Book Review: Black 14 - the Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of Wyoming Football
| Date | 01 October 2009 |
| Publication year | 2009 |
| Pages | 2 |
| Citation | Vol. 32 No. 5 Pg. 2 |
Vol. 32, No. 5, 2. BOOK REVIEW: Black 14 - The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of Wyoming Football
Issue: October, 2009
On the morning of Friday, October 17, 1969, all 14 of the black players on the University of Wyoming football team walked into head coach Lloyd Eaton's office wearing civilian clothes and black armbands. Although they could not have known it at the time, they were about to become an indelible part of Wyoming's history.
The players, who would later become known as the Black 14, hoped to convince Eaton to let them wear the armbands the following day in their game against BYU to protest the Mormon Church's policy against blacks in the priesthood. Wyoming was undefeated and nationally ranked, and the players saw the game as an opportunity to make a statement about something bigger and more important than college football. Instead, Eaton led the young men out of his office and to the Memorial Fieldhouse bleachers, where he dismissed them from the team. As Eaton later told State and University officials, the players had violated team rules prohibiting factions and student demonstrations, and he would not tolerate it.
In the days that followed, the national press descended on Laramie, and groups from both inside and outside Cowboy Country rallied - some behind Eaton, and others behind the Black 14. When the University did not reinstate the players, they filed a federal lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Cheyenne. Legendary judge Ewing T. Kerr denied the players' request for injunctive relief and eventually dismissed their case. Although the dismissal was partly vacated by the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in 1971, Judge Kerr's subsequent dismissal on remand was upheld by the Tenth Circuit a year later.
In the Black 14 - The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of Wyoming Football, Wyoming native Ryan Thorburn marks the 40th anniversary of the Black 14 by helping us understand the incident through the eyes of those who were there. To do so, Thorburn interviewed most of the Black 14 (all of those who he could find and who would talk to him), as well as coaches and others who were in Laramie at that very confusing and tumultuous time. What results is a story that everyone in Wyoming - from lawyers to laborers - should read, learn, and understand. It is, after all, forever a part of our history.
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