Pete Eikenberry
As I turned on my television on Super Bowl Sunday a couple of years ago, there was a discussion between a commentator and a professor from Southern California about the event of two Black quarterbacks starting the game. The professor said that there would be more Black quarterbacks and other Black players if it were not for “stacking.” (Stacking is a practice, e.g., where Black players on a football team may not be permitted to play certain positions including quarterback and offensive line.)
My friend Mel Reddick told me about stacking in the late 1960s. He was, in those days, the all-time leading wide receiver at the University of Wisconsin. In early 1968, his Black teammates came to him to ask him to speak to the university administration on their behalf about stacking and other issues of concern to them.
Mel did approach the university, and later, in the National Football League draft, Mel was blackballed, and, thus, not selected. The Kansas City coach did invite Mel to training camp, but only tried Mel at defensive backfield – not as wide receiver. While trying out for a position he had never played, Mel injured his left knee. For as long as I knew him, he always had a very stiff left knee. When I sat with him at basketball games, he had an aisle seat where he could stretch out his leg.
After college, Mel went to law school and became a lawyer at Columbia Records, a client of mine when I met him in the mid 1970s. We worked together on CBS Records cases until he also established his own practice. Mel thereafter referred litigation clients to me, whom he otherwise represented. For decades, we each bought season tickets to Knicks games and arranged for our seats to be next to each other.
When I heard the term “stacking” on that recent Super Bowl Sunday, I called Mel, and his wife Gloria answered. She told me Mel was in a bad way from Parkinson’s Disease and in a hospital in Queens. Gloria said that they had been college sweethearts – married their whole lives and that Mel was a wonderful human being. Though he was not great at getting paid, his hand was always out for everyone. She told me of the example of a young man from a rap group who had a drug problem. Mel invited him to stay with them to help him to try to get straight, and he lived with them for several months. Though Mel was hospitalized on that Super Bowl Sunday, I was able to see him and talk to Gloria.
Thereafter, I did research on 1968 University of Wisconsin events involving Mel. In approximately January 1968, 18 Black Wisconsin University football players acting through Mel submitted a list of grievances to the university’s administration. As of the date of the Wisconsin November 1968 33rd Annual Football Dinner, the players were still unsatisfied with the university’s response and boycotted the dinner. A university official stated the problems raised by the players as follows:
[A]n alleged shortage of counseling; stacking of black players at one position, [and] the need for a five- year scholarship program to allow athletes to remain in school until graduation after their eligibility had expired.
The players asked for Black counselors to counsel them up to academic course levels that could lead them to being qualified for post-graduate education. At the time, counseling was primarily aimed at helping them keep their grades up enough for them to be eligible to play. Thus, reportedly, they were often encouraged to take more phys ed type courses and fewer academic subjects. After they exhausted eligibility, they were left without scholarship funds to complete their studies for a degree.
The boycott was widely reported, and Mel’s photo was, thus, widely displayed nationwide. He did play football again his senior year, but not basketball. Although Mel had been recruited for football, he was an Illinois “all state” basketball player who averaged more than 30 points a game his last two years. Though Mel was a basketball regular at Wisconsin his sophomore year, the coach rarely played him his junior year after he and his football player colleagues had complained about stacking in football. Also, there apparently was also an unwritten rule that no more than three Black basketball players could be on the floor at the same time. Reportedly at one game, a white man came from the stands and talked to the coach when four Black players were on the floor. Immediately thereafter, the coach removed one of the four from the game. Thus, Mel chose to “concentrate on his studies” rather than to play basketball his senior year.
As the result of the boycott and the appeal by the Black football players, the university did agree to properly counsel Black athletes and to arrange low cost financing for their graduate studies. Mel benefited from the counseling and from a low interest loan; he was, thus, admitted to and graduated from the university’s law school. Mel was a lawyer who made a difference. In Wisconsin, he helped change discriminatory practices against Black athletes. Also, through national publicity of his leadership of the boycott, he secured national awareness of discriminatory practices against Black athletes. He, however, paid a price in being blackballed by the NFL.