Black History Celebrated: Wyoming Black 14 remembered at Atlanta’s College Football Hall of Fame
The College Football Hall of Fame is celebrating a story of one of the most powerful combinations in American history — sports and civil rights. The Wyoming Black 14 were honored with their own display for Black History Month.
The Wyoming Black 14 dates back to October of 1969. John Griffin was a starting slot receiver for the University of Wyoming; then a junior, he had aspirations — as did many of the 14 — for his team and beyond.
These aspirations would be cut short when their head coach, Lloyd Eaton, cut 14 Black players from the team after they approached him about a peaceful protest: wearing a black armband at their upcoming game against BYU in protest of a racially discriminatory policy from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which owns BYU.
Today, the Wyoming Black 14 is celebrated. The College Football Hall of Fame features a Wyoming 14 armband & Black 14 Banner, the 1969 Wyoming vs. BYU game program, media guides, news collages, photos, and more —- all on display.
“It’s pretty surreal, actually… to be recognized, to be celebrated like at the [College Football] Hall of Fame and last year with the NCAA Inspiration Award,” Griffin said. “It’s pretty surreal, and it’s also gratifying.”
The desire for protest came at a time when tensions were high, Griffin said. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated the year prior in 1968. Moreover, he and others were inspired by Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who each raised a first wearing a black glove after their first and third place wins in the 1968 Olympics, respectively.
It’s easy to look back with awe and inspiration at the stand the Black members of the team tried to take. At the time, though, the 14 had no idea the ramifications that simply asking to protest — not even protest itself — would have.
“He said to us that we would never be anything in our lives, that we would be on social services for the rest of our days. No White team would ever want us, and the only teams that would ever want us are the Gramblings and the Southerns,” Griffin said. “[Eaton said] you didn’t know your parents — even though I knew my father… All that venom that was being spewed at us.”
Within the hour, Griffin said the rumor spread on campus was that he and the rest of the 14 quit the team.
“That was upsetting. It was a blatant lie,” Griffin recounted. “I can laugh about it now; I couldn’t laugh about it then.”
Part of the anger, said Griffin, was the realization that the repercussions from his coach came not from the action itself but simply asking if they could do the action of the armbands at the game.
“We never protested. We wanted to have a conversation with the coach regarding protesting, have a conversation with him saying this is how we’re feeling and wanted to know what his thoughts would be,” Griffin said. “What he did was kick us off the football team without having a conversation… I never was given the opportunity to protest — it never happened.”
The 14 found strength in numbers, however, which helped them as they faced a new uncertain reality. For Griffin, that reality was staying at the University of Wyoming, just as a regular student.
“I don’t think I’ve ever forgiven Eaton himself, but certainly, based on the relationship we have with the University of Wyoming, it’s just one of those snapshots in history,” Griffin said. “And now we’re working together in concert to make things better for those in need.”
Griffin said he did speak with Coach Eaton one final time, more than a year after the incident. Eaton called Griffin, now a senior, into his office and sat him down. He then asked Griffin if he could still play, to which Griffin responded yes.
“He goes, ‘I’m going to find you a place to land,’” Griffin said. “And he found a team in Canada, Winnipeg Blue Bombers, and that’s where I ended up. Surprised the heck out of me.”
Griffin said he still doesn’t know quite what to make of that moment but has his guesses.
“He felt badly about what he did… he was trying to make it up, I guess. I don’t know,” Griffin said.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — the same one that had the racially discriminatory policy that prompted the 14 to try and protest — partnered with the Wyoming Black 14 earlier this month to donate 40,000 lbs of food to the Atlanta Community Food Bank.
Nowadays, Griffin finds joy in giving back to the youth. Later this month, he’s going to speak with Black engineers at the Colorado School of Mines. Griffin also shared that one of the students he mentored is applying to be a mentor in a social justice program in order to continue passing down knowledge to the next generation as he did with her.
“Something that resonated with all of us is that we were not going to let that day define our lives,” Griffin said. “We had two choices: accept what [Eaton] had said and become zero, or push back against the notion of not being anything in our lives and becoming something.”
11 out of the 14 went on to earn degrees, with some getting advanced degrees. Some went on to be teachers, principals, work in corporate America, or high management positions like Griffin himself. In all, he said he feels confident none of the other 14 let that moment define their lives, either. In collaboration with BYU, the University of Wyoming, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, they can give back on an even greater scale.
“We turned tragedy into philanthropy,” Griffin said.
There are those who say, “Keep politics out of sports.” Those people would be remiss not to acknowledge Jesse Owens, Muhammad Ali, Jackie Robinson, or even more recent events like Colin Kaepernick taking a stand by taking a knee. They’d be remiss not to acknowledge — and learn from — lesser-known stories, like that of Griffin and the Wyoming Black 14.
As for Griffin — and the others, he suspects — he said he would do it all over again.
“I might do it a little bit differently, but I have absolutely no regrets,” Griffin said. “It’s something that was important for me to do. It’s that simple.”
The display is open for the rest of February in honor of Black History Month.
