Jerry Harkness, 1940 - 2021

Jerry Harkness, who passed away last week at the age of 81, was captain of the 1963 Loyola Ramblers, the only Illinois team (so far) to win the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament. He was also a first-team All-American, a member of the College Basketball Hall of Fame, a successful businessman, and a civil-rights activist. He and the other starters on the 1963 Ramblers team—John Egan, Les Hunter, Ron Miller, and Vic Rouse—earned eleven college degrees among them.

  

JERRY HARKNESS

The Ramblers’ march through the 1963 tournament included a win over the Fighting Illini in the Elite Eight, followed by victories over No. 2-ranked Duke and No. 1 Cincinnati in the Final Four. But it was their defeat of Mississippi State in the Sweet Sixteen that has gone down in history.

Not only was Mississippi State an all-white institution at the time, but its athletic teams were forbidden by tradition to even play against integrated teams. Accordingly, the Maroons had declined invitations to the tournament in 1961 and 1962. 

“I think that Mississippi State wants to play us,” Harkness said when the matchup was set. “If they don’t, they’ll never know how good they are.” Harkness was right. Coach Babe McCarthy and the Maroons kept their date with Loyola on March 15 in East Lansing, Michigan, even though they literally had to sneak out of Mississippi to do so.

The Maroons were scheduled to fly from Starkville, Mississippi, to East Lansing on Thursday morning, March 14. On Wednesday, a state legislator obtained an injunction prohibiting the team from leaving the state. That night, coach McCarthy and several other officials drove from Starkville to Memphis, then flew to Nashville. On Thursday morning, the Hinds County sheriff showed up at the Starkville airport to enforce the injunction. The injunction was duly served—to the Maroons’ freshman team, which had been sent to the airport as a decoy. The varsity team had already left from a small private airport. They met up with McCarthy and the others in Nashville, then continued on to East Lansing.

“We wanted to play,” Mississippi State guard Leland Mitchell said. “We had just won the SEC championship for the third year in a row and we hadn’t been allowed to play in the NCAA tournament the past two years. For us, the biggest thing was getting the opportunity to play in the tournament because it was something we felt we deserved.”

THE PRE-GAME HANDSHAKE.

The game attracted an overflow crowd of 12,143 at Michigan State’s Jenison Fieldhouse. When Harkness and his counterpart Joe Dan Gold shook hands at center court before the game, they created a sensation. “The flashbulbs just went off unbelievably,” Harkness said, “and at that time, boy, I knew this was more than just a game. This was history being made.”

Mississippi State came in with a record of 21-5. The Maroons were a methodical, disciplined team whose tallest starter was only six-foot-five. The Ramblers also were undersized (the lithe, six-foot-seven Hunter was their tallest starter), but their athleticism made up for what they lacked in height and heft.

From the opening tip, Mississippi State did everything but deflate the basketball in order to slow the pace. The Maroons held Loyola off the scoreboard for almost six minutes as they crept out to a 7-0 lead. A pair of three-point plays by Harkness jump-started the Ramblers, and strong rebounding by Hunter and Rouse carried them to a 26-19 edge at halftime. In the second half, the Maroons patiently stuck to their plan on offense, allowing 90 seconds or so to elapse in each possession before taking a shot (there was no shot clock in those days) and not attempting any shot that was closely contested.

Mississippi State was poised and determined throughout, but ultimately Loyola’s relentlessness proved too much to overcome. “We don’t let up,” said coach George Ireland. The Ramblers won 61-51. Harkness tallied 20 points, Rouse 16 points and 19 rebounds, and Hunter 12 points and 10 rebounds. 

 In later years, as the Ramblers looked back across the decades to the dream season of 1963, their stirring comeback victory over Cincinnati in the title game was a fond memory, of course. But the game against Mississippi State was probably more meaningful in the long run. “In a game like that you have two winners,” Harkness said. “Mississippi State made a statement to the community that broke down some of the barriers, and we played a part in it.”

 

 

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