Speaker 1: Right now, it is time for the way black History fact.
Speaker 1: In today's way Black History fact comes from Campus Echo
Speaker 1: dot Com. Eighty years ago, in the depths of the
Speaker 1: Jim Crow era, basketball teams from what is now North
Speaker 1: Carolina Central University and Duke University broke barriers in the
Speaker 1: South's first racially integrated college basketball game, known as the
Speaker 1: Secret Game. It brought together the Eagles varsity men's team
Speaker 1: and a squad from Duke's School of Medicine. Students in
Speaker 1: the YW SORRY the YMCA chapters at Duke in North
Speaker 1: Carolina College for Negroes as NCCU was known at the time,
Speaker 1: had been holding clandestine prayer meetings. A conversation at one
Speaker 1: of those meetings started it all. One of the ncc
Speaker 1: students overheard some nineteen forties trash talk about Duke's medical
Speaker 1: school team and issued a challenge to see who had
Speaker 1: the best team in Durham. According to the author Milton
Speaker 1: Katz on the documentary film Black Magic about the Secret Game, quote,
Speaker 1: one of the gentlemen from Duke boasted about their medical team.
Speaker 1: They said they were in the best shape and the
Speaker 1: best in the state, if not even beyond the state
Speaker 1: of North Carolina, said Katz, who wrote Breaking Through, a
Speaker 1: biography of NCC's coach at the time, John mcclindon, quote,
Speaker 1: another member of North Carolina College for a Negro, says, well,
Speaker 1: you may be great, but you haven't played the greatest.
Speaker 1: McLendon signed off on the idea and declared that the
Speaker 1: game would be held at NCC's gym, with referees and
Speaker 1: a legitimate game clock. The two squad scheduled the game
Speaker 1: for eleven am on a Sunday because they knew most
Speaker 1: Durham citizens, including the police, would be in church. The
Speaker 1: teams didn't tell any staff, and when a reporter for
Speaker 1: The Carolina Times found out, he agreed not to say anything.
Speaker 1: That morning, March twelfth, nineteen forty four, Duke's team jumped
Speaker 1: into borrowed cars, rode to NCC's gym, and put their
Speaker 1: jackets over their heads to keep them from being identified.
Speaker 1: There were no spectators. Cats said in the documentary the
Speaker 1: first moments of the game were misshots turnovers. I think
Speaker 1: they just had to get the bugs out, and they
Speaker 1: obviously did. Duke began to get going midway through the game,
Speaker 1: but in the second half the Eagles scored on nearly
Speaker 1: all of their possessions, pulling away to triumph eighty eight
Speaker 1: to forty four. Quote. Literally, they ran Duke's team out
Speaker 1: of the gym. Black College Sports Encyclopedia author Fred Whitteld
Speaker 1: said in the documentary the whole event was kept completely
Speaker 1: quiet because of a Jim Crow law prohibited competitions between
Speaker 1: HBCU's and p wis. Even the Durham Police Department never
Speaker 1: found out. This game helped pave the way for how
Speaker 1: modern basketball is played from high school to the NBA.
Speaker 1: Athletes from different backgrounds can compete against each other at
Speaker 1: the highest level without the fear of violence. Quote. History
Speaker 1: will never tell what they really did. It was just
Speaker 1: a ripple in the pond, with Bild said in the film.
Speaker 1: But the fact is that the ripple came and then
Speaker 1: pretty soon it became a title weight. All right, A
Speaker 1: couple of things I want to share here. This game
Speaker 1: came after Duke had won a national championship. So Duke
Speaker 1: was indeed you know that team until they played the
Speaker 1: Black team, and then they found out that they they
Speaker 1: barely got half as many points. Okay, this was back
Speaker 1: when there was no shot clock, and back when games
Speaker 1: were very low scoring. And so when we talk about
Speaker 1: how this this game fundamentally changed how basketball's played, that's
Speaker 1: one of the things to know. Nowadays there's sort of
Speaker 1: a razzle dazzle style of play. John mcclinnon from the
Speaker 1: North Carolina College for Negroes. He's known as the author
Speaker 1: of the fast Break. As I mentioned, games used to
Speaker 1: be very low scoring, but Duke ultimately borrowed the style
Speaker 1: of play from the North Carolina College for Negroes. And
Speaker 1: then you know, because they regularly used to score one
Speaker 1: hundred point games, once even having one hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: point game, they ultimately again changed the course of basketball.
Speaker 1: So if you're a basketball fan, this game has ties
Speaker 1: to perhaps why you love the game in the first place. Yes,