Team of Character

On September 12th, 1970 USC played the University of Alabama in Birmingham on Legion Field. It was the first time an integrated team from outside the state came to Alabama and played against one of the last schools in the country with an all-white squad. The game is thought to have changed college football— however, it wasn't that one game that brought on reform; it was the work of a single man behind the scenes.

Three hundred miles southeast from Birmingham, in Tallahassee, Florida, Jake Gaither was building a powerhouse at Florida A&M University. The son of a preacher, Gaither, decided to impact kids lives as a high school and college football coach, instead of holding sermons.

During World War II, Florida A&M's head coach Bill Bell left his post to serve in the war. This act resulted in the school discontinuing their football program for one season. With the university in search for a candidate to lead the program, school President William H. Gray Jr. reached out to Jake Gaither. Gaither was an assistant on Bell's staff, who three years prior survived a brain tumor. Gaither would take over in the 1945 season and become one of eighty-nine coaches to amass more than 200 college wins.

Gaither instituted an annual coaching clinic in the late 1950s, inviting major college coaches he had befriended at conventions. Alabama's Paul "Bear" Bryant, Arkansas' Frank Broyles, Texas' Darrell Royal, Ohio State's Woody Hayes and Kentucky's Adolph "The Baron" Rupp, were among the many well-known coaches who graced the rosters of the clinic's staff. These clinics provided an opportunity for coaches from all over to come and learn about Coach Gaither's offense but more importantly, about the game of life.

Jake Gaither used learning as a bridge to bring awareness to racial inequality that sweltered the prejudice South. Gaither did not let anything stop him from being a positive difference-maker in the lives of others. His clinics allowed Florida A&M to gain stature outside of the Black College realm. Gaither's servant influence propelled his program into the American sports mainstream. The stage became set for their football games against predominately White programs in the late 1960s and early 1970s which gradually spanned into other sports. This effort on Gaither's part laid the foundation for the advent of Florida A&M and many other HBCU's into NCAA and NAIA membership.

Gaither's strong moral courage was remarkable and more impressive than his 200 wins. Robert F. Kennedy wrote in his Capetown, South Africa "Day of Affirmation" speech address that, "Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change."

While it was painful, Coach Gaither changed the college football world. His willingness to use education and continuous learning as a bridge ultimately formed unique friendships and experiences that challenged individuals to look beyond the obvious and beneath the surface.

Gaither once asserted, ""I run into so many people who have no deep sense of morals -- people who got a price tag on them, who'd sell their soul. I want to find the man who has no price tag on him. I'm not for sale."

Don't be a person for sale today, and don't allow people into your organization that wear a price tag.

Build a team of character, not characters. Be like Coach Gaither!

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