Ivy League Sports

Ivy League Black History TimelineIndoor Track Athlete of the Meet. Perhaps the greatestpure athlete in Big Red history, Roberson was a halfbackin football, a pivotman in basketball and a sprinter/low hurdlerin track. He went on to win the silver medal at the1960 Olympic Games, and he broke Jesse Owens' 25-year-old world indoor record in the broad (long) jump withhis 25'9" effort at the 1960 National AAU Track and FieldChampionships. Following the '60 Games, he began a sixyearpro football career: San Diego Chargers (1961),Oakland Raiders (1962-65), Buffalo Bills (1965) andMiami Dolphins (1966). He was named the Raiders' MVPin 1962, led the league in kickoff returns in 1964, and wasthe leading receiver for the Bills' AFL championship in1965. Bo, from Philadelphia, Pa., was part of the BlackRenaissance in pro football, the emergence of African-American players, according to Al Davis, former headcoach and then owner of the Raiders. After pro football,he obtained his doctorate degree in psychology.• Lawrence Ekpebu of Harvard became the first blacksoccer player named first-team All-Ivy League and the firstblack athlete in League history to be voted first-team bythe Ivy coaches after the official formation of the Leaguein 1955.• Harvard's Edward (Ned) Gourdin, a 1919 graduatewho won silver and gold medals in the long jump at theOlympics in 1924 and 1932, became the first African-American to become a member of the MassachusettsSupreme Court. Gourdin, a native of Jacksonville, Fla.,had graduated from Cambridge Latin Prep beforeenrolling at Harvard. Although he had originally intendedto play baseball at Harvard, after winning the long jumpand the 100-year and 200-yard dashes in a dual meetagainst Princeton, his fate as a trackstar was sealed. In1921, he became the first person to surpass 25 feet in thelong jump.• Cornell's Steve Machooka became the first African-American cross-country runner to earn first-team status inthe Heptagonal Games Association.• Penn's John Edgar Wideman, an All-Ivy honoree andAll-Big 5 selection in 1963, became just the secondAfrican-American to be selected as a Rhodes Scholar andthe first to do so in more than a half-century, followingHarvard's Alain Locke (1907). Wideman graduated PhiBeta Kappa in 1963. He was named to the Big 5 Hall ofFame in 1974. He was the first author to twice receive thePEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, for the novels Sent forYou Yesterday (1984) and Philadelphia Fire (1991). Hislatest book is titled Hoop Roots (2001).• Bulldog sprinter Wendell Motley became the firstblack athlete from Yale to earn a significant league-widehonor, earning the Athlete of the Meet award at theHeptagonal Indoor Championship. Motley would claim asilver medal for Trinidad in the Tokyo Olympics later thatsummer in the 400-meter dash. No Ivy Leaguer has wonan Olympic medal in an individual race shorter than10,000 meters since.• Dartmouth graduate Edgar Holley of Maywood, Ill.became the first African-American football player to benamed first-team All-Ivy League.• Cornell basketball star Gregg Morris became the firstblack men's basketball player to be tabbed first-team All-Ivy League. A year later, Morris would become the firstAfrican-American from the Ivy League chosen in the NBADraft when the Baltimore Bullets selected him in the 16thround.• Harvard's Ron Winfield became the first black fencerto be named first-team All-Ivy League.• Yale graduate and Baltimore native Calvin Hill wasnamed the NFL's NFC Rookie of the Year for the DallasCowboys.• Dartmouth's Willie Bogan became the first black IvyLeaguer to become a Football Academic All-American.Bogan, a native of Albion, Mich., followed it by becominga Rhodes Scholar in addition to earning an NCAAPostgraduate Scholarship.• Columbia's Jim McMillian became the first black IvyLeaguer to be chosen in the first round of the NBA Draftand would be joined by Penn's Corky Calhoun in 1972and Princeton's Armond Hill in 1976. Hill, the first African-American in Princeton's history to be named as an IvyLeague Player of the Year, became the first black headmen's basketball coach at Columbia 20 years later.• Princeton named Larry Ellis as its head coach oftrack and field and cross-country, becoming the firstAfrican-American head coach of any sport in the IvyLeague. Ellis would lead his team to 19 Heptagonal titlesin his 22 seasons and, in 1984, his efforts earned him theright to coach the U.S. Olympic men's track and field teamin Los Angeles, where running greats Carl Lewis andEdwin Moses took home the gold. An accomplished collegiatemiler in his own right at New York University, Elliscoached a long line of track stars that began with longjumperBob Beamon while Beamon was still in highschool. In a letter from the longtime world record holderread at Ellis' funeral service in 1998, Beamon referred tohis former coach as "a father figure."• Princeton's Brian Taylor became the first African-American to be named the Ivy League Men's BasketballRookie of the Year.• Cornell graduate Jerome (Brud) Holland became thefirst African-American to receive the Theodore RooseveltAward, given by the NCAA 'to honor a distinguished citizenof national reputation and outstanding accomplishmentwho earned a varsity athletic award in college andhas demonstrated a continuing interest in physical fitnessand intercollegiate sports.'• Yale graduate Calvin Hill became the first African-American Ivy Leaguer to win a Super Bowl.• Tom Sanders became the League's first African-American head men's basketball coach when he namedthe head coach at Harvard in 1973.• October 6, 1973 ... When Brown lined up againstPenn at Franklin Field, something that had never happenedin the more than 100 years of major-college footballtook place. It was the first matchup ever between twostarting black quarterbacks as Penn's Marty Vaughn andBrown's Dennis Coleman took to the field. Vaughn struckfirst with a touchdown scamper, but Coleman led hisBears to 20 unanswered points. It was then Vaughn's turnto get hot, connecting on one touchdown pass and leadingthe Quakers to another to take a 21-20 halftime lead.Penn scored the only touchdown of the second half to goonto a 28-20 victory in the historic game before 10,991fans. Vaughn threw for 200 yards while Coleman ran formore than 10 yards a carry as the two went down togetherin history. Here's a quote from Mr. Vaughn: "I know thatDennis and I talked about it, because there were only fouror five black quarterbacks in the country, but I didn'tremember it as the first time two black quarterbacks met,"recalls Vaughn. "We talked about it being the first time inthe Ivy League and thought that was significant. I rememberthat we wanted to put on a good show." Vaughn, wholives in Philadelphia, has been an investment banker foryears and now serves on Penn's Athletic Advisory Boardwhile Coleman, who grew up in the Philadelphia area andnow lives in the Providence area, serves entertainmentand sports clients as a partner in a law firm and still worksclosely with the Brown athletic department.• The Ivy basketball season began with three blackhead coaches with Tom Sanders at Harvard, Ben Bluitt atCornell and Marcus Jackson at Dartmouth. Of the morethan 200 major college programs at the time, fewer than10 had African-American head coaches.• Penn track star Denis Fikes ran the mile in a time of3:55.0, the fastest time by an African-American at thetime. His record stood for a decade. Now known as D.Elton Cochran-Fikes, he is the Coordinator of Complianceat Penn.• Columbia running back Doug Jackson became thefirst African-American to win the Asa S. Bushnell Cup asthe Ivy Football Player of the Year.• Penn's Ron Haigler became the first African-Americanto be named the Ivy League Men's Basketball Player ofthe Year.• Dartmouth's Reggie Williams became the first blackwrestler named first-team All-Ivy League, but he is betterknown for his exploits on and off the football field.Williams, who starred for the Cinncinati Bengals from1976 to 1989, was named as a Sports IllustratedSportsman of the Year in 1987 as one of the Athletes WhoCare. He had also been the first African-American to benamed All-Ivy League first-team in football three times.Williams is currently the Vice President of Sports, WaltDisney World in Lake Buena Vista, Fla.• Princeton track star Jill Pilgrim became the firstAfrican-American woman to be a Heptagonal Games firstteamperformer and the first black woman in League historyin any sport to be named to first team.• Cornell running back Joe Holland (the son of Jerome(Brud) Holland) became the first African-American to rushfor 1,000 yards in an Ivy season (and just the secondplayer ever after Ed Marinaro). But Holland made a biggerstatement in the classroom, twice selected as a first-teamAcademic All-American and eventually an Academic All-America Hall of Famer.• Columbia's Mike Wilhite became the first black baseballplayer named first-team All-Ivy League.• Charles Harris became the first African-American athleticdirector for an Ivy institution. He served in this role atPenn until 1985.• Brown soccer player Yvonne Goldsberry became thefirst black women to be selected to first-team All-IvyLeague.• Cornell graduate Shea Maultsby became the firstAfrican-American field hockey player named to first-teamAll-Ivy.• Yale's Patricia Melton became the first African-American female to be named the Heptagonal IndoorTrack Athlete of the Meet.• Columbia's George Starke, a native of New Rochelle,N.Y., became a Super Bowl champion as the Head Hogfor the Washington Redskins.• Brown's Michelle Smith of West Lynn, Mass. becamethe first African-American to be named the Ivy LeagueWomen's Basketball Player of the Year.• Yale footballer Kurt Schmoke was elected the Mayorof Baltimore City on November 3, 1987. He was the firstAfrican-American elected to the office of mayor ofBaltimore. Schmoke, also a native of Baltimore, Md., is a1971 graduate of Yale University and was a varsity letterwinneron the 1968 Ivy Champion squad. He attendedOxford University as a Rhodes Scholar and received hislaw degree in 1976 from Harvard Law School.• In the mid-seventies, Dan Jiggetts was a standoutlineman at Harvard (he would later be named to the IvySilver Anniversary team and enjoy a successful NFLcareer). One of his jobs during the Cambridge winters wasto keep statistics for the basketball team, which featured'The Hardest Working Man In Sports' James Brown (whohad picked Harvard over North Carolina and UCLA). In1987, those two reunited to become the first African-American broadcast team for a network television as theycovered the NFL for CBS Sports for two seasons.• Columbia fencer Bob Cottingham, of Orange, N.J.,took the NCAA title in the sabre.• Princeton graduate Terdema Ussery II became thefirst African-American Commissioner of a U.S. professionalsports league when he was named to head theContinental Basketball Association.• Not only did Harvard's Meredith Rainey score in sixevents at the Outdoor Heps Championship, the New York,N.Y. native capped the season by becoming the firstAfrican-American woman in Ivy history to earn an NCAAPostgraduate Scholarship.• Penn's Doug Glanville was selected 12th in the firstround of the Major League Baseball draft by the ChicagoCubs after a first-team Academic All-America season for