The truth is rarely pure and never simple - Oscar Wilde
Fifty-six years ago next month, our university and state were rocked by the “Black Fourteen” episode – the dismissal of 14 Black football players the week Wyoming was scheduled to play Brigham Young University, owned by the LDS Church.
Head coach Lloyd Eaton dismissed the players for protesting and/or threatening to protest, a tenet of the LDS Church which held that Blacks could not be priests.
Much has been written about the Black 14.
I write this, however, to reveal facts that have been unknown, at least in the context of the Black 14 story. The unknown facts come about for three reasons:
First, after interest in the story faded, those involved continued to talk and write about their experience.
Second, the son of then Wyoming Attorney General James Barrett has provided me with his father’s personal files relating to the Black 14 event.
Finally, I have used my 50 years of experience as an attorney who worked in the field of professional ethics, to apply logic in making permissible inferences and arriving at logical conclusions.
The “rest of the story” centers on three key figures: Coach Lloyd Eaton, Attorney General (later “Judge”) James Barrett, and William Waterman, the chief lawyer representing the Black 14.
In the press, Eaton was denigrated, unfairly in my opinion, while Barrett and Waterman’s roles were largely ignored.
Troubled Times
Tough times never last, but tough people do - Robert H. Schuller
The “Black 14” episode cannot be correctly understood without contextualizing it with the era in which it happened.
It was a turbulent era of protests and riots, of racial animus and anti-war demonstrations. Violence was commonplace. In Detroit, a race riot in the summer of 1967 resulted in 43 deaths and more than 1,200 injuries. Thousands of people were left homeless.
The sports world was not immune from the chaos.
In the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, two San José State University (SJSU) track athletes, at the urging of an SJSU professor, joined an Olympic protest movement he had organized.
Smith and Carlos appeared on the medalists’ podium in Mexico City, each wearing a black glove. While the Star-Spangled Banner was being played, each raised a gloved fist in the black power salute. As a result, Smith and Carlos were suspended from the U.S. team and banned from the Olympic Village.
Their actions were widely viewed across the nation as a disgraceful and dishonorable display that shamed their team as well as their country.
Wyoming was largely immune from the violence, chaos and protests sweeping other areas of the nation. Wyoming’s elected officials were determined to keep it that way and so was Coach Eaton.
“No demonstrations, no factions, and team rules apply to everyone,” were three of the rules he put in place to preserve team unity and avoid the disrespectful demonstration witnessed during the Olympics.
Coach Lloyd Eaton
…all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain, yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it. – Hebrews 12:11
People who knew him agreed Lloyd Eaton was a hard-nosed disciplinarian. He demanded a lot from his players, and he got it. Discipline was and is necessary for success in coaching football.
Eaton was as close to a “native son” football coach as Wyoming has had in the modern era. Born and raised on a hard scrabble farm/ranch in South Dakota’s Northern Black Hills, not far from the Wyoming state line, he went to college at Black Hills State in Spearfish where he excelled in athletics.
Eaton was a Captain in the U.S. Army infantry during WWII and returned from the service to start his coaching career. Eventually, he served as defensive coach under Bob Devaney at Wyoming, and when Devaney left for Nebraska, Eaton rose to the role of head coach.
Coach Eaton took the Pokes to the Sun and Sugar Bowls and during the run-up to the season, his 1969 team was widely believed to be his best.
The Cowboys were 6 and 0 and ranked 12th in the UPI Coaches Poll before the Black 14 episode caught up with them. They lost the last four games along with their national ranking.
Eaton had rules and he enforced them, fairly but firmly. His brand of football, like so many successful coaches of that era, was tough, hard-nosed and no-nonsense. Indeed, disciplinarians Woody Hays and “Bear” Bryant expressed their support for Eaton during the Black 14 controversy.
In 1967, after Wyoming’s victory over Florida State in the Sun Bowl, I was attending law school in Laramie and working for the university. One afternoon I was called to a meeting in the Field House office of the athletic director.
Present were Coach Eaton, his boss, Athletic Director Red Jacoby, the Dean of Men, the head of student housing and me. I learned that Mel Hamilton and Vic Washington had been kicked out of their dormitory. I don’t remember the transgression but I do remember Vic Washington.
In the preceding football season, on my way to Thanksgiving at my family’s ranch in Montana’s upper Yellowstone Valley, I detoured to take in the Wyoming-BYU game in Provo.
With less than a minute left in the game and Wyoming ahead 40-7, BYU scored its second touchdown against the Cowboys’ second and third string, to make the score 40-14. With but seconds left, I was on my way out of the stadium when BYU kicked off. I stopped my exit to watch Vic Washington take the kickoff on the 4-yard line and run it back 96 yards to make the final, 47-14.
Vic’s runback is etched in my memory. He was one of the best football players ever to play at UW.
Eaton’s team rule was that those on athletic scholarship were required to live in the dorms. Because they were kicked out of their dorm, Hamilton and Washington couldn’t comply.
What to do with these two players was the question, and Red Jacoby had an answer. His son was moving out of the basement of his home and Red proposed that the two players live in his basement for the rest of the school year.
Eaton would have none of it.
“Coach” – that was his name for Red – “I’m not going to have one set of rules for the stars of my team and another set for everyone else. The team rules will be applied equally to all and they will be enforced. No exceptions. If Washington and Hamilton can’t keep their noses clean in the dorms, and can’t live there anymore because of their conduct, they’re off the team.”
I was astounded. Not only was Eaton “laying down the gauntlet” with his superior (something I learned was a no-no in the Marine Corps), he was ready to kick the nation’s leading punt returner off his football team.
I don’t remember that Red had a reaction.
There was no further argument about the matter in my presence, and the meeting ended.
Later that day, I learned of a resolution.
The university was opening a mothballed, unoccupied dormitory, Wyoming Hall, capacity 300, and Vic, Mel and I would be the residents.
My job was to monitor Vic and Mel and make sure they didn’t get into any more trouble. If there were problems, I was supposed to let Coach Eaton know. With the resolution, Eaton’s team rules were upheld.
To their credit, Washington and Hamilton were well-behaved in my presence. There was no trouble in Wyoming Hall, though the three of us rolled around the mostly empty space like marbles in a tin cup.
Later that year, Vic punched out a referee in an intramural basketball game.
Vic was unceremoniously kicked off the team and he withdrew from school.
He became a star in the Canadian Football League and later in the NFL.
The takeaway from my experience was that Wyoming had a football coach who put principle ahead of expediency. Team rules applied to all, and discipline was enforced.
That was vintage Coach Eaton.
Judge James Barrett
The first duty of man is the seeking after and the investigation of truth - Cicero
“Barrett” is a historically significant name in Wyoming. Jim Barrett grew up in Lusk, the son of Frank and Alice Barrett. Frank was the only Wyomingite to serve the state as congressman, governor and senator.
Jim was the right age for WWII and found himself in the Army. He landed at Normandy on D-Day +2, assigned to the headquarters of 1st Army commanded by General Omar Bradly.
After VE day, Jim joined his parents in Washington, where he briefly attended Catholic University before returning to Wyoming and entering law school. He graduated in 1949 and returned to Lusk, where he began the practice of law.
Barrett had a typical small-town law practice, helping his clients with whatever problems they brought him.
He was elected Niobrara County attorney, a position he held for 10 years. As county attorney he worked closely with neighboring Goshen County Attorney, Stan Hathaway.
Stan and Jim became good friends.
When Hathaway was elected governor of Wyoming in 1966, he asked Jim to be his attorney general, a position Barrett held until 1971.
Governor Hathaway appointed me to a criminal justice planning committee in 1969, chaired by Attorney General Jim Barrett. I was the recording secretary of the committee.
Jim and I worked together on multiple issues, including the establishment of the Wyoming Law Enforcement Academy. I came to admire Jim for a number of reasons, not the least of which was his unquestioned integrity and character, and his reputation for high ethical standards.
I wasn’t the only one who considered Jim’s integrity as exceptional. In 1971 at the urging of U.S. Senator Cliff Hanson, the president nominated Jim Barrett president to be a judge on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, the second highest court in the federal judiciary.
As Attorney General of Wyoming, Barrett was intensely involved in all aspects of the Black 14 matter and the ensuing litigation.
His interest in the affair did not wane with his appointment as a federal judge and, after the litigation concluded, he corresponded and discussed the matter with participants on both sides of the lawsuit, including most of the Black 14.
Judge Barrett wrote a detailed and credible recollection of the Black 14 event and its aftermath in September and October of 1996, while awaiting major cancer surgery at Mayo Clinic.
(That was the Black 14: Williams v Eaton, Personal Recollection by James E. Barrett, Annals of Wyoming, Summer 1996, Vol 68, No.3, hereinafter, “Barrett Recollection.”)
The judge wanted to record his recollection while he was able, because he deemed it an important event in Wyoming’s history, his son Rich Barrett told me in August of this year.
Judge Barrett sent his article to a wide variety of actors in the Black 14 matter, including the 10 members of the Black 14 for whom he had addresses, UW Trustees, Governor Hathaway and some of UW’s 1969 coaching staff.
Each of the recipients was asked for comments.
None of those who responded took issue with the facts laid out by the Judge.Fritz Shurmur, defensive coordinator for the Cowboys and later the Green Bay Packers, wrote to Judge Barrett after receiving a copy of the judge’s recollection stating, “I enjoyed your candid and as near as I can recall, very accurate account of the events relative to the [Black 14] affair.”
Later, in 2010, Judge Barrett also submitted to a three-hour, detailed interview about his recollection, with Mark Junge for the Wyoming Department of Parks and Cultural Resources. Finally, Rich Barrett made available to me his father’s personal Black 14 files.
The correspondence, memoranda and other documentation contained a wealth of information, some of which has been unreported.
From his days as AG until his death in 2011, Judge Barrett often discussed the events surrounding the Black 14 incident with his son, Cheyenne attorney Richard Barrett. Rich then wrote his own piece on his father’s recollections of the Black 14 episode that was published in the Wyoming Lawyer in 2018.
Unfortunately, the facts laid out by Rich were not widely read beyond Wyoming’s lawyers.
It was clear that Judge Barrett was troubled by the narrative of those who have written or spoken about the “Black 14,” and wanted to set the record straight. He set about doing so when the litigation ended.
His papers contain many letters to members of the press who had written about the Black 14 affair.
In the many articles and interviews I have read or have listened/watched in researching this piece, there is scant reference to Judge Barrett’s remembrances, written or oral.
One exception is a column by Joan Barron of the Casper Star Tribune dated March 25, 2007, and titled, “The Black 14: Two Versions.”
It summarized Judge Barrett’s written recollection. Though Ms. Barron wrote that Judge Barrett’s “account …offers interesting and new-to-me details….” the rest of the press remained uninquisitive about those details.
Lawyer William Waterman
A man’s character is his fate - Heraclitus
William Waterman, a Pontiac, Michigan lawyer now deceased, graduated from law school at Florida A&M in 1965 and joined the law firm of Hatchett, Brown, Waterman and Campbell in Pontiac, in 1967. That was the beginning of a, “lifelong alliance and deep friendship with attorney Elbert Hatchett,” according to a resolution of the Michigan House of Representatives introduced upon Waterman’s death.
Waterman rocketed to prominence just two short years after graduating from law school when he and Hatchett filed a lawsuit against the Pontiac, Michigan school district alleging racial segregation. That case earned Waterman a reputation as a “civil rights lawyer.”
In 1969, Waterman filed suit against the State of Wyoming, et al, on behalf of the Black 14.
The complaint alleged violation of the Black 14’s freedom of speech rights and sought reinstatement of the football players who had been dismissed from the team. It also sought damages of $1.1 million.
In February 1970 Waterman and Hatchett won the Pontiac school desegregation case and in March lost the Black 14 case in a decision by U.S. District Judge Ewing T. Kerr.
That decision was appealed, remanded and eventually Judge Kerr’s decision dismissing the case was upheld in 1972.
Waterman and his wife Deirdre cut a wide political swath in their home town of Pontiac. In 1988 Waterman was appointed to the bench by Governor James Blanchard (D) and served eight years.
Deirdre Waterman, an ophthalmologist, was elected mayor of Pontiac in 2013 and reelected in 2017.
Waterman, his law partner Hatchett and his wife Deidre lived interesting lives. Hatchett served three years in a federal prison for tax evasion.
As the result of a forensic audit, Deidre Waterman was accused of misappropriating $1.6 million in City of Pontiac funds. She attempted to run for reelection a third time and was removed from the Democratic primary election ballot due “to unresolved campaign finance violation.”
She ran as an independent and was soundly defeated, according to the Detroit Free Press.
In 1999, Waterman was removed from his position as District Judge of the 50th Judicial District by order of the Michigan Supreme Court, dated Oct. 26 of that year. The Michigan Supreme Court cited multiple counts of unethical conduct in violation of the Code of Judicial Conduct.
Among other things, the Michigan Supreme Court wrote that Waterman abdicated his “duty to personally observe high standards of conduct so that the integrity and independence of the judiciary may be preserved” and engaged in “conduct involving impropriety” and, “conduct which harms public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary” as well as, “conduct …that exposes the legal profession…to obloquy.”
Judge Barrett consistently suggested that the conduct of Waterman as a lawyer representing the Black 14 was similarly tainted.
In a letter to the president of the UW Board at the time, Jerry Hollon, Barrett gave an example of Waterman’s dissembling in his representation of the Black 14:
A day before the plaintiffs filed their lawsuit in Federal District Court in Cheyenne, Mr. Waterman, Mr. Graves and Mr. Smyth called upon me in the Attorney General’s office in the State Capitol building… I vividly recall Mr. Waterman stating that after his time in Laramie he was satisfied that, “there is not a discriminatory bone in Coach Eaton’s body.”
That same afternoon, Mr. Waterman held a press conference. He again publically (sic) condemned Coach Eaton and the defendants for their discriminatory actions.
(Letter, Barrett to Hollon 6/13/1989, Barrett papers)
For Waterman, “the past was prologue.”
Waterman’s conduct in his representation of the 14 may have been self-serving for financial or reputational reasons, or both, but whatever Waterman’s motive, his conduct likely hurt some, if not all of his clients in their goal to be seen by pro scouts in War Memorial Stadium.
By virtue of Judge Kerr’s temporary admission of Waterman to the bar of the Federal District Court for Wyoming, Waterman was obligated to meet the ethical standards required of Wyoming lawyers, although the same standards were more than likely applicable to Michigan lawyers.
Dark and Confusing Days
The causes of events are ever more interesting than the events themselves -Cicero
The idea of a “protest” against BYU and the Mormon Church did not originate with 14 members of the Wyoming football team.
Protesting BYU was the idea of Willie Black, a graduate student at UW who, along with two other Black students, had organized and activated a loose-knit campus group they named, “The Black Student Alliance.”
All Blacks at UW belonged, “whether they wanted to belong to it or not,” said Willie in a 1993 interview with Mark Junge.
The Black athletes were only on the “periphery” of the Alliance, said Willie.
At an Alliance meeting on the Thursday night (October 16, 1969) before the BYU game, Willie told the Black football players about the LDS restriction on Blacks becoming priests and said, “this seems like an afront and I think they should be protested.”
By this statement he meant BYU should be protested by the Black members of Wyoming’s football team.
An appeal for racial solidarity would not fall on deaf ears.
In his 1993 interview, Willie did not mention an important fact: that he had drafted and sent an inflammatory manifesto, bearing date of Oct. 14, 1969, but not delivered to Coach Eaton until Oct. 16.
Among other things, the manifesto demanded that UW neither host nor schedule BYU for any athletic events, that Black and white athletes protest with black armbands at “any contact with BYU,” says Barrett’s recollection.
About the manifesto, Judge Barrett said the following in a letter to his sister and brother-in-law, both lawyers in Casper: “I am enclosing a copy of the letter received by Dr. Carlson and Coach Eaton, by hand delivery [the manifesto} on the morning of October 16, 1969, from Willie S. Black, Chancellor of the Black Students Alliance. You will note that this letter is dated October 14 but was not delivered until the morning of the 16th. This, too, gives credence to the fact that they intended to put every pressure possible on Easton….” (Letter dated 12/1/69, Barrett to Tobin, Barrett papers).
On the afternoon of Oct. 16 after football practice, tri captain Joe Williams advised Coach Eaton that the Black players were planning on wearing black armbands at Saturday’s game in protest of the Mormon Church’s racial practices.
Eaton, who by that time had received Willie’s manifesto, reminded his tri-captain that team rules prohibited black arm-bands at the game and that the football field was no place for demonstrations.
That night, “they [Black 14] voted to protest. But they thought about it, had second thoughts, and concluded they should go to the coach and at least afford him the opportunity to sanction their proposed protest… [the next morning] They put on black armbands over their street clothes and they all went to see him together,” according to Willie’s interview.
No thought was apparently given to the likelihood that Coach Eaton might see 14 of his players arriving with black arm bands and conclude that a faction of the team was demonstrating, in defiance of team rules.
Willie’s interview as quoted above is not consistent with the recollection of at least two of the Black 14 who corresponded with Judge Barrett in 1996 concerning the purpose of their meeting with Coach Eaton. It was not to “sanction” a decision already made, as Willie suggested.
The players’ letters lead to the inescapable conclusion that the players were not looking for a confrontation with their coach but rather, were confused about what might be permissible. According to these players, the 14 had not decided to demonstrate. Rather, they had questions and were seeking counsel from their coach. This is contrary to what Willie said, but also to what Coach Eaton said he was told by tri-captain Williams.
What happened at the Field House meeting is also subject to disagreement. Willie says in his interview that he was told by the players that Eaton told them they were lucky to be getting an education at the University, “or they could go on back home on colored relief and Negro welfare, and go back to pickin’ cotton and stuff.”
The players told Willie that Eaton then concluded the meeting with, “You’re off the team."
Judge Barrett in his recollection gives an altogether different account, taken from what Coach Eaton told him about the Field House meeting:
…remarks were made by the Black players regarding the Mormon Church and its racial bias against Blacks. One of the players remarked that he was preparing to join the [LDS] church. Thereupon, Coach Eaton responded to the effect, ‘Isn’t that something? You plan to join that church and abide by its beliefs for the rest of your life but you plan to demonstrate against it tomorrow.’ Eaton stated to the players that religious protests could not play any part in college football. The meeting ended after Coach Eaton, convinced that the fourteen were insistent on wearing the black armbands during the football game, notified [them] that they were no longer members of the football squad. I obtained this information from Coach Eaton.
What is clear is that because of the manifesto sent by Willie and the discussion with tri-captain Williams – the discussion was interpreted by the coach, rightly or wrongly, as notice that the 14 intended to protest with black armbands when they took the field.
The coach thought he had received the final decision of the 14, and that’s why he dismissed them from the team.
So, which of the two versions of the Field House meeting rings true?
Here is what I think: It’s likely, given the circumstances, that the coach blew his stack and said some things that he later wished he hadn’t.
Given Willie’s manifesto and the emotional climate that prevailed at the time, I can understand how that might have happened.
However, I can’t and don’t believe that Lloyd Eaton intentionally spewed racial insults at that meeting or anywhere else. In this, I agree with the lawyer representing the Black 14 who, after investigating the case for a week or more in Laramie, told Wyoming AG Barrett that, “there is not a discriminatory bone in Lloyd Eaton’s body,” according to Barrett’s recollection.
Had the opportunity surfaced (and it did on Nov. 10, 1969), I believe Eaton would have apologized for any remarks he made that were inappropriate.
I also believe it’s possible Eaton said some things that were misconstrued by the 14, or some of them, as being racist but which were not intended as such.
Life’s experiences have taught that not everything said is always heard, and not everything heard has always been said.
The game against BYU unfolded without the Black 14 and Wyoming won handily.
However, the football program at UW had been dealt a serious blow, one from which it did not recover for many years. During that time the football program and its fans, which comprised most of Wyoming, toiled in a wilderness.
The Black 14 suffered in a different way. Prospects for a professional football careers were adversely affected. Their lives were disrupted and they were emotionally hurt by the reaction of Wyoming fans.
They did not consider themselves to be trouble-makers. They did consider their cause to be just. Willie, the early self-appointed spokesperson for the Black 14 can, in large part, be thanked for the fans’ perception of the 14 and resulting reaction.
It didn’t have to be that way. Had Willie and his manifesto not been the public face of the Black 14, Coach Eaton may not have lost his temper. He may not have arrived at the conclusion the 14 had made up their minds and were coming to his office not to ask questions, but to confront him.
Had the 14 met with Coach Eaton without the drama and demands of the manifesto, and Willie’s oratory, the Field House meeting on Oct. 17 may have turned out very differently.
There was yet another off- ramp available to the Black 14. The fact that it was not taken was no fault of the 14, but rather, of their lead lawyer, William Waterman.
The lawsuit filed by Waterman was scheduled for a preliminary injunction hearing, on whether to reinstate the 14 to the team, on Nov. 10, 1969.
On that date the Cowboys’ record was 6-2.
Since the Black 14 eruption, the Pokes had beaten BYU and SJSU, and lost to ASU and Utah, with remaining games against New Mexico and Houston.
Rich Barrett in his 2018 article in the Wyoming Lawyer, “Black 14 Revisited: Bridges Burned and Opportunities Lost,” summarized what happened at the hearing:
The 14 were present in the federal courtroom in Cheyenne for an evidentiary hearing to determine whether … [to restore] them to the football team. Attorney Waterman had been delayed…. During a meeting between my father and local counsel for the 14 in Judge Ewing Kerr’s chambers, the judge urged a settlement meeting between Coach Eaton and the individual players. My father spoke with Eaton by telephone and then advised Judge Kerr and local counsel that Eaton was anxious and willing to come to Cheyenne on a moment’s notice for the meeting. Eaton’s tone, my father said, was upbeat and positive. He added that if agreeable, Eaton would bring his entire coaching staff so that the coach who recruited the particular player could also participate. It was agreed that if the 14 and Waterman consented to the meetings, Judge Kerr would also sit in.
As my father waited for Waterman’s arrival at the courthouse, he was confident that the meetings that afternoon would result in the successful resolution of the dispute. When Waterman finally arrived…, he exchanged handshakes with my father but did not mention the proposed settlement meetings. As time slipped by, my father approached Waterman about the meetings…. Waterman replied, “there will be no such meetings.” He offered no explanation for his abrupt dismissal. He did not indicate that he had advised his 14 clients of the proposed meetings with Coach Eaton and that they had rejected the state’s proposal. It was later reported to my father that Coach Eaton was crushed by the news of Waterman’s rejection.
In his 2010 interview, Judge Barrett expounded on the proposed settlement conference:
Not only was he [Coach Eaton] willing, he was anxious and he was looking forward to it. He said he would get his entire staff and have ‘em right there by the telephone.
Betrayal of the Black 14
Hateful… is that man who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another – Homer, The Iliad’ -
Within a few months of the hearing, Judge Barrett discovered that two of Waterman’s clients had not been informed of the opportunity to settle the dispute. He explained the discovery to Jerry Hollon, President of the UW Board of Trustees:
Some months thereafter, a question of the plaintiffs’ scholarships for continuing education at the University arose. By chance, two of the plaintiffs were asked about their refusal to meet with Coach Eaton on November 10, 1969. Their response was that no such offer had ever been made but that if it had, they would have met with him… It seemed clear that counsel for the plaintiffs took it upon themselves, without the consent of their clients, to reject what I considered a most likely settlement of the controversy to the benefit of all. In my mind, Mr. Waterman and his associates were less interested in the welfare of their clients than their design to make the lawsuit a beacon in the fight to vindicate civil rights. Plaintiffs failed in that effort. However, they did succeed in setting Wyoming’s football program on its heels for years and seriously disrupted the lives and fortunes of many persons…. (Barrett’s letter to Hollon, 6/13/1989, Barrett papers)
Judge Barrett was unsettled at the news that players registering for classes had no idea of the proposed settlement conference. He set a course to find out if other members of the 14 were similarly kept in the dark when they gathered at the federal courthouse that day.
In April and May of 1996, he phoned nine of the 13 survivors (Issac was deceased) for whom he had numbers and made a note of each conversation. None of those contacted remembered being told of the proposed settlement meeting, say memos in Barrett’s papers.
Had Waterman discussed the invitation for settlement talks with his clients, would they have said yes? Only one of those contacted said he would not have participated in such a meeting, according to Barrett’s memos.
Had a settlement conference been held, what were the chances it would have resulted in settlement?
Judge Barrett thought, “the whole matter would have been resolved favorably to all concerned.”
After all, three of the 14 withdrew from the litigation, registered for school the next semester, and were on the team for the 1970 season.
Instead of three of 14, it could have easily been 13 of 14, or perhaps all of them. That opportunity was real but lost, thanks to Waterman.
We have seen the violation of judicial ethics that caused Mr. Waterman to be removed from the bench by the Michigan Supreme Court. Waterman’s violations of judicial ethics were preceded by Waterman’s violations of legal ethics; violation that betrayed his clients.
The players wanted to play for UW and Waterman knew it. Instead, without telling his clients about the offer to engage in settlement discussions, Waterman’s inexplicable rejection effectively shut the door on reinstatement of the 14 to the team, despite the fact that his lawsuit sought that outcome.
Judge Barrett’s description of Waterman’s conduct in his recollection, his interview, and his correspondence, described an egregious breach of professional ethics. Lawyers are required to keep their clients informed, especially of settlement matters.
Keeping clients informed is and always has been a cornerstone of a lawyer’s ethical responsibility, rooted in the need for a good operative lawyer-client relationship and the clients’ ability to participate in their representation.
Judge Barrett was also upset when he discovered the players were unaware of the State’s defense, a defense which ultimately prevailed. In his 2010 interview, he said:
I was sympathetic with the players in the sense that I don’t think they understood the position of the State [regarding religion and the First Amendment]. Had they [the lawyers] spent more time tryin’ to explain that to ‘em, it might have made a difference…. I was sympathetic to the Fourteen because I know they weren’t properly informed of the position of the State. I asked Joe Williams [on cross examination at the hearing] whether he had been notified of the State’s position in the lawsuit. He said no. The lawyers hadn’t told them anything about the state’s position. Not a word. And as far as I’m concerned, that’s pretty bad business when they [the players] didn’t have the foggiest idea what the position of the state was.” (Judge Barrett interview)
Keeping clients informed is especially important when representing younger clients or those inexperienced in litigation.
There were several potential offramps that could have been taken, and if taken, would have likely resulted in the players playing, the pro scouts scouting and the University of Wyoming resuming its place as an elite football program.
If only the LDS revelation had come before 1969.
If only the Black 14 had found another way to express their indignation.
If only Willie had not primed Coach Eaton to lose his temper by making outrageous demands in his manifesto, ostensibly drafted and presented on behalf of the Black 14.
If only Coach Eaton had not lost his temper at the Field House meeting.
If only Willie could have, in his words, “made the omelet without breakin’ the eggs.”
If only Mr. Waterman had followed legal norms and ethical standards and let his clients decide whether to participate in settlement discussions, rather than secreting the overture from his clients and reserving the decision for himself.
Even though the defendants prevailed in the litigation, because none of the offramps were taken, the Black 14 episode, in the words of Coach Fritz Shurmur in a 1996 letter to Barrett, “was a no win for all involved” (emphasis in original).
Wyoming owes Judge Barrett a debt of gratitude for his dogged determination to know the truth of the Black 14 matter and the civil way in which he sought it.
Much has been brought to light because of his efforts. It is my hope that the efforts expended in researching and writing this article contribute to Judge Barrett’s mission that the people of Wyoming know the rest of the story, and where human imperfection – some preventable and some fated – exploded into controversy.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Ray Hunkins has had a professional interest in legal ethics throughout his career. In 1982 he was appointed by the Wyoming Supreme Court to the State Bar Disciplinary Committee, then called the State Bar Grievance Committee. He served six years on that committee, three as chairman. The Committee was tasked with investigating and recommending to the Wyoming Supreme Court, discipline for lawyers found to have violated the Code of Professional Responsibility then in effect. Additionally, the Supreme Court tasked the Committee with reviewing and making a recommendation on whether to adopt the newly proposed American Bar Association’s Rules of Professional Conduct, rules still in effect.
Finally, Ray served the American College of Trial Lawyers as Wyoming Chairman as well as on its National Committee on Legal Ethics.
Both his law partner and father-in-law were on the UW Board of Trustees during the Black 14 episode.
