Mississippi State takes on Loyola today at Humphrey Coliseum, and celebrates a game that made an impact in civil rights history. In March of 1963 the Bulldogs traveled to play the then banned Loyola team, whose roster of black players were the reason for the controversy between the two schools.
At a time in history when neighboring school Ole Miss required the use of federal troops and U.S. marshals to admit a young, black man named James Meredith as a student, when segregation in the South was at an all time fury, and a man named Martin Luther King, Jr. was fighting a peaceful war against racial divides, Miss State did something quite amazing - they got on the plane and made the trip in defiance of a temporary injunction.
Much of the thanks goes to coach Babe McCarthy and the school's president, Dean Colvard. Along with the sentiment of a large percentage of Mississippi's citizens, Colvard and McCarthy made the decision to allow the team to play.
The handshake between Joe Dan Gold and Jerry Harkness just before the opening tip-off was symbolic of the "The Game of Change" and one for the history books as the "Maroons" came to town to participate in the NCAA tournament game. The Loyola Ramblers defeated Miss State 61-51 and went on to win the first televised National Championship game that same year.
Fifty years later the two team remember the game and honor those whose defiance of both law and society forever changed the game of basketball.
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| Photo from MSU Media Relations |
EDITORS UPDATE December 1, 2013: Final score Miss State 65 Loyola 64 in OT
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