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Bill Collins made a courageous stand against racism at the 1969 Liberty Bowl, facing down an all-white Alabama team alone during the coin toss.Deion Sanders has a personal connection to Collins through gospel singer Kirk Franklin, whose wife is Collins’ daughter.Sanders talked about Collins, who died on July 31, during his Aug. 8 preseason news conference.
Colorado football coach Deion Sanders took some time out from his preseason news conference Friday Aug. 8 to honor a Black former Colorado player who made a courageous stand against an all-white Alabama team at the 1969 Liberty Bowl in Memphis.
That player was Bill Collins, who died July 31 in Dallas after a long battle with cancer. He was 76.
Collins played defensive tackle for the Buffaloes and was Colorado’s first Black captain for a full season. But what he’s best known for as a Buff is what he did before the Liberty Bowl at a time of heightened racial tension in the Deep South.
“He represented the Buffs at the pregame coin toss alone, and Alabama, yet to integrate, sent more than 40 players to the coin toss to try to intimidate him,” Sanders said. “And it didn’t work. CU won, 47-33.”
The university posted an obituary of Collins on Aug. 4 that described it as perhaps the “bravest moment in University of Colorado athletic history.”
Alabama had an all-white team back then and sent 40 white players to midfield for the pregame coin toss in Memphis, where civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated the previous year.
The Buffs…
Source link : https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/big12/2025/08/09/deion-sanders-colorado-football-bill-collins-alabama-liberty-bowl/85590974007/
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Publish date : 2025-08-09 19:11:00
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