The Legend of Jack Trice and the campaign for Jack Trice stadium, 1973-1984

Journal of Social History, Summer, 2008 by Jaime Schultz

The Legend of Jack Trice

From the beginning, various writers of Jack Trice tales established a motif of racial difference. Because of that difference, his seemed to be a life of deficiency and loss, the determination to succeed, and the application of a necessary, admirable work ethic that should have made all things possible--a personification of the American Dream. All four of his grandparents had been enslaved and his father, after fighting in the Indian Wars as a member of the all-black U.S. Tenth Cavalry, settled in Hiram, Ohio--a virtually all-white, rural town where John G. "Jack" Trice was born in 1902. A sudden heart attack killed his father in 1909, leaving his mother, a woman of reported "wisdom and dignity" to raise their only child.(10) Jack Trice remained a citizen of Hiram until he completed the eighth grade. As he prepared to enter high school his mother insisted that he live with his uncle in nearby Cleveland, Ohio, wishing, according to one of his elementary schoolmates "to get him among people of his own kind, to meet the problems that a negro [sic] boy would have to face sometime, and to give him an opportunity to make social contacts with people of his own race." (11)

In Cleveland, Trice attended East Technical High School and although his mother hoped the environment would be more racially diverse, he was the only African American football player on the squad [Figure 1]. Recognized, at least in death, as "one of the best linemen ever graduated from the school," he was a standout high school athlete on an exceptional team.(12) In his 1919 sophomore season, the East Technical football team lost only one game. The next year, the team was invited to play for the national high school championship in Seattle, Washington. In Trice's senior year, the team went undefeated, but while colleges and universities like Notre Dame recruited his white teammates, there is no evidence that any institutions sought Trice. (13) Notre Dame refused to admit African American students until the 1940s and did not allow black athletes on its football squad until 1952. In fact, few institutions were willing to integrate their athletic teams during the first half of the twentieth century. (14)

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

As Trice's senior year of high school ended, however, Sam Willaman, his coach at East Technical, accepted the head football position at Iowa State. Willaman convinced Trice and several of his teammates to attend the Ames, Iowa agricultural school [Figure 2]. It is reasonable to surmise that because of the color of his skin, this was the only offer Trice received to play college sports, though his talent, size, speed, and strength would have otherwise made him a highly desirable recruit at any school in the U.S.

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

Jack Trice began his schooling at Iowa State in the fall of 1922. As authors regularly mention in retelling his story, he was the school's first African American student-athlete, though a small number of black students, including noted scientist George Washington Carver, previously attended the institution. (15) Trice majored in Animal Husbandry and, as Carver had, planned to use his degree to assist and advise Southern black farmers, an element that consequently melds the legacies of two noble, black figures at the predominantly white school. An additional detail authors frequently weave into the Trice's biography involves his determination to overcome the shortcomings of his college preparatory experience. Initially, he had barely enough acceptable credits to gain conditional entrance as a freshman but he reversed his status by making up the necessary prerequisites and passing forty-five hours of college work with an average above 90 percent.(16)