The Photographs That Exposed the Blow to Johnny Bright

Johnny Bright had already handed off the football when Wilbanks Smith struck him. The play was moving away from Drake’s senior back during the Oct. 20, 1951, game against Oklahoma A&M in Stillwater. Smith, an A&M defensive lineman, drove his forearm and elbow into Bright’s face. Bright later said he heard a pop. His lower jaw was broken.

A few plays later, Bright threw a 61-yard touchdown pass. But the injury eventually forced him out, and A&M won 27–14. The next morning, six photographs by Des Moines Register photographers Don Ultang and John Robinson showed readers what had happened away from the ball. Their sequence documented Smith striking Bright without regard to the direction of play.

Bright, a Black player, had arrived in Stillwater leading the nation in total offense for the third consecutive season. Drake was undefeated at 5–0, and he was a contender for the Heisman Trophy. He could run through defenders and throw accurately with a sidearm delivery. “He could do anything he wanted,” his former Drake teammate Bob Clark recalled.

There had been warnings before kickoff. In a 1999 documentary about the photographs, Drake fullback Gene Macomber recalled hearing talk while getting a haircut in Stillwater that Bright should not expect to finish the game. Ultang and Robinson also heard talk of targeting. They positioned their cameras atop the press box at Lewis Field.

For listeners back in Des Moines, the injury initially arrived without that visual evidence. “I was listening to the game on the radio and heard Johnny had to leave hurt,” Clark recalled. “That was unusual, because Johnny never wanted to come out of a game. But I didn’t think anything of it.”

After Bright left the game, the photographers hurried to the airport for a flight back to Des Moines. Their film still had to be developed. Once it was, Ultang alerted the editors. The sequence ran at the top of the Sunday Register’s sports front, making the blow visible to people who had heard only that Bright was hurt.

Newspapers across the country condemned the play, with editorials addressing its racial implications. Readers sent letters, and the Des Moines Tribune published excerpts from editorials elsewhere. Some demanded Smith’s expulsion and the dismissal of A&M coach J.B. Whitworth. The photographs eventually won a Pulitzer Prize.

The photographs showed the blow, but they did not settle its motive. Whitworth issued a written apology to Bright but denied ordering the illegal hit or any racial motivation. Smith denied a racial motive in a 2012 story. Bright understood the incident differently. “There’s no way it couldn’t have been racially motivated,” he told the Register in 1980.

The injury shadowed the rest of Bright’s season. He finished fifth in the Heisman voting, and two versions of a protective helmet commissioned by the Chicago Bears failed to protect his broken jaw adequately. His jaw was wired shut, and doctors removed a tooth so he could be fed by tube while it healed. He played only sparingly for the rest of the season.