Many of those same players, were from the South, yet were silent about the extreme racism in most southern churches at that time. It seems that far too many BYU supporters feel the need to apologize for a flavor-of-the-day protest against BYU that backfired. It seems that WYO should be the one profusely apologizing to both the protesters and BYU.
Full disclosure: Shortly after that protest attempt, I spend several years traveling and working in the South, and saw real racism practiced by both the amateurs and the professionals. I also served a mission in the Bible-belt and saw the numerous black-only and white-only congregations.