by Diane Brady
Brooks had come to firmly believe that simply opening the doors of Holy Cross was no longer sufficient. He began calling for “affirmative action”—a term that had first come into official use in 1961, when President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order 10925. Kennedy had initially wanted job applicants to be treated the same, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin. Over the course of the decade, though, the debate had shifted from the desire to be color-blind to a growing belief that equality could only be possible if society addressed the obstacles that were holding some groups back, and acknowledged the advantages that had pushed others forward. That discussion helped to set in place the argument, which Brooks embraced, that characteristics like race should be given extra consideration in any decision—that, all things being equal, the decision should rule in favor of the group that had traditionally had fewer advantages and been underrepresented.
Brooks wanted Holy Cross to go beyond that and acknowledge that black students rarely had the same advantages as the white students in terms of schools, access to resources, or even time to study. Instead of failing black students who struggled, Brooks argued, the college should work with them to help them succeed. His stance was controversial among some of his colleagues, who thought it undermined his earlier insistence that Holy Cross was admitting the same caliber of students, black and white. But Brooks wanted the students to receive extra consideration, not lower standards. Although Holy Cross may have accepted more than three dozen black applicants for the fall of 1969, he made it clear that he had also turned several away. In one letter to an aspiring recruit, Brooks wrote that “in all fairness and justice to you, it must be said that your chances of succeeding at Holy Cross are impossible, insofar as one can reasonably judge, due to the lack of adequate academic preparation and background.” He suggested that the teen go to a junior college for two years and then apply for a transfer to Holy Cross if his grades were sufficiently high.
President Swords’s views on the subject of race had also developed, being shaped in part by his many discussions with Brooks. In a commencement address at Suffolk University, he spoke out against what he saw as modern-day segregation. “A black man lives in an old and decrepit city in housing barely within his means, surrounded by white suburbs with two-acre minimum zoning or other equally effective devices to exclude the disadvantaged.” Swords argued that “unless we are willing to adopt a policy of dispersal of blacks into our white suburbs, the drift toward apartheid and racial trouble will continue.”
As race became a more common topic of discussion on campus, students seemed to become both easily offended and quick to offend. While students were complaining about “the Man” and “the Establishment,” alumni were approaching Brooks with their concerns about the “Negro agenda” and how it might affect the school. The black students began to take offense at the word Negro, a term that a growing number of activists felt carried the stigma of slavery and oppression. Some white students asked Brooks why such a small percentage of the student population was getting such an outsized share of attention. As one young man later recalled, the dean told him that what benefited the black students would ultimately benefit every student at Holy Cross, from broader courses to a richer mix of experiences, and that whatever lifted and unified the black community would benefit the country.
That was a little harder to see with the black corridor. The Inter-House Council, which oversaw residential matters, had designated the corridor as an “experiment,” issuing a statement to say that it would likely offer “opportunity for an increased social life and a more relevant atmosphere for social activity which the white student might take for granted.” Privately Brooks feared the new corridor would in fact ostracize black students from a wider campus community, although he still stood firmly by his decision. It could be, and was, portrayed as yet another special perk for the blacks—a sign that they didn’t particularly want to mix with their classmates. And that impression wasn’t entirely unfounded. One unnamed black student summed up the sentiments of some of his hallmates in a yearbook note, stating that the black corridor “mitigated the devastating effect of the alienation which not only affected our academic lives, but our entire metaphysical being.”
The black students returning for their second year at Holy Cross were struck by the change in the campus atmosphere. Stan Grayson marveled at the number of black faces on campus. He felt a little less like an oddity, a little less noticed as he walked around. Furthermore, he was anticipating a good basketball season: He was going to be among the starting five on the varsity team. The year before, the Crusaders had been on a hot streak under Coach Donohue, defeating teams like Syracuse and Georgetown. But the team also had a tendency to choke as the stakes rose. By the final weeks of the 1968–69 season, the team had racked up a strong record of 16 wins and 5 losses—only to lose three consecutive home games and their spot in the playoffs. Grayson hoped he could change their luck this year.
Grayson was also excited to be moving in with his friends on the corridor, including his white roommate from first year, Tom Fulham. Eddie Jenkins and Ted Wells were rooming together, while Ed Jones was living with Gil Hardy. Clarence Thomas, after all his opposition to the idea of a black corridor, had decided to join them and was across the hall with his white roommate from the previous year, John Siraco. There were ten white students living in the new residence. Art Martin, along with his white track co-captain Nicholas E. Ryan, Jr., were assigned to be resident assistants on the corridor.
Some of the BSU members ribbed Thomas about his move onto the corridor, given his earlier protests. He justified his decision by saying that it was important to show solidarity within the group. Even so, a handful of black students had chosen to live somewhere else. One junior, Malcolm Joseph, was viscerally repelled by the idea of living in a black residence. His father had fought in a segregated army unit during World War II and had talked often about feeling like a second-class citizen. Joseph was happy to be back on campus, having almost quit the year before because of a lack of funds, only to have Brooks find a way to put him on a full scholarship for the remainder of his time at Holy Cross.
For Brooks, one of the biggest highlights of the fall was the start of football season. He was among the growing number of faculty who were raising questions about the cost of maintaining Holy Cross’s football program—the view was even shared by some students—but he rarely missed a home game. He had come of age at a time when the franchise was a source of pride. As an undergraduate in 1942, Brooks had seen Holy Cross demolish undefeated Boston College in a 55–12 upset, and he looked back on that season with nostalgia.
The Holy Cross team’s recent record was abysmal, which had not helped the team gain support from an administration looking to trim costs. In the fall of 1969, though, everyone was feeling hopeful. Coach Bill Whitton had replaced Boisture, and the players who had circulated a petition the previous year to protest the way the team was being run had come back to school with a renewed sense of purpose. They were determined to improve on the embarrassing record of the 1968–69 season, which had ended with 3 victories, 6 losses, and 1 tie. There was excitement about the newcomers to the varsity team: Crossroads alumni magazine described Eddie Jenkins as having the potential to develop into “one of HC’s best [running] backs of all time.” Prospects looked bright for a winning season, led by co-captains Bill Moncevicz and Tom Lamb. Moncevicz, an offensive lineman, was determined to make his mark before graduating in the spring; his father, Hipolit Moncevicz, had played on the winning 1935 Crusaders team.
As he had the previous year, Jenkins showed up early to start training on August 28. Despite all the optimism, he knew that some players had expressed concern about whether Whitton was the right man to revive the team’s fortunes. Whitton had a sharp wit about him and showed a deep knowledge of the game, but he had been a top assistant at Princeton for fourteen years—a long time to have been relegated to a supportive role. Still, Jenkins was flattered whe
n Whitton recognized his abilities as a ballcarrier and decided to make him the only sophomore in the starting lineup.
As the football season began, national and local media outlets were pondering the possible return of Holy Cross as a power in intercollegiate football. The team was looking especially strong on offense. Then the team’s prospects took a drastic turn. Just days before the September 27 season opener against Harvard, a sophomore defensive end, Bob Cooney, developed a fever and aches. Everyone assumed it was some kind of twenty-four-hour bug. That evening Cooney tried to flush out his system with glass after glass of water. By the end of the night he was nauseated and reluctantly checked himself into the Holy Cross infirmary a few hours before the Harvard game.
Meanwhile, the team traveled to Cambridge to face off against the Crimson. Jenkins was in good spirits, but he wasn’t feeling as energized as he normally did before games. He had been killing himself in practice lately and working hard to keep up with schoolwork, partly to keep pace with his roommate Ted Wells, so his fatigue felt justified. As the team dressed for the game, the locker room was oddly quiet. Players sat warming up their necks and arms as if they were trying to ward off muscle aches, yet the game had not even started.
The Harvard team was the co-defending champion of the Ivy League, but the Crusaders managed to give them a tough run. By halftime, Harvard had a 7–0 lead on its home turf. Holy Cross was still very much in the game, but the lethargy of the visiting players was obvious. Bill Whitton stood at the edge of the field, looking confused. The Holy Cross team needed work, especially on defense, but the players should have been performing at a higher level. As Whitton later told reporters, “we are not as slow a team as we looked.” Harvard won, 13–0.
Jenkins thought he had caught the flu. Meanwhile, in the infirmary, Cooney was getting worse and now had jaundice. When a doctor came to see him on the Monday after the Harvard game, he took one look at the feverish player and diagnosed him with hepatitis. Back on the corridor, Jaffe Dickerson was lying in bed, feeling miserable. The coach had complimented him on his agility and speed, so it was infuriating when he noticed that he wasn’t moving as fast as he normally did. When the whites of his eyes began to turn yellow, he knew he was getting sick. By the middle of the week, eight of the players had been admitted to the infirmary.
On October 4, the Crusaders headed off to Hanover, New Hampshire, to play Dartmouth College. Even if Holy Cross had been in top form, the game against Dartmouth would have been a challenge. Brooks felt compelled to travel the two and a half hours to the game; he was worried about the team and wanted to show his support. Whitton brought more players on the bus than usual, in case some of them got sick.
The game began badly. Once the play commenced, the Holy Cross players started to literally drop on the field. Some were knocked down and didn’t get up; others just dropped onto all fours and stayed there. Jenkins watched his teammates collapsing on the sidelines or crawling off the field on their hands and knees; several of them were too weak to walk. Jenkins was still standing, as were most of the larger players, but the Holy Cross team was disintegrating around him. One of the Dartmouth players approached Jenkins to ask what was going on with his teammates. Jenkins just shook his head. The final tally was Dartmouth 38, Holy Cross 6. Brooks was amazed that Holy Cross had managed to score at all.
By the time the Crusaders returned to the bus, fourteen players were visibly ill. Even the coaches looked woozy. Back at Holy Cross, everyone on the team was tested for hepatitis. A total of twenty players were seriously sick, and fifty-five others who worked on or around the team seemed likely to develop the disease. Even the team’s coaches, managers, and PR rep tested positive. A total of ninety-seven people were in danger of developing infectious hepatitis. Yet not a single student, faculty member, or employee not associated with the team had fallen ill.
Brooks and the athletic director reluctantly agreed that there was no choice: On October 6, Holy Cross announced that it was canceling the football season. The players didn’t have the energy to practice, never mind compete in the remaining eight games. Brooks also argued that if the team continued with its season, there was a risk that the bizarre epidemic might spill into the general college population. According to a piece that ran a day later in The New York Times, it was only the second time in modern football history that a team had “been forced to cancel its schedule because of misfortune.” The Journal of the American Medical Association later said that thirty-two members of the Holy Cross varsity team had hepatitis with jaundice while fifty-eight people had contracted the illness without signs of jaundice. Only seven of the team members weren’t infected.
On the night that the season was canceled, Brooks went to visit the infirmary, where twenty-three men were recuperating; two others were in a local hospital. As Brooks stood in the hallway speaking to a player, the young man slid down the wall and collapsed on the floor. Others could barely open their eyes and struggled to raise their heads from their pillows as Brooks stopped to check on them. Eddie Jenkins had fallen ill, too, and was quarantined with other players in a dormitory for a few weeks. Jaffe Dickerson was battling one of the worst cases on the team and began to question whether he even wanted to continue playing football at Holy Cross.
The team was moved by the responses from other schools. The players at Sacramento State dedicated their season to the Holy Cross team. They wore the Crusaders’ purple jerseys and flew the Holy Cross co-captains out to California for their final game. Other teams, including Boston College, sent the school money to help compensate for lost ticket sales. Brooks encouraged Holy Cross students to show their support by attending the freshman team’s four games in Worcester. But without the advantage of regular scrimmages with the varsity players, the freshman team only won a single game that season.
Holy Cross invited public health officials and specialists to campus to investigate the causes of the outbreak but it took almost a year to figure it out. There was a family living in a condemned house near the practice field, in which one adult and four children had been diagnosed with infectious hepatitis. The children liked to use the practice field as a playground, and they sometimes urinated on the field and bathed in the water that accumulated around the faucets.
That alone shouldn’t have caused an outbreak, but on August 29, 1969, firefighters had been called to put out a fire in a tenement building in downtown Worcester. When they opened two water hydrants, the water pressure on the football team’s practice hill dropped, allowing the hepatitis-infected groundwater to seep into submerged pipes near the field. With the extreme heat the day of the fire, most of the Holy Cross players drank several times from the infected faucets. The coaches also used the water to make “cactus juice”—a mixture of vinegar, minerals, and salt that was similar to the University of Florida’s new invention, Gatorade, named after the Gators football team. Everyone who drank water from the hose that Friday afternoon fell ill.
For public health officials, the epidemic was a fascinating and disturbing mystery. For the players, it was a bitter disappointment. As he tried to adjust to the idea of a year without football, the lingering question for Eddie Jenkins was whether it would have a lasting impact on his career. Robbed of an entire season of play, and struggling to recover in the fall of 1969, he wondered if his NFL dreams were now dashed. As a sophomore player, he’d have two more years to prove himself. In the meantime, he now had the time and the incentive to turn his attention to other parts of campus life.
EIGHT
Freedom and War
Throughout the fall of 1969, Father Brooks was struck by the changes in the black students who’d arrived a year before. He knew that most of them were young men on whom a lot of pressure had been placed, often the first in their families to attend college. Having survived a tough freshman year, they now acted in one of two ways: Some had coped with the isolation and stress they felt by turning away from their studies, and others had stepped up their game. Brooks kept a close eye on t
he students who were falling behind. He solicited feedback from their professors, trying to find time to talk with them on campus or gently pushing the president to invite them to dinner to boost their morale. One black student even recalls the dean encouraging an underperforming roommate to remain active in antiwar protests, even complimenting him for speaking up against a U.S. policy that Brooks agreed was wrong, while also advising the young man that the best way to promote social justice was to become a successful role model for others. “Don’t forget why you’re here,” Brooks had said. The dean also kept note of who appeared to be doing well, not just in class—grades were important but not sufficient to turn young men into leaders, in his view—but in the other aspects of campus life. He was pleased to see that Ed Jones and Clarence Thomas were writing for The Crusader, and he thought the entire student body would benefit from the growing vibrancy of the BSU on campus, now led largely by Ted Wells as Art Martin tried to focus on his senior year of study.
Several changes had made the men feel more welcome, from the increased numbers of black students on campus to efforts, however mild, aimed at increasing awareness of the black experience through the curriculum. For the men who had been recruited to Holy Cross the year before, though, the critical difference was the chance to live together on the top floor of Healy Hall. The black corridor was both an oasis and a unifying force for its residents. While Brooks continued to face blistering criticism from some colleagues for having supported a segregated residence, he had grown less bothered by it once he saw the benefits. He sensed that most people on campus now sympathized with the desire of the black students to create a place of their own within Holy Cross. The Jesuits shared a common residence; the black students had a right to forge a closer community. More important, those living on the corridor seemed notably happier about living at Holy Cross. Clarence Thomas was privately relieved about his decision to join the experiment. The fact that his sophomore roommate, John Siraco, and several other white students were also living on the corridor had made it easier to justify moving there himself. Even so, the overall vibe was decidedly black, and that’s what Thomas liked. It was, as he put it, comfortable and a place where he felt he belonged. There were pictures of black leaders and symbols of black power on the students’ doors. The music drifting into the halls was more Motown than Haight-Ashbury, with Marvin Gaye and the Temptations occasionally battling with Jenkins’s Nancy Wilson tunes. For the first time in his memory, Thomas felt he didn’t have to explain himself to anyone or live under the watchful eye of other people. He continued to be more focused on his schoolwork than on having fun—the most predictable part of Ed Jones’s day soon became seeing Thomas returning home a few minutes after the library had closed at 11 P.M.—but he now found himself connecting with men other than his roommate, standing in the hallway to share a laugh with Gil Hardy or complain about his lack of money.
