The Day in Sports : COUNTDOWN TO 2000 / A day-by-day recap of some of the most important sports moments of the 20th Century: SEPT. 12, 1970 : These USC Players Broke Through the Line

It was shortly after USC’s football team, led by a 6-foot-3 sophomore fullback named Sam Cunningham, had thumped Alabama, 42-21, in Birmingham.

Talking to an Alabama reporter moments after the game, Alabama Coach Bear Bryant, referring to Cunningham, an African American, said: “That young man in three hours did more for integration of the South than Martin Luther King did in 20 years.”

Then Bryant asked his old friend, USC Coach John McKay, if he could “borrow” Cunningham.

“Just for a few minutes, not the whole season,” McKay quipped.

Bryant took Cunningham into the downcast Alabama locker room and asked him to stand on a bench.

He told his players: “Gentlemen, this is what a football player looks like. All of you line up and shake his hand.”

And they did. And that was the end of all-white Alabama football teams.

USC’s wasn’t the first team with black players Alabama had played, but it was the first with many outstanding African Americans. That game, played before a stunned crowd of 72,175, was effectively the breakaway point for all-white Southern football teams.

Cunningham, quarterback Jimmy Jones, tailback Clarence Davis and defenders Charlie Weaver, Willie Hall and Tody Smith were the standouts as the Trojans rolled up 559 yards to Alabama’s 264.

USC quieted the crowd early, moving 53 yards for a score on its first possession, the touchdown coming when Cunningham, on a 22-yard burst, knocked over three Alabama tacklers.

USC gained 485 yards on the ground, Alabama 32. Seven Trojan backs had more rushing yards than Alabama. Cunningham ran 13 times for 135 yards and two touchdowns.

The next season, Bryant had two black players on his team.

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Also on this date: In 1901, Baltimore’s “Iron Man” Joe McGinnity, for the second time in nine days, pitched both ends of a doubleheader, beating Philadelphia in the opener and losing the nightcap. . . . In 1954, the New York Yankees’ string of five World Series trips was ended in Cleveland. A crowd of 84,587 watched the Indians sweep New York in a doubleheader, hiking the Indians’ record to 104-40 and an 8 1/2-game lead over the Yankees.