IT WASN'T a surprise when the self-righteous College Football Hall of Fame repeatedly ignored Barry Switzer. Nor is it shocking now to learn it took an African-American to convince his fellow voters their persecution of Switzer should end.

The reasons why Switzer was shunned will be rehashed often this week. Friday marks the 20th anniversary of Switzer's forced resignation as Oklahoma's football coach after 16 seasons.

His breathtaking fall from grace was swift, stunning and ugly. From Dec. 19, 1988, to Feb. 13, 1989, the OU program was rocked by NCAA probation, a player shooting a teammate, two players involved in a rape and the starting quarterback getting busted for selling cocaine to an undercover agent.

Charles Thompson's appearance on the cover of the Feb. 27, 1989, issue of Sports Illustrated wearing handcuffs and an orange prison jumpsuit was the fifth and final blow that sealed Switzer's fate.

The coach, labeled everything from a lovable rogue to a reckless outlaw, was the obvious fall guy in the sordid mess. It may have involved only a handful of players from the more than 100 on his team, but Switzer recruited them, acknowledged he broke NCAA rules to keep them and refused to change the loose-ship approach that finally sunk him.

Editorials in the state's three largest newspapers called for his resignation. So did several former OU players, who said they were embarrassed and ashamed of the Sooners' renegade image, which that SI cover story detailed with these words: "How Barry Switzer's Sooners Terrorized Their Campus."

That sensationalized headline was grossly overblown and belonged on the pages of a London tabloid. But it helped fuel the frenzy and falsely altered the image of a school, a program and its coach.

So a defiant Switzer finally surrendered to his critics on June 19, 1989. That meant he only needed to wait the required three years before becoming eligible for the Hall of Fame, when Sooners fans figured he'd easily be a first-ballot selection.

His credentials seemingly make his induction a no-brainer: three national championships, 12 Big Eight titles and a 157-29-4 record, which placed him fourth on the all-time winning percentage list at .837.

He also had paid a heavy personal price by giving up the job he loved instead of fighting to keep it. Switzer, convinced he could save his program and add more national titles, eventually relented to OU power brokers and friends who told him it was time to go.

But that slum-dunk Hall of Fame selection turned instead into years of the Honors Committee — the 12 members who select new Hall of Fame members — telling Switzer "shame on you."

Finally, in the spring of 2001, the Tulsa World broke the story that Switzer's long wait was over. He would be honored that December in New York City and formally inducted in August 2002 at the Hall of Fame headquarters in South Bend, Ind.

Sources who were in the room in Charlotte, N.C., when the Honors Court finally selected Switzer, have confirmed that an impassioned speech by Gene Smith changed voters' minds.

Smith, now the athletic director at Ohio State, was Arizona State's AD at the time of the vote. He is a former Notre Dame football player who is also a black man.

Those sources said Smith, the only minority on the Honors Court committee at that time, never mentioned race. He didn't have to; everyone in that room knew Switzer had championed the cause of the black athlete long before several of those coaches who had been inducted before him.

Smith told the Honors Court it had made its point by repeatedly bypassing Switzer. Now it was time to make a more important point — the Sooners' former coach had the credentials and richly deserved induction.

Switzer's induction finally brought closure to the controversial way his equally controversial career ended. It was a sweet victory for thousands of OU fans who had launched petition drives and made pleas to the media to help stop this ostracizing of Switzer.

Their passion was unique and displayed the loyalty Switzer could instill in people. Many fan bases would have given up after their coach had been ignored a couple times.

But you have to wonder if Switzer would have ever made it without Smith's support. Those same sources confirmed there were voters in that room who were doggedly determined to continue their heretofore successful campaign to blackball Switzer.

They refused to consider Switzer's life-changing accomplishments. The bootlegger's boy never claimed he was a choirboy, but he was also a man way ahead of his time when it came to race relations.

He took black players from poor backgrounds and gave them an opportunity for a better life, while many of his peers refused to recruit them. Those players were asking for a first chance at the American dream, not a second one. And the great majority of them became success stories.

Gene Smith obviously didn't forget the significance of Switzer's impact on the game and its players. And that's what I choose to remember most about Switzer's college coaching career 20 years after it ended.