C.M. Newton impacted sports by his integration of the basketball teams he coached. Mary Ann Gerth, Louisville Courier Journal
C.M. Newton was a pioneer who thought of himself as a pragmatist.
His job was to win basketball games, not to blaze trails, but he found those agendas occupied parallel paths in the Southeastern Conference of the late 1960s.
His teams at Alabama and Vanderbilt were a tribute to the competitive advantages of integration and a catalyst for the league’s coaches to finally forsake the color line. His tenure as the University of Kentucky’s athletic director included the hiring of the Wildcats’ first African-American head basketball coach, Tubby Smith.