Sports History
Breaking Barriers
By Anne Madarasz

In the history of Pittsburgh sports there are many notable champions - athletes who broke the barriers of speed or time, or secured championships for themselves, their team or the region. A few changed sport itself - Joe Namath is considered by many to be the first true football superstar, and Arnold Palmer brought a whole new audience to golf and initiated the era of sports management. But Pittsburgh also has a notable roster of athletes who broke other barriers in sport - they were firsts in the era of integration, opening doors long closed to African American athletes.

Generally, when we think about the issue of integration and sport it is Jackie Robinson and baseball that come to mind. But there are athletes from this region whose participation in professional or international sport predates Robinson's seminal moment.

One of the earliest arenas in which African American athletes competed on an international stage was Olympic track and field. Hunter Johnson, a trainer at both Carnegie Tech and the University of Pittsburgh, seems key to the development of the sport in Pittsburgh. Information about his life and career is still obscure, but it is known that by 1920 he was training Olympic athletes Charles F. West, DeHart Hubbard and Earl Johnson. Johnson, who had raced for the Edgar Thomson Steel Co. team, competed at the Antwerp Olympics. He later became the first man with a regional connection to medal in track and field, winning bronze in the 10,000-meter cross-country race at the 1924 Paris Olympics.

A dozen years later, another track and field athlete, Connellsville's John Woodruff, participated in the Olympics. A Pitt freshman, Woodruff qualified in 1936, and went on to compete in Berlin at the "Nazi Olympics." He stunned the world when he won gold in the 800-meter race, outpacing a number of seasoned competitors. While that Olympics is best remembered for the four gold medals won by Jesse Owens, Woodruff was the first African American athlete to top the medals platform, making a quiet but persuasive argument against Hitler's claim of Aryan superiority. Though a gold medallist, Woodruff faced discrimination during the remainder of his college career.

Pitt also claims Olympic medallist Herb Douglas, who won bronze in 1948. Douglas attended the university on a football scholarship, becoming the second African American-after Jimmy Joe Robinson-on the team.

While at Pitt, Douglas won three national AAU championships and four IC4A titles in the long jump. At the London Olympics, Douglas took bronze with his jump of 24'8 ¾", becoming the first Pittsburgh native to win an Olympic track and field medal.

Contemporaries of Jackie Robinson, both Jimmy Joe Robinson and Herb Douglas were present as sport began its gradual integration.

Other regional athletes broke barriers in the sport of football. Ray Kemp became the first African American to play for the Steelers, competing in four games in the team's inaugural season of 1933. The following year he took a coaching job at Bluefield State College in West Virginia, the beginning of a 39-year career. After 1933, no African Americans played in the NFL until 1946.

Willie Thrower won two WPIAL championships at New Kensington High School in 1946 and '47. He went on to become the first black quarterback in the Big Ten when he played at Michigan State, and the first black quarterback in the modern NFL when he took the field for George Halas' Chicago Bears on October 18, 1953?

A graduate of Westinghouse High School and All-American at Duquesne University, Chuck Cooper made history in 1950 when he became the first African American drafted in the NBA. Chosen second in round two of the draft; Cooper's selection was met with controversy, as some NBA owners did not want to integrate the game. Likewise, Abe Saperstein, owner of the Harlem Globetrotters, did not support the NBA's draft as it threatened his chances to sign the best players. Despite this, Chuck Cooper played six seasons in the NBA, and one for the Harlem Magicians.

Athletes such as Woodruff, Robinson, Kemp, Thrower, and Cooper set the stage for the broader integration that would come with the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 60s. Often denied full opportunity, they struggled to compete and succeed in a game where not all had an equal chance. Their record of achievement, on and off the field, set a standard for sport and society.

Anne Madarasz is the Director of the Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum where the stories of these athletes are shared.