Maryland's Darryl Hill helped integrate the game

By Steve Hummer

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

An eager young assistant coach in 1962, Lee Corso was one of those go-to guys who would run through cinder block to please his boss.

But what he was about to be given would be no ordinary assignment, nothing so simple as breaking down film all night or standing in at a boosters club meeting in Towson.

For Maryland head coach Tommy Nugent had wet a finger, held it aloft and felt the current of change in the air.

“Coach came to me and said we are going to integrate the South. Go find a football player,” recalled Corso, now a popular college football host on ESPN.

Fate being in a good mood at that moment, just the right player for the job was nearby.

Darryl Hill was the first African-American player at his high school, Gonzaga, in Washington. He had become the first black player to suit up at a service academy, on the freshman team at nearby Navy. And, weary of the strict military life, he was in the market for a change of venue.

When Corso first went to him with his offer, Hill was skeptical.

“I asked him, ‘Did you drop out of the ACC? It’s segregated, isn’t it?’ ” Hill said during an interview with the History Makers project.

Hill had focused his own search on more accommodating northern schools like Penn State, Notre Dame, Syracuse and Michigan, but he had a change of heart.

“I thought, why not, somebody’s got to do it,” he said.

Hill started at wide receiver for the Terps in 1963, road games taking him to some most unwelcoming stadiums. That was four years before Kentucky’s Nat Northington became the SEC’s first black player, eight years before the first black players appeared at Georgia or Alabama.

This perfect man for the job endured profound indignities. On the road at South Carolina, Hill’s mere presence set off a confrontation between Maryland players and angry fans. When he was knocked unconscious during a game at Wake Forest, EMTs refused to administer oxygen (leaving it to an untrained teammate). His mother, ticket in hand, was blocked at the gate at Clemson. After the university president finally escorted her to his box, Hill caught 10 passes, breaking what was then a Maryland record.

All this was happening during an era in which Gov. George Wallace literally blocked the University of Alabama doorway to black enrollees. “Needless to say, the thought of cheering for black students on those football teams was unimaginable for many southern white fans in 1963,” said Lane Demas, professor of history at Central Michigan University, author of “Integrating the Gridiron: Black Civil Rights and American Football.”

A popular bookmark for the inevitability of integration was USC’s 1970 victory over Alabama, led by running back Sam Cunningham’s 135 yards and two touchdowns. In truth, Bear Bryant already had recruited a black player — Wilbur Jackson — for the next season. Still, the perception of that being a revelatory moment moved then-Alabama assistant Jerry Claiborne to utter the famous, if overblown, quote: “Sam Cunningham did more to integrate Alabama in 60 minutes that Martin Luther King did in 20 years.”

Football in the South could not be all that it is today, of course, without the contributions of all its native sons.

Those who contributed to knocking down the barriers of race also can look at their role in a far wider context. “The integration of predominantly white college football teams in the South was a very important symbol,” said Demas, “especially because the most contentious debates during the civil rights era centered on public education. Football was a major way for universities to garner attention in the realm of popular culture.”

Of his role, Hill, now a fund-raiser at Maryland, has said, “Some people are destined to do things. I never had it in my plans to do any of this. I don’t know why I did it. Maybe I just had an inclination. Or maybe I’m crazy.”

For his small part, Corso just says, “I feel real proud.”