Striving for change

Mel Hamilton leans back in his chair and takes a pause, pondering the question as if he almost hadn't weighed it before.

Over the last 50 years, he’s recited the events of the Black 14 countless times for media outlets and speaking engagements. The facts have almost become second nature, ingrained from constant retelling. But the passion has not faded. Hamilton’s eyes and his inflection reveal traces of pain that linger.

But after half a century, are things truly better in America since that October 1969 day that reshaped his life?

He pauses, gathers his breath and lets a small smile start in the corners of his mouth.

“Yeah, in a way it does feel like it’s been 50 years. In most ways though, it feels like it was yesterday because a lot of things are still the same,” Hamilton said.

An unlikely journey

Hamilton stared out the bus window, mesmerized at the fence-like structures that covered the landscape.

He’d grown accustomed to the open prairie that is the West long ago. Born in Charleston, South Carolina, his family moved to Wilmington long before he could remember. His childhood in the Port City was filled with friends and good times. There was also mischief.

In 1961, the 14-year-old came home to find his mother had worked out a plan with a Catholic priest to ship him to Boys Town near Omaha, Nebraska. The organization takes in youth from unsafe environments and provides structure and opportunity.

Following the initial shock, Hamilton adapted. He began playing football as a pulling guard, catching the eyes of colleges around the country. He was even given enough financial assistance to attend Cornell.

Instead, Hamilton was now sitting on a bus headed west towards Laramie, Wyoming. And he couldn’t figure out those fences.

“I’m going down the road and I’m looking through the windows and I see these huge fences. And I said what are those?” Hamilton said with a laugh. “I kept saying man, there must be some big animals in Wyoming. And about a year later, somebody those me, ‘No, those are snow (drift stopping) fences.’ I had no idea.”

His path led to the University of Wyoming for one reason – his best friend, Kenn Gilchrist.

A fellow Boys Town resident, Gilchrist applied to schools but only got the necessary scholarship money for college from Wyoming.

“(The priest) said, ‘You know, Kenn is not going to go to Wyoming by himself.’ And since we were best friends, I said, ‘I’ll go. I’ll go to Wyoming with him,’” Hamilton said. “That’s how I made the decision. I just wanted to make sure he went to school.”

A different world

In Wilmington, Hamilton grew up in a black community. At Boys Town, an abundance of the facility’s residents were African-American.

Wyoming was another story.

Despite being one of the nation's largest landmass states, it has always had the smallest population, hovering at around a half million residents for decades. Around one percent of the state identifies as black or African American.

“It was strange. It was strange not seeing anything of your culture at all. It was strange having people look at you,” Hamilton said. “Even though they wanted a winning team, they really didn’t want you downtown. They wanted you to stay on campus. So experiencing some of that institutional type racism was a little extreme, but it was there and we adapted.”

Snow-based activities become a regular pastime, including skiing and tubing. Hamilton learned how to hunt, a hobby he still enjoys. He and his black teammates stood out, but they did their best to blend in.

“You just had to learn what it was for the natives to do and we learned how to do that and learned how to survive,” he said.

Winning helped. Back then, the Cowboys were among the nation’s best teams. After a 6-4 effort in 1965, Wyoming put together a breakout season. The 1966 squad went 10-1, good enough to face Florida State in the Sun Bowl and earn a 28-20 victory. They were ranked 15th in the Coaches Poll at the end of the year.

The on-field good masked the off-field bad.

At the time, Hamilton got engaged to a fellow student at Wyoming. She was white. He went to athletic director Red Jacoby about moving into married student housing. Jacoby agreed it was a good idea, but coach Lloyd Eaton would have to sign the paperwork.

Eaton refused. Hamilton left the meeting to join his friends at a place they frequented.

“By the time I got to Brown and Gold to hang out, (Eaton) had Father Wagner from Boys Town on the phone,” Hamilton said. “I told him, 'You taught us love and acceptance, none of this crazy stuff.'”

Shortly after, Hamilton opted to join the military in hopes of aiding the country in Vietnam. He thought Wyoming was behind him.

The Black 14

When Hamilton got out of the Army, he received a message from Eaton – if he wanted to come back to Laramie, he was welcome to rejoin the Cowboys.

In the two seasons Hamilton was gone, Eaton had the Pokes rolling, going a combined 17-4 with an appearance in the Sugar Bowl. Hamilton wasn’t sure he wanted to go back, but he’d taken a lot of classes and knew the routine. He enrolled again in 1969.

During the 1968 game at BYU, fans hurled racial slurs at the players after a 20-17 win in Provo, Utah. Players later learned that the Mormon Church had rules that prevented black members of the congregation from advancing in the church’s hierarchy.

The Cougars were coming to Laramie in 1969 and 14 Wyoming players were hoping to use the game as an opportunity to make a statement against the policies during the game.

On October 17, 1969, the 14 went to speak with Eaton. They were wearing black arm bands on their clothing, something they hoped to have on their uniforms the next day. Most figured the worst thing that would happen was an emphatic no from Eaton after a discussion.

They never got that chance.

“As soon as we walked in, he saw our black arm bands. He said, ‘Gentlemen, into the fieldhouse.’ So we went into the fieldhouse, he sat us down and first words, ‘Right as of now, you’re no longer Cowboy football players.’ First words out of his mouth,” Hamilton said. “Did we have an opportunity to discuss wearing the armbands? No. Did we have an opportunity to take suggestions on what he would allow us to do? No. So we got kicked off of the team for doing nothing.”

The story exploded, appearing in Time Magazine, Sports Illustrated and newspapers across the country. National news affiliates descended on Laramie to report on the event.

What had started as a silent protest in a small corner of the country suddenly became a nationwide headline.

“Would you believe that the governor came down and tried to talk coach into letting us back on? He said no. The university president talked to the coach. He said no,” Hamilton said. “Matter of fact, the university president with the governor called him over to come to a meeting with all of us. He refused. That’s how much power he had because they loved their football.”

Wyoming went on to beat BYU, 40-7, then earned a 16-7 victory over San Jose State the following week. The Cowboys lost the next four in 1969 after winning the first six, then went 1-9 the following year. Eaton was fired following the 1970 campaign.

Life after

Three of the Black 14 rejoined the Cowboys in 1970. Some transferred or joined the military. Seven remained in Laramie to finish school.

Hamilton stayed at UW but never returned to the field. He tried to find a new home, but found himself blackballed. He talked to a coach at San Diego State about joining the program.

“The coach said I know who you are but no can do,” Hamilton said. “And I knew I could walk-on and he wouldn’t even allow me to walk-on. He was too afraid that I might cause the same kind of commotion to the school that he was involved in.”

After graduating, he and his first wife relocated to Wilmington, where he took a job as a supervisor at Corning. She was a Wyoming native and couldn’t get accustomed to the South, returning to the Cowboy State. Hamilton followed shortly thereafter.

Over the next four-plus decades, he became a coach, councilor, teacher and principal in Casper, Wyoming. He joined the NAACP, working to advance civil rights in Wyoming and across the country. He relocated back to South Carolina after retiring.

The issues Hamilton and teammates were trying to address 50 years ago still exist in different forms today. He’s kept up with the ongoing saga of Colin Kaepernick. Hamilton has experience in both worlds, as a football player and soldier. He sees no fault in Kaepernick’s decision to kneel. Hamilton admits after the Black 14, he found it hard to stand for the national anthem himself. He’d lost faith in the idea that everyone had equal rights in America.

But even with the shortcomings, he sees progress.

When Missouri football joined in protests over the President Tim Wolfe’s handling of racist events on campus in 2015, white and black athletes came together for a common cause, with support from the athletic department and then-coach Gary Pinkel.

“I thought it was great because if we had a coach or coaches on that team that stood up for us, the 14 maybe would’ve never happened,” Hamilton said.

But it did. And it turned out to be more of an impact on Hamilton’s life than he could have imagined.

Raised in the Catholic Church, one of Hamilton’s children eventually left to become a Mormon. He now teaches Sunday school every week, an opportunity that might never have happened without a call for change.

“That’s what I was fighting for. At the time, I didn’t know my son was going to become a Mormon. But when he became a Mormon, it was like he became Catholic,” Hamilton said. “If that’s the religion you want, what can I say? I hope they treat you nicely and that’s about it.”

Contact the StarNews sports department at Sports@StarNewsOnline.com.