Progress, Yes but HBCUs Have Paid a Price

Monday, February 26, 2007 Updated: February 27, 7:25 PM ET Progress, yes; but HBCUs paid a price for it -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By Bomani Jones ESPN.com Forty years ago, one could argue that black college football was as competitive as any played in the country. The same sort of debates about how the Negro Leagues stacked up against Major League Baseball could be had about black college football and the big-time university game. Awash with talent that segregation placed in their laps, historically black colleges and universities consistently produced average, great and Hall of Fame-caliber professional athletes. But the dawn of integration darkened much of the light seen by athletic departments at historically black colleges and universities. After Southern Cal's Sam "Bam" Cunningham knocked segregated Southern football to its knees in a prime-time game against Alabama in 1970, the doors began to open for black players at schools across the country. As a result, those institutions, underfunded since their foundings, had no advantage over white schools. Once, HBCUs had enough talent to make up for their lack of resources. Now, the talent is gone but the finances are roughly the same. Before integration, historically black colleges and universities got top black players, says North Carolina Central's athletic director Bill Hayes. He was a three-time All-America football player at N.C. Central who won 195 games and six Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) championships as a head coach at Winston-Salem State and North Carolina A&T... Complete story (Photos): ESPN - Progress, yes; but HBCUs paid a price for it