- courtesy Loyola Athletics
- Captain Jerry Harkness holds the NCAA championship trophy after Loyola nipped Cincinnati on March 23, 1963. To his left, coach George Ireland.
With time expiring and his team down two, Jerry Harkness took a short jumper. This was on a March evening 50 years ago, in Louisville’s Freedom Hall; the game was the NCAA championship. Harkness was the captain and leading scorer for Chicago’s Loyola Ramblers, who were trying to upend the Cincinnati Bearcats, the champions the previous two years. Swish. The Ramblers, down 15 with less than 13 minutes left, had sent the game to overtime. The game was tied and the clock winding down again in overtime when Harkness’s teammate, Vic Rouse, banked in a rebound, and Loyola prevailed, 60-58.
Quite a thrilling way to win a title, but the game was significant beyond that. Harkness, Rouse, and two of Loyola’s other starters were black, as were three of Cincinnati’s starters. Seven African-American starters out of ten would hardly be unusual today, but in 1963, college coaches were still observing an unwritten rule: don’t start more than two black players.
In his new book, Ramblers, Mike Lenehan tells the story of that Loyola team, a story that’s as much about race and integration as about basketball.