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- Title
Gideon Edward Smith: The Player and Coach Who Gave Meaning to Black College Football, 1892–1942.
- Authors
Chiles, Marvin T.
- Abstract
This article argues for Gideon Edward Smith's admission into the College Football Hall of Fame. He was the first black football player at Michigan State University, contributing to football's popularity among black men in the early twentieth century. As a coach at Hampton Institute, Smith built the first black football powerhouse program in the 1920s. Smith was also black football's first apologist, arguing that the game groomed black men for race leadership in the Jim Crow era. Black media's support of Smith's mission led to reforms that propelled black college football towards its maturity after World War II. Historians currently discuss black college football through analysis of famed post-World War II coaches who groomed assertive black men in opposition to American racism with the help of black sports journalism. This dynamic began with Gideon Edward Smith–a man whose contributions to the game best explains how college football writ large evolved from an elite pastime for wealthy white men to an objective metric of black achievement.
- Subjects
COLLEGE football; HAMPTON University (Va.); HISTORICALLY Black colleges &; universities; JIM Crow laws; MICHIGAN State University; SPORTS journalism; WORLD War II; BLACK men; SPORTS participation; RACISM in sports
- Publication
Journal of African American Studies, 2023, Vol 27, Issue 2, p187
- ISSN
1559-1646
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/s12111-023-09613-w