Babe McCarthy, the head basketball coach at MSU, expressed frustration at having his team excluded from the postseason tournament each year.

"It makes me sick to the heart to think that these players, who just clinched no worse than a tie for their third straight SEC championship, will have to put away their uniforms and not compete in the NCAA tournament… This is all I can say, but I think everyone knows how I feel,"[4] McCarthy said.

"Should a dynamic university be led by a man with the intelligence to make a decision on the merits of the case and the guts to back it up?"

"[4] An established alumni took a shot at Colvard, saying, "Are you...under so much of a threat of coercion and intimidation by those for powerful demagogues that you have no choice in the matter?

"[4] Bowing to pressure to take a stand, Colvard presented the issue as an administrative affair rather than as an educational matter.

Although I knew opinion would be divided and feelings would be intense because of the unwritten law...I thought I had gained sufficient following that, win or lose, I should take decisive action," Colvard later said.

Colvard claimed in a statement, "In answer to a manifestation of interest and in light of my best judgment, it is my conclusion that as responsible members of the academic community and of the SEC we have no choice other than to go.

Accordingly, as president of MSU I have decided that unless hindered by competent authority I shall send our basketball team to the NCAA competition.

Meanwhile, Senator Billy Mitts accused Colvard of striking a "low blow to the people of Mississippi" and advocated "a substantial decrease in the financial appropriation for every university of this great state that encourages integration.

"[4] He also added that only native sons should be trusted to occupy the chief executive officerships of Mississippi colleges so as never again to risk "a similar tragedy of this sort.

During his tenure, he oversaw the development of the University Research Park and the Discovery Place science museum in Uptown Charlotte.

[11][12] The D. W. Colvard Scholarship for Merit, available to entering freshmen attending the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, is named in his honor.