Mccrary's Other Big Play Blocked More Than A Field Goal

SEAHAWK Michael McCrary was the center of attention Sunday after his field-goal block that helped win the game. But in 1976, he was the center of more important action unfolding before the U.S. Supreme Court.

KIRKLAND - Most football fans didn't discover Michael McCrary until Sunday, when he blocked the last-second field goal that allowed the Seattle Seahawks to defeat the Houston Oilers.

Twenty years ago, however, McCrary was involved in a much more profound victory, one that changed the American landscape and helped slam the door on bigotry and discrimination.

In legal circles, it's called Runyon vs. McCrary, a landmark Supreme Court decision in 1976 that determined that private schools, even those receiving no federal funding, cannot use race as a basis to exclude. The ruling helped end segregation in private academies in the south.

"It was like Brown vs. The Board of Education, except for private schools," McCrary said. "It affirmed the rights of minorities to attend private institutions. It's good to know I helped fight against what was wrong, that I helped make a change for society that's good."

The case developed from the discrimination encountered when his parents tried to enroll 2-year-old Michael at a Virginia daycare facility.

"I had been with a private sitter, but she had gone back to work," recalled Sandra McCrary, Michael's mother, from her Florida home. "Right next door to my job was a daycare facility where a lot of women took their children. I had heard they were not integrated, but this was 1972, and I found it hard to believe.

"I called and asked all the pertinent questions about their facility. Finally, I said, `I understand you're not integrated.' They said, `No, we're not.' I said, `Then you don't accept blacks?' They said, `No, we don't, and we never intend to.' "

Sandra and her husband, Curtis, refused to let the incident die, deciding instead to mount a challenge of their civil-rights violation. They found a lawyer, Allison Brown, who took the case on a volunteer basis.

The McCrarys won in federal district court in Arlington County, Va., then claimed victory again in appellate court. Finally, in June of 1976, the case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, where by a 7-2 decision the justices ruled in their favor.

"It was our lawyer vs. like, seven of their lawyers," McCrary said with evident satisfaction.

Their case broke legal ground when, before the Supreme Court hearing, it was joined by a segregationist group called the Southern Private Schools Association.

"They were waiting for a test case to come along," Sandra McCrary said. "They thought their segregation policies would be legitimized by the decision, not ever thinking it could go the other way, which it did."

Inspiring a legal career

For Sandra McCrary, the case sparked a second career as an attorney. In the late '80s, she graduated from George Mason University law school and has passed bar exams in Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania and Virginia. She and her husband, who works in the computer industry, retain residences in Florida and Virginia.

"What motivated me to go to law school when I was 40 is the role law can play in social change," she said.

While at George Mason, she wound up studying her family's own case during a constitutional law course. "The professor started discussing it, and I actually ended up correcting him," she said.

Michael, meanwhile, would go on to experience other forms of discrimination in his youth. He was subjected to derogatory remarks concerning his interracial heritage.

"We are a very mixed family," Sandra McCrary said. "My husband is black. I am mixed, but I look white. Michael is fair-complected. "

"I've caught it from both sides," said Michael, who endured slurs from whites and blacks.

"In a way, it was good. I got to see that both sides were equally as wrong for discriminating against one another. It was a good experience growing up. It made me tougher mentally. I learned to deal with ignorance - and there's a lot of ignorance out there."

McCrary believes the circumstances of his youth fueled the aggressiveness that has marked his football career. His strength - and often his weakness - has been his relentless energy.

"He's got the highest motor of any player I've ever coached, bar none," said Tommy Brasher, Seahawk defensive-line coach.

The problem, dating back to McCrary's days at Wake Forest University, has been harnessing that energy. A lack of discipline and a propensity for making key mistakes kept him on the bench for the first three years of his NFL career, but this season he has taken over as the starting right end and played well.

"Michael's a guy that's 100 miles an hour all the time," Seahawk Coach Dennis Erickson said. "He's 250 pounds - he probably shouldn't be playing in this league. He's just a scrapper. . . . He fights like heck. He makes plays. We can't get him out of the lineup.

"Before, he'd sometimes go in the wrong direction when he went 100 mph. He might end up in the stands instead of making a play. What he's done now is taken how he plays and become more disciplined with it."

Or, according to McCrary, "I've learned how to play in the scheme instead of just running wild, running around with my head chopped off."

To McCrary, the best part of his field-goal block, far greater than the rush of attention he received, is that his parents were in the stands to witness it.

"It's great, because my parents have always backed me up, and for them to enjoy some of my success was great," he said. "I was more happy for them than myself. My mom was going crazy the whole time. My dad's cool, real quiet, but he showed some emotion, which is unlike him. That pretty much made me more excited than the play, to see my parents excited."

But after soaking up about 48 hours of kudos, McCrary claims he's put the play behind him.

"You can only be happy for a day, and then you have to deal with what is at hand the next week," he said. "The last thing I can do is sit here and just relive that moment."

McCrary's life has another, far weightier moment, that he can use as his legacy.