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The accepted narrative in football-crazy Texas is that racial integral came to the state's "national sport" in the mid-1960s, generally associated with Jerry LeVias' celebrated arrival at SMU in Dallas. But the landmark achievement actually took place quietly almost a decade earlier only about an hour north of Dallas. In the town of Denton, two black football players from Dallas' segregated public school system boldly walked on to play for what was then called North Texas State College - known today as the University of North Texas. Abner Haynes and Leon King didn't know what to expect, and neither their dozen or so teammates on North Texas' freshman team.The players' arrival came only a few months after North Texas first welcomed a black undergraduate student in February 1956.



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Jeff Miller



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