Raye of Light: Jimmy Raye, Duffy Daugherty, The Integration of College Football, and the 1965-66 Michigan State Spartans THIRD EDITION

When Jimmy Raye enrolled at Michigan State University in 1964, he did more than just enter a university hundreds of miles from his native Fayetteville, North Carolina: he was part of a movement that changed college football forever. Award-winning author Tom Shanahan updates his groundbreaking biography of the racial pioneer and the continuing impact of the integration of college football.

Raye’s story, as well as his Spartan teammates and coach Duffy Daugherty, is told in Raye of Light: Jimmy Raye, Duffy Daugherty, The Integration of College Football, and the 1965-66 Michigan State Spartans. History has not accorded Daugherty, Raye, and the Spartans proper credit for their roles in the integration of college football. Too many view Daugherty as recruiting a couple of All-American players from the South, winning a bunch of games with his 1965-66 teams and then having it all come to an end.

But that ignores the history made by Raye and the Spartans. In his junior season in 1966, Raye was Michigan State’s first Black starting quarterback and the first Black quarterback from the South to win a national title. The Michigan State team with a progressive head coach, a pioneer Black quarterback, and the first fully integrated roster in college football is the subject of this engrossing book by award-winning author Tom Shanahan.

In Raye of Light, Shanahan tells the story of how Daugherty integrated his Spartan teams in a time when leading college programs like the University of Alabama were still segregated, when it was unusual to see Black athletes at skill positions like quarterback, and when choices for outstanding Southern Black athletes were either traditionally Black colleges or northern colleges opening their doors to nationwide recruits.

This updated third edition covers the aftermath of the 1966 Game of the Century between the Spartans and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, including the coaches and players with ties to both the 1966 game and the 2026 resumption of the MSU-ND rivalry. Also remembered are the Underground Railway pioneers who faced racial prejudice throughout their long careers, denied chances at the upper levels of the coaching echelon.

About the Author
Award-winning author Tom Shanahan is a veteran sportswriter specializing in college football and, specifically, the integration of college football in the 1960s. He’s also written for NFL.com, Chargers.com, MLB.com, Rivals.com and the National Football Foundation’s Football Matters. His book The Right Thing To Do meticulously details how college football was integrated in the 1960s and sets the record straight on how the sport broke beyond the limits of a whites-only enclave. His dedication to increasing awareness of college football integration’s true 1960s pioneers led to a 2022 First Place Award in Enterprise Writing from the Football Writers Association of America. His deeply researched article covered the 1962 Rose Bowl, when UCLA’s eight Black players and Los Angeles Times sportswriter Jim Murray stood up to segregationist Alabama coach Bear Bryant seeking a backdoor entry into the Rose Bowl in place of the traditional Big Ten entry.

Fast Facts
Price: $24.95 paperback, $9.95 ebook
ISBN 978-1-938532-98-6 (Print)
ISBN 978-1-938532-99-3 (eBook)
Format: 6x9, 348 pages

Distribution via Ingram, Overdrive and August Publications

Available from August Publications in paperback, Kindle, Apple Books, Nook, Google Play and Kobo editions

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