Lyons, an end, both played for the Crimson from 1931 to 1933. This tradition continued at IU, and in 1945, under Coach McMillin, George Taliaferro and Mel Groomes were starting for the Hoosiers, and other black players were on the roster—including Bill Buckner, whose son Quinn was to be a Hall of Fame basketball player and a two-year football starter at IU.

While Taliaferro was learning how to navigate, both physically and emotionally, segregated Bloomington, some students in Gary, Indiana, were having a difficult time adjusting as well. Gary Froebel High School was in the largest integrated neighborhood in the city, "an area called 'The Patch'" in what was "the rougher part of the city," according to Yolanda Perdomo. Approximately one-third of Froebel's students were black. However, black students could not swim in the pool or take part in extracurricular activities. Principal Richard A. Nuzum decided it was time to fully integrate. In Time magazine, Eliza Berman reported that Nuzum started by integrating extracurricular activities like the orchestra and the student government. His "pro-Negro policies," according to David Lehman, included allowing 270 black students to participate in student government and to "use the school's swimming pool one day a week." Perdomo reported that the new pro-Negro policies angered a group of white students, led by Leonard Lavenda, who organized a protest. Life magazine pointed out that the reason for the protests may have been parents "goading on these childish grievances" and that they were motivated by a fear of "competition for their steel-mill jobs from Gary's increasing Negro population," like Robert Taliaferro. On September 18, a group of white students walked out, demanding that the black students leave and that the principal be fired. According to Belle Beth Cooper, the walkout ended on October 1, when the school board investigated Nuzum. However, three weeks later when the investigation ended and Nuzum was not relieved of his position, the walkout recommenced.

It was the second walkout that garnered national attention.

Having failed at ending the student strike themselves, the administration sought celebrity help. Initially, they invited Joe Louis to visit, but he was unable to attend, Cooper noted.

At around the same time, however, Frank Sinatra was getting a reputation for his outspoken views on integration. According to Scott Simon with NPR, Sinatra "had always insisted on playing with integrated orchestras. He was the best and wanted to play with the finest: Count Basie and Duke Ellington. Sinatra wanted to sing with Ella Fitzgerald." Berman wrote that Sinatra refused to play segregated nightclubs. He had also appeared in The House I Live In, a short film about acceptance of others. In short, he used his platform as a popular artist and teenage heartthrob to fight against systematic segregation. So in lieu of Joe Louis, the administration invited Frank Sinatra to come to Gary to convince the students to attend class again.

According to Cooper, Sinatra canceled a lucrative $10,000 gig to speak at Froebel. On November 1, thousands of students packed Memorial Auditorium to hear Sinatra, who sang "The House I Live In," a song about tolerance. In fact, David Lehman wrote, "Anyone doubting the depth of Sinatra's liberal convictions should listen to the soundtrack of The House I Live In." Lehman described the movie, in which Sinatra stops a group of teens from beating up a Jewish boy "by saying that bigotry makes no sense to 'A Nazi or somebody as stupid.'" At Froebel High School, Sinatra followed the song with a speech, the theme of which, Life magazine stated, was that "no kid is by nature intolerant.

It is one of the few forms of ignorance which has to be cultivated." According to NPR's Scott Simon, a Chicago Daily Defender article from November 5, 1945, described Sinatra's appearance: "Sinatra, blue-suit and red bow tie, five feet ten inches tall and 138 pounds, the heavyweight in the hearts of teenagers, stepped to the stage amid weeping, some fainting, much crying, and said, 'You should be proud of Gary, but you can't stay proud by pulling this sort of strike.'" According to Simon, Sinatra told them, "You have a wonderful war production record. Don't spoil it by pulling a strike. Go on back to school, kids." Despite the enthusiastic reception, applause, and national headlines, including a spread in Life, the visit did not lead to an immediate end of the protest. In fact, it wasn't until a couple of days after the event, Perdomo wrote, that the protest ended when the school board threatened to expel the striking students. Still, Sinatra made an impact. Perdomo reports that resident William Hill said, "The Sinatra concert sparked a lifelong interest in Civil Rights." The rest of the country weighed in too. Letters to Life magazine editors on December 3, 1945, after the story on Sinatra and Gary Froebel ran, illustrate the racial tension of the times. Arlie Wharton, of Texas, for example, wrote, "Sirs: How anyone can agree with the birdbrain who wrote this is beyond me. . . . When negroes are put to white folks' equal, I quit! May LIFE never publish another article like this to louse up their excellent magazine." Others supported Sinatra. Robert Baidukiewicz simply asked, "Am I living in Nazi Germany?" Another, Walter Duncan, wrote, "Frank Sinatra is to be commended. . . . Thanks to LIFE for reporting his activities in behalf of racial tolerance. It should be a challenge to all of us to join in this fight to recapture the spirit of democracy." Not contested is the fact that Sinatra risked fame and career in speaking out publicly against intolerance and hatred. His political support of Franklin Delano Roosevelt had even drawn the ire of his own mother, who, Lehman wrote, "bawled him out for being so pro-FDR." According to Jet magazine, Sinatra "developed relationships with Blacks that made him renowned for rallying behind causes to advance racial tolerance." In 1986, Jet recalled how Sinatra had used the magazine in July 1958 to make a statement about race: "A friend to me has no race, no class, and belongs to no minority. My friendships were formed out of affection, mutual respect and a feeling of having something strong in common.

These are eternal values that cannot be racially classified," Sinatra stated. Still, these outspoken beliefs marked the "beginning of a downward spiral for Sinatra's career due to his strong (and unpopular) political views, particularly on equality and racial integration," wrote Cooper. Sinatra was not the first, nor would he be the last, to put his values of equality over career. In fact, decades later, numerous NFL players would face the same dilemma.

In Gary and in college football, 1945 was a volatile time.

Although World War II veterans were often on the roster, college teams everywhere lost players to the wartime draft. Similar problems plagued the National Football League. Attendance at NFL games dropped during the war, and there was a shortage of players. According to Robert W. Peterson's Pigskin: The Early Years of Pro Football, 638 active NFL players had gone into the armed forces by the war's end. The NFL's Official Encyclopedic History of Professional Football cites that of these players/soldiers, 355 were officers, 66 were decorated, and 21 were killed. Because of the loss of players and coaches (even George Halas was called up for navy duty in the middle of the 1942 season), the team limit was cut from 33 to 25, and an unlimited substitutions rule was implemented. These regulations were not enough, however, and many teams did not have enough players to field a team. In 1943, for example, the Cleveland Rams suspended operations for the season because of the shortage. Some teams avoided shutting down by merging with another team in order to have enough players. This is how the Phil-Pitt Steagles were born in 1943, a hybrid of the Philadelphia Eagles and the Pittsburgh Steelers, who merged for one season to survive the shortage. Two years later, the Brooklyn Tigers and Boston Yanks merged for the 1945 season. Nothing, it seems, was certain for football, and college football in 1945 was no exception.

Even with the constant changes, it is fair to say that many college football fans were not expecting a season like the one Indiana University ended up having. The night before their first game of the season, Coach McMillin held a team dinner. Unfortunately, key players were noticeably absent. Pete Pihos, the fullback who would go on to be a Professional Football Hall of Famer, would not return from military service until late September. Howard Brown and Charlie Armstrong were also still in the service.

Among those present, however, were Ben Raimondi, the quarterback; and Mel Groomes, a halfback. The ends were Bob Ravensberg and Ted Kluszewski. Altogether, despite missing some key players, McMillin's "po li'l boys" were a talented group of individuals.

According to Hammel and Klingelhoffer in Glory of Old IU, Ravensberg was the only consensus All-American selection on the team. Ben Raimondi, however, was a strong quarterback.

Years later when he was rated using the NCAA grading system, his pass rating was a high 145.1. And Ted Kluszewski's skills weren't limited to football. Kluszewski, who also played baseball for the Hurryin' Hoosiers, was noticed by scouts for the Cincinnati Reds when the two baseball teams shared practice facilities after wartime restrictions forced the Reds to Bloomington from 1943 to 1945 for their spring practice. Despite having only played sandlot ball until that point, Kluszewski maintained a .443 batting average at IU. Taliaferro said, remembering, "And he didn't just hit the ball—he crushed it!" The Reds, Taliaferro said, witnessed one of Kluszewski's power hits. Standing about where the little Beck Chapel now stands, next to Indiana Memorial Union, Kluszewski hit the ball past what today is the Wildermuth Intramural Center, for an easy home run. "They signed him the next day," Taliaferro recalled. Kluszewski, the "quiet man," as his teammates referred to him, stood six foot three and weighed about 235 pounds. Taliaferro said, "His biceps were the size of most people's thighs, and he could just as successfully have played professional football as pro baseball." If that is the case, he would have been an impressive tight end in the NFL, because his statistics with the Reds are impressive. He played for fifteen seasons, three times hitting at least forty home runs and three times hitting more home runs than he had strikeouts. In fact, he was so successful that in 1998 the Cincinnati Reds retired his jersey, number 18, and when they built a new stadium, a statue of "Big Klu" went up outside. But before he would become one of Cincinnati's most beloved baseball players, he still had one more football season to play for Indiana.

Linemen John Goldsberry and Russ Deal; Bob Meyer, center; and tackle Joe Sowinski were also at the team dinner the night before the first game, as part of the talent pool McMillin had accumulated. The team had been preparing for the game all week, so the dinner was more of a bonding experience than game preparation. McMillin used the opportunity to discuss an idea with Taliaferro.

"Are you a superstitious person?" McMillin asked him, his Texas drawl conspicuous.

"Not really," Taliaferro replied. McMillin was, however, and he told Taliaferro that he wanted to change his jersey number from 43 to 44.

Billy Hillenbrand and Vern Huffman had previously worn the number 44 jersey, McMillin explained. Huffman was the 1936 Big Ten MVP. He was also the only IU athlete to win All-American honors in two sports, football and basketball. Billy Hillenbrand was IU's all-time punt return leader and also an All-American.

Taliaferro figured McMillin wanted him to wear the same number because he saw something special in Taliaferro as well; maybe he thought Taliaferro, too, would become an All-American.

"That's fine with me," Taliaferro said. In fact, he would consider it an honor. After his initial doubts about becoming part of the team, to be asked to wear the number of two of Indiana's All- Americans was a compliment Taliaferro took seriously. He felt that a certain responsibility came with the honor, and he planned on living up to the expectations.

The next day, September 22, 1945, Taliaferro was ready to wear his new number in his first college football game. The first challenge of the game was just in getting there. Having no team bus, the team had to borrow gas-rationing stamps and travel the day before in about thirty cars to Ann Arbor, Michigan. In the visitors' locker room the next day, Taliaferro geared up for the game.

He put on his jersey and listened to McMillin's locker-room talk.

Known for his fiery inspirational speeches, McMillin had managed to bring his players to tears on several occasions. Nobody cried after his talk that day, but the Cream and Crimson were fired up and ready to play. When it was finally game time, Taliaferro ran onto the field and looked up to see the tallest, widest stadium he had ever seen. It was packed full of loud Michigan Wolverine fans, an intimidating experience for the eighteen-year old freshman. To add to the pressure, he was one of the starting eleven—a freshman starting as a tailback and halfback was something that wouldn't happen again at IU for forty-nine years.

Taliaferro worried that he would let the team down.

But being young and inexperienced wasn't a factor once Taliaferro received his first hit, his initiation into college football.

"Once you get hit, you forget about everything else," he said. After that, his desire to play was all that mattered. "Nobody ever enjoyed playing football any more than I did. I lived to play football.

It was that much fun," he said. Still, this was the first game of the season, and it would prove to be a challenge for the young Hoosiers. Michigan Stadium was a place where "historically visiting teams' hopes of unbeaten seasons have died," Hammel and Klingelhoffer wrote. To make matters worse, they added, the Indiana University Hoosiers had actually defeated Michigan at Michigan Stadium the previous year, 20–0, so Michigan was seeking revenge. It wasn't the Oaken Bucket, but it was a serious conference rivalry.

In the first quarter Taliaferro ran for fourteen yards to put Indiana on Michigan's thirty-nine-yard line. He then passed fourteen yards to end Ted Kluszewski to put Indiana on the Michigan twenty-five. On the next play, Taliaferro ran through Michigan's line for a thirteen-yard gain and then managed to make it into the end zone "shaking off tacklers," according to Jack Overmyer, the Hoosiers' press director. This first touchdown, wrote Hammel in a Bloomington Herald-Times article, came on a fifty-six yard drive in the first quarter that "introduced the Wolverines to Taliaferro." As spectacular as it was, a holding penalty cost the Hoosiers the touchdown and put them back on the fifteen. This setback didn't deter Taliaferro, who subsequently threw a screen pass to Dick Deranek to perfectly set up the next play; quarterback Ben Raimondi threw a pass to Kluszewski, who took it into the Wolverine end zone. The second Hoosier touchdown came on an eighty-one-yard drive by Nick Sebek, Mel Groomes, and Ben Raimondi, giving the Hoosiers an early 13–0 lead.

Despite a valiant effort by the Wolverines, their only score came on an Indiana blunder. In the third quarter, Michigan capitalized on a short punt by Taliaferro to the Hoosiers' own 49, making the score 13–7. The Bomen, as Bo McMillin's team was sometimes called, managed to hold on to its lead until there were only two minutes to go. Michigan had the ball on the Hoosier eight-yard line, along with the opportunity to take the lead from its visitors. Hammel described what happened next: "Two running plays advanced the ball to the four. A third try didn't advance it. . . . On fourth down, the Wolverines took too much time getting a play set and backed up to the nine. There, with fifty-five seconds left, they lined up in field-goal formation. It was a fake.

Indiana played for it and stuffed the play, killing the threat and clinching victory." When the game was over, Indiana had won 13–7 and had set in motion what would be a memorable season, for several reasons.

In his debut, and despite his initial qualms, Taliaferro did not disappoint McMillin, who had entrusted him with a starting position and lucky jersey number. Of Taliaferro's introductory performance, Hammel wrote for Bloomington Herald-Times, "Taliaferro didn't score but did everything else in as spectacular and crucial a debut as an eighteen-year old ever had." It was after this Michigan game that Taliaferro began to realize he was establishing himself as a starter. "When I played football against the University of Michigan and won, I said, 'This is different. In the history of Indiana University, this is different.'" Perhaps that was because Taliaferro ran for ninety-five yards in twenty carries and completed three of three passes for twenty-three yards. He would have debuted with a hundred-yard game if he hadn't taken a loss to run out the clock on the last play. Taliaferro's impressive initiation into college football was not perfect, however. Hammel noted that he had botched a couple of punts and that when McMillin asked what happened, Taliaferro replied, "I was too scared to know." The next game on the schedule came against Northwestern on September 29. Pete Pihos and Howard Brown, who had been in the service for two years, were back and ready to play. According to Hammel and Klingelhoffer, the two were on a sixty-day leave, having come back from impressive stints in the military.

"Pihos won a battlefield promotion to Lieutenant with General Patton's 35th Infantry Division in bloody fighting during World War II. Brown won three purple hearts in the same war theater," they wrote. Pihos and Brown only had a couple of practices with the Hoosiers before the Northwestern game, but rusty or not, their skills were needed. Despite the strong season opener against Michigan without two of their key players, the Hoosiers were going to have a hard time battling Northwestern. Hoosier center Bob Meyer had broken his leg during the Michigan game, so John Cannady, who hoped to be a linebacker, was stepping in for him. According to Hammel and Klingelhoffer, Cannady said, "It rained. I had never snapped the ball in the rain. The morning of the game at our hotel, Bo took me upstairs with the backs. He put six footballs in the bathtub. A coach would hand one to me, I'd snap it to the quarterback, and they ran plays right there in the room." Taliaferro said Cannady was a natural at the position, though, and he continued at center for the Hoosiers on offense; on defense, he remained a linebacker.

After the impressive debut at Michigan, Taliaferro's performance was a bit disappointing. Northwestern outplayed the Hoosiers for the first three quarters and had scored the only touchdown, which came from a blocked Taliaferro punt. And although Taliaferro had carried nineteen times for seventy-seven yards, he had also lost twenty-one yards, for a net of only fifty-six. In the fourth quarter, passes to Groomes and Ravensberg advanced the Bomen to the Northwestern fifteen-yard line. McMillin put in Pihos and Brown. On the next play, Raimondi passed to Pihos, who caught the ball at the five and powered through three Northwestern defenders, whom he dragged with him into the end zone.

Charlie Armstrong's place kick tied the game. Just back from the war, Armstrong had been a bomber pilot who, according to Hammel and Klingelhoffer, was decorated with the Distinguished Flying Cross. Armstrong had been intent on quitting football and getting a commercial pilot's license. Luckily for the Hoosiers, he changed his mind and decided to play another season of football.

His kick, right on target, saved the Cream and Crimson from near defeat, ending the game in a frustrating tie, which McMillin likened to "getting a kiss from your sister." It wasn't a win, but it wasn't a loss either, a fact that would become more important as the season wore on. Although they had beaten Michigan without them, Taliaferro noted the addition of Pihos and Brown to the Hoosier lineup. It was an important game for that reason too. The team would be that much stronger.

The Hoosiers faced the Fighting Illini in the October 6 game.

Despite two completions into the end zone in the second quarter, the Hoosiers had failed to score. For the first, Raimondi had thrown to Kluszewski in the end zone, but the play was called back when the Illini band's mascot, a dog, trotted onto the field.

The same play a second time yielded the same results when officials ruled that Kluszewski had stepped out of bounds. Taliaferro was held in check until the fourth quarter, which the Hoosiers started by taking the ball on a penalty at the Illinois forty-two.

A couple of Taliaferro running plays and some complete passes put the Hoosiers on the ten. This time, the Raimondi pass to Kluszewski in the end zone wasn't called back, and the Hoosiers had the winning touchdown.

Twenty-two thousand people showed up at Indiana's Memorial Stadium for the October 13 homecoming game against Nebraska.

Bo McMillin Pete Pihos George Taliaferro

The Bomen donned their red home jerseys with white numbers for the game. Although the school colors are cream and crimson, they wore black pants with a white stripe down the side and black helmets, made of padded leather and created well before the addition of the face mask. It was Taliaferro's first game at Indiana's horseshoe-shaped Tenth Street Stadium. Once considered one of the premier college playing fields, the stadium was the setting of the movie Breaking Away, about Indiana's famous Little 500 bicycle race. The stadium, which has since been torn down, was the setting of many Little 500 races and memorable Indiana football games. One such game was the 1945 game against Nebraska. By halftime, Taliaferro had helped his team to a 27–0 lead. Hoosier halfback Bob Miller ran a ninety-five-yard kickoff return to end the second half with another touchdown. Reserves finished the game, giving everyone the opportunity to play, and the Cream and Crimson came away with a 54–14 victory. The Nebraska Cornhuskers, on the other hand, had only managed to cross the fifty-yard line twice during the entire second half of the game.

The Hoosiers racked up more points against Iowa the following week. Taliaferro, the "Gary Flash," contributed with some big touchdown runs, one for sixty-three yards and again later down the sideline for seventy-four yards. By the third quarter, substitutes were in again, but the Hoosiers still managed to score a whopping fifty-two points in their third Big Ten victory of the season. The Hawkeyes had managed to score twenty points, but it wasn't enough to overcome the offensive might of the Hurryin' Hoosiers.

After the two amazing runs against Iowa, the Tulsa game was even more memorable for Taliaferro. Before the game, Indiana had had two consecutive fifty-point wins. But Tulsa, also undefeated, would be a contest between two of the best college teams of 1945. The game, Taliaferro said, was "what college football is about: blocking, tackling, defense, and teamwork." After several punts, the first score of the game came in the second quarter. It started with a Mel Groomes pass to Taliaferro for a considerable gain. On the next play, Indiana's end, Bob Ravensberg, on a pass from fullback Pete Pihos, got into the end zone. Tulsa then managed to score two points when a tackle of Taliaferro in his own end zone led to a safety. Strong defense from both teams left the remaining action scoreless, though not without nail biting, and the game ended with a hard-earned Indiana win, 7–2.

"That was one of my best games," Taliaferro said, notwithstanding the safety. The Tulsa game, however, was memorable for another reason as well. In Hoosier Autumn, a book about the 1945 Hoosier football team, Robert D. Arnold wrote, "After a few plays, it was obvious that the Tulsa players didn't appreciate playing against blacks." Tulsa, Arnold wrote, actually lost their captain, C. B. Stanley, early in the game for roughing up Taliaferro.

Mel Groomes, another black player, was also targeted, but Taliaferro seemed to receive the bulk of Tulsa's antics.

With much less drama, the Hoosiers beat Cornell on November 3 at Indiana's Memorial Stadium, 46–6. The fact that Coach McMillin was absent to scout the Minnesota Golden Gophers and that starters rested much of the game to avoid injury mattered little. Although he didn't play as much as he usually did, Taliaferro still managed to contribute a touchdown to the win.

As the season progressed, Taliaferro played an increasingly larger role in the Hoosiers' wins. His triple-threat skills, which would, in time, propel him into professional football, were a key contribution to the Bomen's success. Taliaferro, who played tailback for the Hoosiers and had secured his star position on the team when he ran two consecutive eighty-yard touchdown runs in practice, was not a disappointment to McMillin, and his skills were noticed on campus as well, with his popularity on campus increasing with every game. Even at a time of prevalent racism, he was often asked for his autograph while walking around campus between classes. His easy nature and charm made him approachable, and he would happily oblige the autograph seekers. It became clear that McMillin had not overstated Taliaferro's place on the team when he reassured him on that first day.

Check back tomorrow for the final part of this chapter from Race and Football in America: The Life and Legacy of George Taliaferro.

Race and Football in America: The Life and Legacy of George Taliaferro - Part 2

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