First Black in old Big 12 passed away today

Wesley · 05-15-2006, 04:57 PM

Harold Robinson, the first black scholarship athlete in what would become the Big 12 Conference, has died.

Robinson, a former football center for Kansas State, was 76 when he died Tuesday at his home in Wharton, N.J., the school said in a news release. The release did not list a cause of death.

It was 1949, and there were no blacks on the Wildcats' squad or any of the teams in what was then the Big Seven Conference.

When Robinson began playing, the U.S. Supreme Court was still five years away from issuing the landmark Brown v. Topeka Board of Education decision that ended segregated education. Jim Crow laws were commonplace.

While his teammates stayed in hotels during away games, Robinson often was forced to stay in private homes. He told the student newspaper he missed only one game during his time at Kansas State.

Other black athletes followed in Robinson's footsteps. Among them was golfer Tiger Woods' late father, Earl Woods, who became the first black baseball player in the conference when he joined Kansas State's squad in 1952.

Psyclone · 05-16-2006, 06:22 PM

I was a bit surprised with this headline because Jack Trice played at Iowa State way before that. Either the conference hadn't been formed yet, or Trice was not on scholarship.

Wesley · 05-17-2006, 10:14 AM

Seem just like yesterday when we had the Big Seven. I also thought Jack Trice was older. Can anyone verify that?

shildreth · 05-17-2006, 10:40 AM

You must be right psyclone. Trice was born in 1902 or something like that. Based on that the conference must not have been formed then or he wasn't on scholarship... if there was such a thing then?!

EggMcClone · 05-17-2006, 01:19 PM

I did some looking to try to sort it out.

In 1923, when Jack Trice played, ISU was in the MVIAA (Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association) with Drake, KSU, UNL, OU, KU, Mizzou, Washington U in St. Louis, and Grinnell from what I could gather. In 1928 the big schools formed the conference informally known as the Big 6 and the small schools formed the Missouri Valley although both apparently used the same name and claimed to be the rightful heir of hte original 1907 conference. CU made it the Big 7 in 1948 and OSU made it the Big 8 in 1958. It was officially named the Big 8 in 1964.

The article on Robinson says there were no other black players in the conference at that time which could be correct but it still seems like the color barrier for the conference had already been broken by Jack Trice, if not someone else before him.

Psyclone · 05-22-2006, 09:14 PM

Great info. One would then assume that the Trice was not on scholarship. It also makes one wonder when athletic scholarships were first awarded in college sports.