Storms in the Southland - From Simmer to Boil

* An excerpt from the forthcoming book "The Wilderness - South Carolina Athletics in the Independent Era (1971-1991)"*

Part 3 of a 3-part series on GamecockCentral.com.

Part 1 - Why South Carolina left the ACC

Part 2 - The Dietzel Era Begins

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As the Grosso controversy unfolded, the NCAA instituted a new rule to address minimum academic standards for “student-athletes,” a new term coined by the governing body. In a 1965 study commissioned by the NCAA, a committee determined that it was possible to predict an athlete’s first-year college grade point average (GPA) on the basis of high school rank and scores on the College Board Exam. The NCAA set a bar of 1.6 out of a 4.0 system (equivalent to a C-minus) for an incoming student-athlete’s “projected” GPA. Further, the student-athletes would need to maintain a minimum of 1.6 GPA during their college career to maintain eligibility. This 1.6 minimum rule was effective January 1, 1966, and despite some controversy, was widely supported by member institutions as a step in the right direction in addressing academic standards throughout college sports.

The 1.6 mandate created a sharp divide within the ACC regarding the need to maintain its own 800 standard in light of the NCAA’s new rule. South Carolina’s Paul Dietzel led the charge for those institutions wishing to scrap the 800-standard in lieu of the NCAA’s less stringent 1.6 regulation. Clemson, Maryland and N.C. State, sided with South Carolina, while Duke, UNC, Wake Forest and Virginia remained adamant about maintaining the 800-standard for the ACC.

Upon taking the South Carolina job, Dietzel was alarmed by the ACC’s dismal record of futility against non-conference opponents in football. Indeed, the ACC ranked last among all conferences in terms of non-conference victories. Against the SEC in particular, the ACC had compiled an embarrassing record of 19 wins against 105 losses since 1953. This was particularly distressing to Dietzel as South Carolina’s recruiting footprint overlapped with SEC schools to a greater extent than other ACC programs, with the exception of Clemson. In a case of politics making strange bedfellows, Clemson’s football coach and Athletic Director Frank Howard became Dietzel’s most vocal ally in the anti-800 argument.

Dietzel sought to raise the profile and competitiveness of the Gamecock program in scheduling a strong non-conference slate, including likes of Georgia, Florida State, Alabama and Tennessee, among others. All of those programs, which boasted well-established football traditions, were subject only to the NCAA’s 1.6 rule. Dietzel saw a distinct disadvantage for his program, and argued vigorously that the 800 standard hamstrung USC and other ACC programs.

Set against the backdrop of the Civil Rights movement and the integration of public schools and universities throughout the South, there was an important racial element to Dietzel’s argument. Dietzel told USC President Tom Jones in 1970, “It’s going to be very difficult to explain to people around here, that of all the fine black athletes playing in our newly integrated high schools, we cannot find one of them who can attend his state university.” Indeed, Jones went so far as to refer to the 800 minimum as a “racist regulation,” and questioned the morality of the conference.

Jones’ sentiments were echoed by Clemson President Robert Edwards, who lamented that the standard created a major obstacle for black athletes wishing to participate in sports at his school. Citing 1965 data, Edwards reported that 93.4 percent of black high school seniors in the state of South Carolina who took the SAT that year scored below 800.

The irony of South Carolina’s two major universities standing as beacons of justice for black athletes was not lost on observers in the press and throughout the conference. South Carolina had, perhaps to a greater degree than other states within the ACC footprint, fought integration and subjugated African-Americans throughout its history. As the only truly Deep South state in the ACC, South Carolina’s racial and political identity was more closely aligned with fellow Deep South states Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi.

Though South Carolina did not experience the widespread violence that plagued the civil rights era in Alabama and Mississippi, it was not without incident. On February 8, 1968, approximately 200 protesters gathered on the campus of South Carolina State University in Orangeburg to protest racial segregation at a local bowling alley. As police and firefighters attempted to extinguish a bonfire set by the protesters, an object thrown from the crowd injured a police officer. Within minutes, officers from the State Highway Patrol began firing into the crowd, injuring 27 and killing three. Of the three killed, two were students at SCSU and one was a student at local Wilkinson High School. The latter, Delano Middleton, had not been a participant in the protests, but was sitting on the steps of the freshman dormitory, waiting for his mother to finish her work shift. Many of the injured were shot in the back, as they attempted to flee the scene.

The incident, which predated the Kent State shootings by two years, became known as the Orangeburg Massacre. In a press conference the following day, Governor Robert McNair called it “one of the saddest days in the history of South Carolina.” He placed the blame for the incident on “outside agitators” from the black power movement. The federal government brought charges against nine members of the highway patrol, who claimed in their defense that they felt threatened by the protesters and had heard gunshots coming from the crowd. Though forensic evidence and witness testimony strongly contradicted those statements, the nine officers were acquitted.

Two months later, on April 4, 1968, the moral and spiritual leader of the Civil Rights movement, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was gunned down in Memphis, Tennessee. In another two months, senator and presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy, who had aligned himself and his campaign with the Civil Rights movement, was murdered following a speech in Los Angeles, Calif.

The university itself had only integrated five years earlier, when, acting upon the order of a federal court, USC admitted three black students. On the morning of September 11, 1963, Henrie Monteith, Robert Anderson and James Solomon completed registration for fall classes at the Naval Armory on campus. It would be 1969 before Carolina’s athletic teams integrated. Casey Manning (basketball) and Jackie Brown (football) were the first African-Americans to letter at USC, while Carlton Hayward was the first African-American to be recruited to play football. Dietzel, realizing the need for a better connection with African-American athletes, hired a black assistant coach, Harold White, in 1971 to assist in recruiting and academics.

(Hayward played on the freshman team in 1969 and redshirted in 1970, finally earning his letter in 1971. Brown, who came to Carolina on a baseball scholarship in 1969, switched to football and lettered in 1970. Manning played on three NCAA Tournament teams under McGuire and later became a circuit court judge and a member of the Gamecock Radio Network for basketball broadcasts. White became a long-time fixture within the athletic department as a full-time academic counselor, serving the University for nearly 40 years.)

From Simmer to Boil

By 1970, the situation between USC and its ACC brethren reached a boiling point. After winning the ACC title in 1969, Dietzel’s in-state recruiting had taken off. But of the ten “blue chip” in-state players Dietzel eyed, only two had managed the requisite score of 800 on the SAT. Beyond the 1970 recruiting class, Sumter wide-receiver Freddie Solomon promised to be the most celebrated recruit of Dietzel’s tenure in 1971, though the ACC’s 800 standard remained a serious roadblock. Dietzel vented his frustrations to President Jones, lamenting that he was tired of watching high school players from South Carolina go onto all-American careers at Big Ten and Big Eight schools, only because they were barred from competition within the ACC by the onerous 800-rule.

(Solomon did not score the requisite 800 on his SAT and went on to star at the University of Tampa, from there playing eleven years for the Dolphins and 49ers of the NFL. In the 1982 NFC Championship game, made famous by “The Catch” – Dwight Clark’s iconic leaping touchdown grab, Solomon was the primary target on the play. Quarterback Joe Montana checked off to Clark when Solomon slipped on his route. Solomon figured prominently for the 49ers on the final and deciding drive of that game.)

The NCAA expressed support for Dietzel’s stance, noting that it was against the ACC’s use of a minimum cutoff score. Further, the 800-rule had caught the attention of the federal government, which was investigating colleges and universities across the South for prejudicial admissions standards.

On October 21, 1970, amid continuing acrimony between member institutions over the 800-rule, ACC presidents met to discuss the matter. They ultimately opted to pursue additional studies on the effects of dropping the rule in favor of another predictive model. Two days later, the University of South Carolina’s Board of Trustees took the matter into their own hands, authorizing Gamecock coaches to recruit on the basis of the NCAA’s 1.6 standard. While they pledged that the University would continue to work toward a solution with the ACC, it was a brazen act of institutional defiance.

South Carolina had thrown down the proverbial gauntlet, which forced Clemson into the position of choosing a course of action. Though Clemson’s Edwards and Howard shared Carolina’s stance on the 800-controversy, they were less inclined to bolt the ACC. Despite a popular misconception among Carolina faithful, there was never a “pact” between USC and Clemson officials to leave the conference together. Clemson ultimately chose to remain in the conference, while South Carolina charted its own course. On March 28, 1971 the Board of Trustees announced the university would withdraw from the conference on August 15 of that year.

In a statement read by Board of Trustees Chairman, T. Eston Marchant following a daylong meeting to discuss the matter, the Board sounded an optimistic tone. Marchant cited national legislation then under review, which would “remove the areas of disagreement which presently exist (between USC and the ACC).” The statement went on to express hopes that the separation would be of a “temporary nature.” Newly elected ACC Commissioner Bob James attended a portion of the meeting and expressed similar optimism for reconciliation after returning to his home in Greensboro, N.C. “I was really impressed with the sincerity of the South Carolina people. I came away with the feeling that they want and would like to be in the ACC.”

The measured optimism of USC’s Board and the ACC’s new commissioner were balanced by comments from other officials who sounded a tone of resignation, bordering on indifference. Maryland Athletic Director Jim Kehoe, in addressing the scheduling difficulties presented by South Carolina’s withdrawal, noted that “It would seem to be more sensible to compete with teams 150 miles away than one 300 miles away.” He added, “I’m sorry the matter couldn’t be resolved, but realistically, South Carolina had gone too far down the road to remain in the conference.”

And so, just over two weeks after that glorious day in Greensboro, the University of South Carolina officially announced a parting of the ways with the Atlantic Coast Conference, only hours before the basketball team would meet for their annual post-season banquet to celebrate their first ACC basketball championship.

The 800-rule controversy was resolved shortly after USC’s exit when two students at Clemson University filed suit in federal court against Clemson and the ACC. Their attorneys argued that the 800-rule deprived them of their Constitutional rights under the 14th amendment since the rule applied only to athletes. On August 7, 1971, a federal court ruled that the ACC’s 800 standard was “arbitrary and capricious,” and was “not based on valid reasoning,” as it set a standard for athletes which did not apply to other students. On August 18, 1971, just three days after the University of South Carolina officially relinquished its membership, the ACC dropped the embattled 800-rule.

ACC football and basketball coaches would now recruit on equal footing with other NCAA programs, much to their delight. Moreover, with McGuire’s Gamecocks removed from the equation, the Big Four North Carolina schools would continue to dominate the ACC in basketball, collectively winning ten of the next eleven ACC Championships between 1972 and 1983.

(South Carolina’s ’71 squad was only the second non-Big Four school to win the ACC Basketball Championship – the first was Maryland in 1958. In the 62-year history of the conference, there have been only twelve non-Big Four basketball champions (18.75%) with four of those coming in an unprecedented stretch of four straight between 2012 and 2015. That streak marked only the second stretch of consecutive non-Big Four champions, with the first coming from Maryland and Georgia Tech in 1984 and 1985 respectively. Of the original four non-North Carolina members of the ACC, there are a combined six championships [Maryland 3, Virginia 2, USC 1] Clemson has never won an ACC Basketball title. Maryland left the ACC for the Big Ten Conference in July 2014.)

The University of South Carolina meanwhile, was now a Major Independent. It joined the likes of Florida State, Notre Dame, Penn State, West Virginia and Virginia Tech in that relatively small world of major universities unaffiliated by conference. August 15, 1971 would mark the beginning of a twenty-year journey – a winding wilderness road which would ultimately end on July 1, 1991, when the University happily accepted an invitation to join the SEC. The events of those two decades as a major independent are often overshadowed by memories of the “glory days” from those old enough to remember the ACC, and thirty years of competition in the SEC. Many younger fans know next to nothing about these years, perhaps aside from the legend of Heisman winner George Rogers.

But there are so many stories to tell.

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