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This chapter turns to a history of gambling scandals that plagued college football. It shows how gambling in college football has grown steadily from its beginnings in the latter part of the nineteenth century, and this growth, like with college basketball, can be similarly attributed to the new technologies and the socio-economic circumstances of the time. However, despite repeated abuses in recruiting, subsidizing, and academics, the sport escaped the game-fixing scandals that had plagued college basketball. Nonetheless, since the 1990s, college officials, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), and law enforcement at the federal, state, and local levels have investigated and indicted an increasing number of college football players who have bet on sports, in some cases against their own teams.

This chapter examines the beginnings of college football at HBCUs from the late nineteenth century through the 1930s. Black college football started as a separate institution distinct, yet similar, to the game played at predominately white institutions. This chapter uses Gaither’s early biography to examine how the pieces of the sporting congregation came together to support Black college football.

This chapter discusses the case of Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma v. National Collegiate Athletic Association. Arguments in the case focused on whether the NCAA was acting illegally under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890 by monopolizing all college football television contracts. In September 1982, Judge Juan Burciaga of the Federal District Court for Western Oklahoma decided in favor of the plaintiffs, concluding that the NCAA was a “classic cartel. ... exercising almost absolute control over the supply of college football which is made available to the networks, to television advertisers, and ultimately to the viewing public.” The judge concluded that the NCAA violated antitrust law by acting in restraint of trade in three ways: fixing prices of telecasts; creating boycotts of networks excluded from its contracts and threatening boycotts of its own members that might engage in alternative television contracts; and placing an artificial limit on televised college football. The NCAA took the case to the Supreme Court. However, on June 27, 1984, the Supreme Court upheld verdicts of the District and Appeals Courts.

As they pursue learning away from home, family, and friends, college students are left on their own. Naturally, students seek other young, kindred spirits. College campuses promote social bonding, cultural growth, and self-development by holding a host of events such as games, sports, rituals, and festivals. In the old-time college, students typically take charge of their festive needs as members of a select society, but those in the modern mega-university are monitored by administrators. Among the holidays and events celebrated on many campuses are the Halloween, Christmas, Founder’s Day or Charter Day, spring festivals (known as “riots,” “rites,” “flings,” “fevers,” and “storms”), ritual tree plantings, May Day, and college football. In addition, students engage in festivities by drinking alcoholic beverages, disregarding the efforts of universities to curb drinking on campus. Whereas men participate in killer games and tugs-of-war, women maintain their share of customs through artistry and creativity.

The post-World War II period began the highwater mark for Black college football generally and Florida A&M specifically. Gaither returned to coaching in 1945 after brain surgery. FAMU expanded its sporting congregation through the development of a coaching clinic, which began to place alumni as head coaches at a majority Florida’s segregated high schools. The Orange Blossom Classic moved to Miami, becoming the preeminent black college classic. HBCU student enrollment grew rapidly after the war, allowing public HBCUs to displace private HBCUs as the leading athletic programs. Gaither began to emerge as a leading head football coach through the development of his Split Line-T offense and by utilizing changes to college football substitutions rules to create separate “Blood, Sweat, and Tears” units.

Football’s growth accelerates after World War I, influenced by increased exposure and participation during the war and by increased and new forms of media coverage. Colleges go on a stadium-building boom, with more than fifty permanent concrete stadiums built during the 1920s. But Camp is unhappy about what he calls the “over-organization” of college football in which resources are concentrated on the football team rather than applied to benefit the whole student body, all of whom he believes should have an opportunity to participate in athletic sports or other forms of physical exercise. He does continue to name an All-America team in Collier’s Weekly and also writes a weekly sports column in the magazine for a year during 1923 and 1924.

This chapter examines the development of Florida A&M’s football program. From its beginnings in 1896 through the early 1930s, FAMU’s football teams were not very good. Ironically, FAMU’s football program improved during the Great Depression to propel the football program forward. Notably, FAMU launched its Orange Blossom Classic football game in 1933. This was followed by the hiring of William Bell as head coach in 1936, and Gaither as an assistant coach in 1937.

This chapter analyses the effects of FAMU’s struggles in 1964 and 1965 during the opening years of athletic integration in the South. Additionally, the Black Power movement challenged Gaither’s conservatism on racial issues. Gaither and other HBCU coaches pursued playing predominately white colleges as a means to counter the expected effects of desegregation. Gaither believed that open competition would show that FAMU was the best team in Florida.

This chapter discusses the racial integration of college sports starting in the 1950s. The racial integration of teams, accelerating in the North and beginning in the South, altered the quality of games as well as the composition of rosters. By the 1970s, football and track squads contained two dozen or more black athletes, and on some basketball teams blacks constituted a majority. To a considerable extent, the opening up of these rosters spelled the decline—or at least inability to compete at the highest levels—of historically black college teams. Meanwhile, coaches, though they lost some of the battles against assertive black athletes, and though their sensitivities on race matters were raised, most often emerged with their authority not only intact but enhanced by control of scholarships and by increasingly independent athletic departments. The college athletic enterprise was opening a new playbook in which money and media would be involved as never before.

This chapter examines the recent trends in gambling and fixing in college football. Despite the passing of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (also known as the Bradley Act) in 1992, betting on sports has become a more serious problem than drug or alcohol abuse in educational institutions from elementary schools to college campuses. Included in this alarming trend are bookmaking operations run by between one and fifty students on college campuses. And because gambling has become so widespread in the country, most people do not take seriously the legal ban on sports betting. However, the chapter shows that, despite the decline in major gambling scandals in recent years, game rigging and other illegal gambling ventures still occur, echoing the patterns of previous decades.

During World War II, the FAMU football program faced challenges from the growing war effort, which drafted increasing numbers of faculty, staff, and students. Head Coach William Bell volunteered for services after the 1942 season, leaving the program reeling. Additionally, Gaither was diagnosed with two cancerous brain tumors in the spring of 1942. Gaither and the FAMU football program survived through war’s end.

Chinn ended up leaving Centre to follow his football coach after the atmosphere at the college dissatisfied him. The two went first to Bucknell and then to North Carolina. Chinn effectively became head coach of the Catawba College football program, gaining a good reputation and becoming successful. However, he left for Kentucky after only a few seasons in order to open a business. He dynamited a natural cave on his property right off the interstate to create a bar (during Prohibition) called Chinn’s Cave House. The establishment had a gas station outside and a firing range and slot machines inside. Chinn’s reputation brought in customers to the business he ran with his wife, Cotton. The firing range was a later addition, prompted by Chinn’s continued interest in firing arms. As World War II approached, this interest brought the government’s attention to him.

Host lost the broadcast rights for University of Kentucky sports in 1980, so he turned his attention to other ventures. He met with the athletic directors of the Southwest Conference (including Frank Broyles and Darrell Royal), and by the end of the meeting, they had asked Host’s company to operate the SWC Radio Network. The SWC Network was a resounding success, but Texas A&M football coach Jackie Sherrill led a successful campaign to end the network, allowing the larger universities in the conference to keep more broadcasting revenue. Host then signed a deal with athletic director DeLoss Dodds to control the broadcast and media rights for the University of Texas, and he rapidly expanded the commercial appeal of Texas athletics. Host continued to work with the NCAA and the NTBA. The NCAA struggled for control of college athletics with the College Football Association, which resulted in the 1984 Supreme Court decision in NCAA v. Board of Regents. The NTBA faced deregulation by the federal government, which resulted in a name change to the National Tour Association, larger membership in the organization, and increased revenue.