Recalling Loyola's dream team

As young men, they kept their eyes on the prize, seldom sneaking peeks at the historical and sociological milestones they passed along the way.

It is only now, as old men, that the members of Loyola's 1963 NCAA championship basketball team see the full scope of what they achieved.

They played with four black starters at a time when most teams never used more than two. They played despite receiving hate mail from the Ku Klux Klan and scarier, in-person abuse from fans at games in southern cities.

They played an NCAA Tournament game against a Mississippi State squad barred by state law from playing integrated teams. They played despite increased pressure from black fans, who, as Loyola's captain Jerry Harkness recalled, "kept telling us, 'You can't lose! You've got to prove something!'Ȧ"

The Ramblers proved plenty that season.

"As you get older, you realize that every year, there's an NCAA champion, but not every year do you get a chance to be involved with history," said Harkness, 67. "When you look at what happened and how it affected America, that gets me more than anything."

The team's impact resonates at Loyola, which will honor all five starters - Harkness, John Egan, Ron Miller, Les Hunter and the late Vic Rouse - from the 1963 squad as part of its 1960s All-Decade team. Loyola will recognize the 12-member team at halftime of Saturday's game against Northern Illinois (7 p.m., Lakeshore Public Television).

For Harkness, every reunion evokes memories of the 1963 season, but the championship game - a 60-58 overtime win against Cincinnati - isn't what first comes to mind. Instead, Harkness recalls the Mississippi State game earlier in the tourney.

A day before Mississippi State was set to travel to East Lansing, Mich., for the matchup, the state issued an injunction preventing the school from participating in the tournament.

But before the injunction could be enforced, the Maroons used an elaborate plan to sneak coach Babe McCarthy and his players out of the state. It involved Mississippi State's freshman team going to the airport near Starkville, Miss., and serving as decoys for the varsity squad, which flew to Nashville, Tenn., the next morning on a private plane. In Nashville, players met McCarthy, who had escaped on his own. Together, they flew to Michigan.

Though the Mississippi Supreme Court nullified the injunction before tipoff, the game drew widespread media attention.

"It's nice to be part of that history," said Egan, the team's only white starter. "We all knew what was going on, but it really didn't make that much difference. You're so into the moment of the game that the political sidelights weren't nearly as important."

Harkness recently reconnected with Joe Dan Gold, the captain for the Mississippi State team. The two men shared their memories of the game.

"We didn't realize it and they didn't, either - the significance," Harkness said. "That was the opening of the deep South starting to play against black ballplayers. We were in the middle of the civil rights movement.

"We were just so proud that we played a part."

The Loyola-Mississippi State game was a precursor to another socially significant matchup three years later, when Texas Western played Kentucky in the national title game. Using an all-black starting five, Texas Western beat the all-white Kentucky team coached by Adolph Rupp, who didn't sign a black player until 1969.

Texas Western's story reached the big screen last year in the movie "Glory Road." Though Harkness enjoyed the film, he thinks Hollywood launched an airball when it comes to Loyola.

"Why do we have to have black against white?" he said. "Our story was so much better because you've got us going through the problems of the South. When we went to New Orleans and we went to Houston, we had problems. And then we have a Mississippi State team, sneaking out.

"We were both battling the situation in a way. It wasn't just blacks beating whites. We both met our glory when we played each other. That's the real good story."

The construction of Loyola's roster was almost as noteworthy as the title run. It started with coach George Ireland, who fell under fire after back-to-back losing seasons in 1958-59 and 1959-60.

Most teams featured just one or two black players, but Ireland began to stockpile them.

"Coach Ireland saw that the future of basketball would be in black players," said Hunter, a 6-foot-7 center.

Hunter and Rouse, teammates at Pearl High School in Nashville, were a package deal. Several schools pursued each player - Hunter received offers from Massachusetts and Tennessee State, among others - but Loyola was the only one that wanted both.

Harkness, a native of the Bronx in New York, ran cross country for his first three years in high school and had a scholarship to St. John's University. Then, before his senior year, he went to the YMCA in Harlem to shoot hoops.

"This guy tells me I'm not that bad, try out for the team and maybe you can get a scholarship," Harkness recalled. "This guy's name is Jackie Robinson."

Harkness starred for Clinton High as a senior and headed for college at Texas Southern, but the dorm where he planned to live burned down. So Ireland took him in.

Egan nearly ended up at Iowa but needed assistance for law school, which Loyola provided. All five starters graduated from Loyola and several earned graduate degrees.

"Nobody's really known, nobody's really that good," Harkness said. "We were just five good players that made an awesome team. That happens sometimes."

Since Loyola and Texas Western, traditional power programs have dominated the NCAA championship. Midmajors have made strides in recent years, culminating with George Mason's Final Four run in 2006, but none has reached the top.

Could it ever happen?

"You can have one guy turn the entire program around," Hunter said. "The only problem is he would have to develop real late, after he's gotten to college, because most really talented players would go to a bigger basketball school.

"You need a diamond in the rough, which is kind of what happened at Loyola."

Egan agrees that a midmajor team could win the title, but it would have to do so with inferior talent.

"With these high school All-American teams, the best players get to meet each other," Egan said. "So they look to each other and say, 'Where you going to school?' And it's generally the bigger schools.

"Back then, it wasn't the case. I had never heard of Hunter, Rouse, Harkness. I don't think they came (to Loyola) because, 'Oh, God, they've got a great recruiting class.' It was the luck of the draw."

Good fortune helped Loyola carve out a place in history.

"This team was a dream team," Harkness said. "It was made from heaven above."

On the Web: For a video archive of the 1963 title game, visit www.ncaasports.