2 Who Integrated Conference Are Honored
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
DALLAS, Aug. 14 (AP) - Jerry LeVias faced death threats, isolation, and verbal and physical assaults just to play football for Southern Methodist in 1966.
LeVias, the first black player in the Southwest Conference, came to S.M.U. at a time of racial upheaval at the urging of Coach Hayden Fry, who is white.
Their decisions forever changed the conference. On Saturday they were scheduled to be enshrined into the College Football Hall of Fame in South Bend, Ind.
"No, I wouldn't do it again," said LeVias, who went on to play in the National Football League and is now vice president for marketing at a court-reporting firm in the Houston area. "If it hadn't been for Coach Fry, I don't think it would have happened. But I am amazed by the results we had under the circumstances."
Fry, though, would not change a thing.
"It was one of the best decisions I ever made," said Fry, 75, who coached at S.M.U. from 1962 to 1972 before continuing at North Texas and Iowa. "It was the right thing to do. I'd do it again in a heartbeat."
As a senior in 1968, LeVias caught 80 passes for a team-record 1,131 yards and was a consensus all-American. His years at S.M.U. brought the first conference championship in 18 years - since the time of Doak Walker and Kyle Rote - and a No. 9 national ranking.
LeVias helped S.M.U. to its first bowl victory since the 1949 Cotton Bowl with a 28-27 victory over Oklahoma in the 1968 Bluebonnet Bowl and finished fifth in Heisman Trophy voting.
When S.M.U. offered him the coaching job, Fry, then a 33-year-old Arkansas assistant, made one demand. "I told them I wouldn't accept the job unless I could have black players," he said.
After almost a month, the administration relented and said he could have one black player, but insisted on strenuous standards - including a 1000 SAT score - on his admission. White players had to score only 750.
"He had to have real thick skin because there were a lot of rednecks still fighting the Civil War," said Fry, who retired in 1998 after 20 years at Iowa with 232 career victories. "If he would have failed or quit it would have set back the integration of the Southwest Conference."
LeVias says he did not experience any real racism while growing up in Beaumont, Tex., so he was surprised by some of the questions he got at his first S.M.U. news conference.
"People started asking me, 'Is the conference ready for a colored player?' " he said. "I was in shock. I just said, 'Are they ready for me?' "
Early in his career, a teammate spit in his face and bruised his ribs after putting a knee in his back. Someone gouged a fist into his eye socket on the bottom of a pile. Three bones were crushed that required an operation.
Then there were the things Fry kept from LeVias.
Before a road there was a report that a sniper was planning to kill LeVias. Fry's staff informed the other team's coaches.
"When we watched the film, we realized that every time Jerry lined up toward the other team's sideline you could see the coaches scatter," he said. "I guess they were worried that the sniper would miss Jerry and hit them."
LeVias learned to survive, and even thrive, amid the turbulent racial environment, turning negatives into positives.
"The majority of the time, big plays were made after something bad had happened to me," he said. "They would have been better off leaving me alone."
Both men believe that Fry was fired in 1972 after a 7-4 season because many people did not approve of black players at S.M.U.
"People always talk about what I had to go through," said LeVias, who was an N.F.L. rookie of the year and played six seasons for Houston and San Diego. "But can you imagine what he had to go through? He had guts."
After more than 30 years the teammate who spit in his face apologized. LeVias said it helped heal some old wounds.
