Politics had a huge influence on sports in the 1960s, mainly in college football 1969. In 1969 undefeated Texas played undefeated and southwest conference rival Arkansas, and President Richard Nixon declared that he would attend the game and that the winner of the game would be national champions. That decision was highly controversial because many people thought that it wasn’t the president’s place to make that kind of decision. Many felt that another undefeated team should be considered for a national champion and those people were mainly fans of Penn State and USC, but the decision stayed the same and Texas became the 1969 national champions.(Hirshburg, Kennedy, and Deitsch) In the 1960s, there was still segregation laws in the United States and sports helped to end these laws by having African Americans in key positions, for instance, in 1966 Bill Russell became the first African American coach in the NBA. this helped with integration in the 60s and because fans of sports teams treated the black players on their favorite teams just like a white player they started to treat all blacks like they would treat all whites.(1960s
Politics had a huge influence on sports in the 1960s, mainly in college football 1969. In 1969 undefeated Texas played undefeated and southwest conference rival Arkansas, and President Richard Nixon declared that he would attend the game and that the winner of the game would be national champions. That decision was highly controversial because many people thought that it wasn’t the president’s place to make that kind of decision. Many felt that another undefeated team should be considered for a national champion and those people were mainly fans of Penn State and USC, but the decision stayed the same and Texas became the 1969 national champions.(Hirshburg, Kennedy, and Deitsch) In the 1960s, there was still segregation laws in the United States and sports helped to end these laws by having African Americans in key positions, for instance, in 1966 Bill Russell became the first African American coach in the NBA. this helped with integration in the 60s and because fans of sports teams treated the black players on their favorite teams just like a white player they started to treat all blacks like they would treat all whites.(1960s