Tony McGee got kicked out of Wyoming with the Black 14 but still made it to the Super Bowl
Tony McGee had no idea what would come next after he and 13 other black players were kicked off the undefeated and nationally ranked Wyoming Cowboys football team in the midst of the 1969 season. The defensive end had been playing like an All-American and maybe even a future pro, racking up 11 sacks in just four games. But now his football career, his college education and his entire future were in doubt.
One thing McGee knew for sure was that he would never play for Wyoming again. As far as he was concerned, the ouster of the group that came to be known as the Black 14 had revealed head coach Lloyd Eaton as not just a hard-edged taskmaster but also a hardheaded racist.
Wyoming’s black players had proposed wearing black armbands in their home game against Brigham Young University. A few wanted to protest the Mormon Church’s dictum forbidding black members from becoming priests. But for most of them, including McGee, the beef was more personal: BYU’s all-white squad had hurled racial slurs and cheap shots at black players during their game a year earlier.
But when the black Wyoming players raised the idea of a protest with their coach, Eaton did not want to hear it. Instead, he berated and insulted them, saying they were troublemakers, half of whom did not know their fathers. Then, he kicked them off the team. McGee recalls Eaton saying the players could go back home to live off “colored relief.” Or, if they were lucky, maybe they could go play for Morgan, Grambling or some other historically black college or university.
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http://theundefeated.com/features/black-14-tony-mcgee-protest-kicked-out-of-wyoming-still-made-it-to-super-bowl/
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The University of Wyoming football program did not fare as well. After dismissing its black players, the team won its next two games but lost the final four contests of the 1969 season, causing the Cowboys to plummet from the national rankings. The next season, Wyoming went 1-9, its worst record since 1939. The mass dismissal prompted black athletes in all sports to shun the university, and it was nearly a decade before a significant number of them would again suit up for Wyoming.
Eaton was fired as head coach after the disastrous 1970 season. He was hired as director of player personnel for the Green Bay Packers and was demoted to scout after four years. He worked for an NFL-run scouting service before retiring in the mid-1980s.
Was that when America was great? 
