UH made strides toward full-scale racial integration long before Warren McVea was signed as the school’s first black football player in 1964.
UH had integrated its graduate program in 1961 and its undergraduate program in 1963. It was only a matter of time before the Athletics Department followed.
"By 1963, the school had pretty much integrated," said Katy Lopez, author of Cougars of Any Color, a book on the integration of the UH Athletics Department.
"Phillip G. Hoffman, who was UH president at the time, appears to be pretty progressive," she said.
The same could be said for then-football head coach Bill Yeoman and men’s basketball head coach Guy V. Lewis.
Collectively, they made a push to integrate the UH Athletics Department. They did, however, use different methods.
"Yeoman seems to be a bit more cavalier in that he didn’t really ask permission; he just did it," Lopez said. "Lewis went through the proper channels to make sure it was OK."
Yeoman, 80, doesn’t dispute this.
"I really didn’t care (what Athletics officials thought)," he said. "I don’t believe I asked them."
However, Yeoman made his intentions known to Athletics Director Harry Fouke, and the athletics administration approached Hoffman about integrating the department in 1963.
"No one had a problem, so (integration) just quietly went through," Lopez said.
Civil rights pioneers
Integration of the Athletics Department became reality when Lewis signed Louisiana high school stars Elvin Hayes and Don Chaney in spring 1964 and Yeoman inked McVea the following July.
But it was McVea’s signing that drew the most attention because he was the first black to sign with one of Texas’ major football programs. It wasn’t until later that Baylor, Southern Methodist, Texas Christian, Texas Tech, Rice, Texas A’M and Texas opened their doors to black football players.
These schools were all members of the Southwest Conference, which didn’t get its first black football player until John Westbrook walked on as a freshman at Baylor in 1965, sports historian Richard Pennington wrote.
UH didn’t join the SWC until 1976, and doesn’t receive credit for having the league’s first black player. Yeoman, however, said UH deserves recognition for spurring integration in the SWC.
"I die laughing at these guys in the Southwest Conference," he said. "They say, ‘Oh, we were the first in the Southwest Conference’ and, of course, that’s true, but they were second in the state.
"They’d have never done it until someone forced them to. I know them. If we hadn’t done it, I don’t think the Southwest Conference (would have done it for) another five or six years."
McVea gets going
McVea arrived at UH in August 1964 and probably expected to experience some hostility from his teammates, but he said Yeoman knew how to handle the situation.
"When I first got on campus, he made it known like, ‘Hey, don’t mess with this guy, OK? I’m giving you fair warning; don’t mess with this guy,’" McVea, 61, said. "He put it to rest the first day I got there."
Yeoman said he doesn’t remember saying anything to his players about not harassing McVea and that he didn’t have to.
"Everybody knew exactly how I felt; I didn’t have to discuss it," Yeoman said. "I’m sure some of our kids got a little stiff-necked, and so did a lot of people. But I was not hired by a lot of people – I was hired by the people at the University of Houston to win football games. So I was going to do everything I could to win football games."
Still, there was at least one threat made against McVea that season. He later found out that one player, George Nordgren, "had told everybody on the team that when he got his chance, he was going to beat me up."
"He never said nothing to me and I had no idea he felt that way," McVea said. "He probably wasn’t the only one who felt that way."
McVea said his teammates never tried to harm him while Yeoman was around. That changed, however, during one practice that McVea said Yeoman didn’t attend.
"We were running some drills and this guy named Dick Post, after the drill, just laid a shot on me, for no reason," McVea said. "And I’m looking around at the coaches and the defense, and they were like, ‘(Negro), you on your own.’ So, I hit him back. Everybody just stopped like they were in awe.
"Dick Post was one who had got into lifting weights, and everybody was afraid of him. So when I made my move and everybody just stood there, it was like, ‘Damn, I don’t believe this.’ Dick Post just let it go."
Yeoman, however, said he saw the entire incident.
"I didn’t know it was him, but I was there when the crowd gathered," Yeoman said. "But it dispersed in a hurry. You just don’t stick your nose into that stuff. You let the kids handle it."
After practice, McVea had an unexpected visitor.
"George Nordgren, the guy who was talking about (how) he was going to beat me up, came up to me and said, ‘Do you know what the hell you’re doing?’" McVea said. "I said, ‘What do you mean?’ He said, ‘That was Dick Post. He’ll beat you up.’"
Oddly, McVea and Nordgren eventually became good friends and roomed together on road trips.
That was all that came of McVea’s altercation with Post.
"After that day, I never had another problem," McVea said.
