1965 And 1966 Football Teams Enter Athletics Hall Of Fame

The 1965 & 1966 Michigan State football teams are among the 2024 inductees of the Michigan State Athletics Hall of Fame.

The 1965-1966 teams become the first teams inducted into the Hall of Fame, and they join Jessica (Beech) Bograkos (softball), Anson Carter (ice hockey), Darqueze Dennard (football), Beth (Rohl) Saylors (women’s track & field), Laura (Kueny) Smith (women’s golf) and Paul Terek (men’s track & field).

 

The Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony and Celebration will take place on Friday, Sept. 13. There will also be a special recognition of the 2024 MSU Athletics Hall of Fame Class during the Michigan State-Prairie View A&M football game at Spartan Stadium on Saturday, Sept. 14.

The MSU Athletics Hall of Fame, located in the Clara Bell Smith Student-Athlete Academic Center, opened on Oct. 1, 1999, and displays plaques of the 180 previous inductees. The charter class of 30 former Spartan student-athletes, coaches and administrators was inducted in 1992.

 

Nearly 60 years later, the 1960s decade is still considered one of the most divisive and influential decades in world and U.S. history. It was an era accentuated with social and civil rights movements, cultural and counter-cultural movements. Right in the middle of it all was the 1965 and 1966 Michigan State Football teams, who were trailblazers in their own right.
 
This version of the Spartan football team, which won both the 1965 and 1966 National and Big Ten Conference Championships, was led by head coach Duffy Daugherty.
 
They sparked national changes in not just college football, but also college athletics, especially in the south. Daugherty was one of the first college football coaches to compile a roster consisting of a racially integrated team, including many Black players from the south, changing the college football landscape forever.
 
The 1967 NFL Draft included four Michigan State players in the top eight selections, and all four of them Black. The 1966 Spartans had five All-Americans and were captured in an iconic photo with Daugherty: running back Clinton Jones, fullback Bob Apisa, defensive end Bubba Smith, wide receiver Gene Washington and linebacker George Webster. While Jones, Smith, Washington and Webster are Black, Apisa is of American Samoan decent.
 
Jones equates what Daugherty spearheaded for himself and his teammates,…