SEC to commemorate barrier breaker today
The Southeastern Conference today will recognize the 50th anniversary of Kentucky’s Nate Northington becoming the first black player to participate in a varsity football game between two league teams.
On Sept. 30, 1967, Northington was a defensive back during a 26-13 loss to Ole Miss in Lexington.
The SEC will commemorate the milestone with a one-minute video message that will be shown during every league game, including Georgia-Tennessee on CBS and all of the games on the various ESPN platforms, which includes the SEC Network. The video is titled “Together, It Just Means More,” and it will include a tribute to Northington as well as Vanderbilt’s Perry Wallace, who broke the color barrier in SEC men’s basketball on Dec. 2, 1967, when he played against SMU.
Northington and Wallace are 69 years old now.
“The seeds of change planted by these men and so many others have blossomed today into hundreds of opportunities in every SEC sport and in the academic programs of our universities,” league commissioner Greg Sankey said in a release. “Those who endured in the early moments of change serve as reminders of our mutual responsibility to support opportunities for today’s young people, make certain we foster
their education and graduation and bring together our communities through our universities and athletics programs.”
Northington was from Louisville, Ky., and he enrolled at Kentucky in 1966 along with another black player, Greg Page, a defensive end from Middlesboro, Ky. Northington and Page starred for Kentucky’s freshman team in 1966, but Page injured
his neck during preseason camp in 1967 and died the night before Northington played against the Rebels.
A week before the Ole Miss-Kentucky game, Northington made his varsity debut in a 12-10 loss at Indiana.