One Night, Two Teams: Alabama vs. USC and the Game That Changed a Nation
On September 12, 1970, the University of Southern California's integrated football team traveled to Birmingham, Alabama, and defeated the University of Alabama's all-white team, 42–21. Travers, a USC grad, portrays the game and USC's victory as a tipping point in the integration of college football and the South, a triumph for the forces of equality. Garden-variety fans, however, may chalk the win up to USC's outstanding black running backs, Sam "Bam" Cunningham and Clarence Davis, or to the fact that the 1970 squad was one of Alabama's weakest teams in the Paul "Bear" Bryant era. Still, his larger view of the game hits home in most respects, and he provides a compelling account—drawing from dozens of interviews with participants, coaches, and others—of a clash between two schools with decidedly different approaches to the composition of their football rosters. Soon after the 1970 season, Travers notes, Bryant began effectively recruiting black players, and Alabama was once again a football power. All in all, an intriguing premise and a well-told story. Lukowsky, Wes