Los Angeles herald., 1906-08-21
KEEP ATHLETES
IN BACKGROUND
NEGRO ASPlRANTS HAVE HARD
TIME
Three Dark Men Win Fame Equal to
That of White Brothers--Thelr
Only Chance Is at Harvard
University

feature of modern college athletics
which has not attracted a great deal
of attention Off the chmpus is the
strenuous effort and repeated failure
of negro undergraduates to win places
on college athletic teams. Whenever
a negro is found on an athletic team,
especially In the east, It is because he
is so valuable that he cannot be kept
in the background.
The undergraduate body has a fierce
resentment toward the sight of n negro
representing the institution on the ath-
letic field, and every black man who
wins a place has innumerable obstacles
to overcome. In fact, one could almost
count on the fingers of a single hand
the negro athletes who have become
famous.
There are three negro athletes who
have won fame for their colleges equal
TO that of any of their white brothers.
These are W. H. Lewis, the famous
Harvard center rush and coach; w. c.
Matthews, also of Harvard, a short
stop on the ball team and an end rush
in football. The University of Penn
sylvania has turned out another such
man in ]. B. Taylor, who now holds
the intercollegiate record of 40 1-5 sec
onds for the quarter-mile run.
But the competition of these men
has always excited hard feelings not
only in their own universities, but in
the rival camps. For instance, when
Matthews, the Harvard negro athlete,
displaced Randall, his rival, for end,
the white man quit the team in dis
gust, and a big majority of the stu
dents sided with him.
The playing of Matthews by Harvard
was always very distasteful to Yale
and Princeton, and the crimson was
many times warned not to use him.
But Harvard has been especially
friendly to the negro, and has had more
of them in athletics than all the other
universities combined.
No Place at Princeton
At Princeton there is no place for the
negro, and black man never wore
Tiger uniform. Princeton even OBJ
jected to playing against a negro, and
it is stated that when Dartmouth used
negro on her football team a few
years ago he was put out of the game
on the very first scrimmage. The
charge was made at the time, and
never denied, that the Princeton play
ers took this means to show their op-
position to the use of the negro in
athletics.
Harvard is practically the only big
university in the country where a negro
has any chance to make a football or
baseball team. At Princeton, Penn
sylvania and Yale a negro who ap
piled for a place as candidate for a
| team would be refused even the privi-
| lege of practice. If he did not know
the sentiment existing against him he
would be told of it very quickly and
advised to turn his energies to some-
thing else.
The same condition of things would
confront him in baseball. 1t is easy to
get rid of offensive candidates for base
| ball and football honors, because in
these sports the men are chosen by a
coach or captain, and there is no way,
outside of a mans JUDGMENT. for one
candidate to prove his superiority over
another This makes it very easy to
turn down" all negro candidates.
| But it is a harder matter to do this
| in track athletics, where man wins
his place by defeating all other candi-
dates for the place. Thus if a negro
athlete can outrun all his competitors
| there is no way to keep him off the
| team. j. B. Taylor, the University of
Pennsylvania negro who won the quar-
ter-mile at the intercollegiate in 1904,
was so far superior to the field that
his place was assured on the team
| from the start.
| But it is somewhat peculiar that
Taylor although student at Pennsyl-
| wanna, UdS IlOL represented lIle Ieu anu
blue since 1904. He has always been
"ineligible" for some reason never
satisfactorily explained.
Out of Track Events
Even in track athletics an effort is
made to keep the negroes off the team.
At one big university in the east,
whose name it would not be fair to
give, a novel method has been devised
by the trainer of the track team. Pc
ing bitterly opposed to negroes on his
team he permits the negro candidates
to train, but he makes the would-be
sprinters do cross-country work and
vice versa until the candidates are
forced to the conclusion that they
missed their calling when they decided
to become track athletes.
A conspicuous example was furnished
by Yale a few years ago by the case
of Gregory. the former Andover cham
pion sprinter and baseball player. AL
though Gregory was allowed to train
for the nine, and proved himself the
best candidate for his position he was
never given a chance to play in a
minor game, and. tired of sitting on
| the bench he quit