Kansas State University

By: D. Scott Fritchen

This article originally appeared in the K-Stater Alumni Magazine in 2021

On the morning of September 11, 1999, Harold Robinson greeted a reporter with a toothy smile while occupying a couch in the lobby of Jardine Apartments, less than one mile from KSU Stadium. Hours later, cheers from the crowd of 50,624 would cascade upon the 69-year-old as Kansas State celebrated the 50th anniversary of Robinson breaking the race barrier in the Big Seven Conference.

Robinson usually wore a black driver’s cap. That day, he wore his purple one along with a purple sports jacket. His kind eyes sparkled as he offered a business card that read: “Harold Robinson/Kansas State University/First Afro-American Athlete/Big Seven Conference.” Then Robinson began his story.

Time passes. Robinson’s story endures.

On Saturday, K-State recognizes the 75th anniversary of Robinson breaking the color barrier in the Big Seven Conference.

“One week before the 1949 coaches’ meeting in Kansas City, coach Ralph Graham told Milton Eisenhower, who was the Kansas State College president, that he wanted to put me on the varsity team,” Robinson said. “Milton said, ‘Well, I want you to go to Kansas City and tell all of those coaches that you’re going to play a Black player on your team.’ Ralph said, ‘OK, I’m glad to hear you say that. That’s what I wanted to hear.’ So, Ralph went to Kansas City and said, ‘President Eisenhower wants me to play Harold Robinson, a Black player, in the Big Seven Conference.’ Missouri coach Don Faurot stood up and said, ‘Ralph, why do you want to go and do something like that? That’s not right.’ Ralph said, ‘Don, I’m playing him.'”

This breakthrough announcement came toward the end of Eisenhower’s eight-year stint as K-State president. It marked arguably his greatest exercise in leadership.

Since Eisenhower resigned as associate director of the Office of War Information and was inaugurated at age 43 as President of Kansas State College on September 20, 1943, the native of Abilene, Kansas, had long been regarded among his faculty and staff as a reformer who maintained an uncompromising attitude. People called him “foresighted” and “interested in student problems.”

According to Milton S. Eisenhower: Education Statesman, General Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote to his brother: “The Presidency of a great college is a grand job for a man of your talents and disposition.”

Milton Eisenhower, the first K-State alumnus to be named the college’s president, earned a degree in Industrial Journalism in 1924. As just a sophomore, he served as editor of the Kansas State Collegian, and by graduation had been honored as one of the top orators in the Midwest.

Eisenhower’s initial concern as president entailed broadening curriculum to best benefit postwar students while maintaining industrial research. He called K-State students a “homogeneous bunch” according to Educational Statesman, due to the fact that a majority of students hailed from rural in-state towns and possessed a dogged work ethic, nice manners, and a thirst for education. Eisenhower traveled, spoke to high schools, and his regional popularity attracted an uptick in out-of-state students. K-State had a record enrollment of 7,435 for the 1949 fall semester.

For all his travels and speeches, little could Eisenhower predict that the young man destined to usher in a new era of Big Seven Conference athletics lived on Yuma Street in Manhattan.

“Kansas State was in a unique spot and kind of spurred a revolution,” said 90-year-old Dick Towers, a former halfback who was Robinson’s roommate for two years. “Milton Eisenhower said Black athletes should play and should have the opportunity to represent the university. We were a trailblazing university to get this started. It’s important for everyone to know that there was no great (negative) protest at Kansas State. Our student body was very supportive.”

Since the founding of the Big Six in 1926, a league-wide gentleman’s agreement kept Black athletes off varsity teams in every sport. Then in 1946, the Big Six’s governing body of faculty representatives unanimously passed a bylaw that formally banned Blacks athletes from participating in varsity athletics — a rule spurred by league powerhouses Missouri and Oklahoma, which were both segregated. Protests ensued among many Big Six campuses whose students opposed the formal bylaw.

Over the years, Eisenhower planted seeds of change. First, he suggested to the K-State student government that Black students share the same pool as other students on campus. Then he suggested that Black students be allowed to participate in intramural sports. Then he suggested that Kansas State perhaps should integrate student housing.

Eisenhower’s initial step in collegiate athletics arrived in 1947 when he suggested to athletic director Thurlo McCrady that perhaps two Black student-athletes could earn a football scholarship each year, thus easing K-State into the forefront of change within the conference.

Although K-State had two Black players on its freshman football team in 1947, neither was good enough to play at the varsity level, but Eisenhower was “prepared” to add Black players to Kansas State’s varsity football team “just as soon as we find ones who can meet the competition,” according to Educational Statesman. In 1948, the Big Six Conference of Iowa State, Kansas, K-State, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma, grew to become the Big Seven with the addition of Colorado.

Eisenhower’s visit with Graham the week before the 1949 annual spring coaches’ meeting in Kansas City, and Graham’s landmark announcement at the meeting on April 11, 1949, was met with support — from everyone except for Oklahoma and Missouri, that is. Both schools threatened to pull out of the conference.

As Paul Zeh wrote in the Abilene Reflector-Chronicle on April 15, 1949: “Oklahoma is the pressure behind the policy, with Missouri lending support. That is common knowledge.” Zeh continued: “But both these schools appear to be on the threshold of admitting Negros to their institutions. When this occurs on a broad scale, there would certainly be no sound reason for not permitting them to compete in athletics. In fact, there isn’t now.”

Zeh echoed a sentiment largely shared by media throughout the state of Kansas.

“The Graham announcement offers a ray of hope for dozens of excellent athletes of that race throughout the state,” Zeh wrote, “whose only hope for a college career in the past has been in the smaller schools or larger ones outside the state.”

K-State faced another potential roadblock. Although Robinson could play in home games, he’d possibly have to stay home when K-State played in states where segregation persisted. College programs such as Missouri and Oklahoma could dictate whether visiting Black players could attend games inside their stadiums.

For all the fuss, Robinson became the first Black athlete to play against Missouri in Columbia during the final game of the 1949 season. Despite K-State’s final 1-9-1 season record, Robinson earned a spot on the 1949 Big Seven Sophomore All-Star team at the center position “by a landslide,” according to the Lincoln Evening Journal, and he went on to earn 1950 First Team All-Big Seven honors as well. His close friend, Hoyt Givens, was a Black non-scholarship halfback in 1949 and then was placed on scholarship the remainder of his career. “Coach Graham was like a father figure to us,” Givens said.

“I tell you, I’m not a political person,” Robinson said in 1999. “I never got involved in any of these controversies. I was there to play ball. I didn’t care about anything as long as they let me play ball.”

Robinson grew up on 922 Yuma Street. At age 14, during summer Saturday mornings in 1943, Robinson raced to 1015 Yuma and knocked on the bedroom window to awaken his best friend, Earl Woods. Together, they ran to the nearby Douglass Community Center. They would watch two close friends and members of the segregated calvary unit based in Fort Riley roller skate for recreation. They were Heavyweight Champion Joe Lewis, and Jackie Robinson, who in 1947 became the first African American to play in Major League Baseball in the modern era.

Years later, Jackie Robinson wrote Harold Robinson (not related) a letter of encouragement when he broke the Big Seven race barrier. Harold hung the letter on his wall. In 2004, Harold hung his plaque from his induction into the Kansas State Athletics Hall of Fame next to it.

Milton Eisenhower’s push to play Harold Robinson on the gridiron opened further opportunities.

In 1951, K-State’s Gene Wilson joined University of Kansas’ LaVannes Squires as the first Black scholarship basketball player in the Big Seven. Wilson was also one of five in the conference to break the color barrier in track and field. In 1952, Earl Woods, father of Tiger Woods, broke the Big Seven’s color barrier in baseball. Ronald and Donald Harris also became the first two Black tennis players in the Big Seven.

Arguably the most famous early pioneer was halfback Veryl Switzer, a native of Nicodemus, Kansas, who became the fourth overall pick to the Green Bay Packers in the 1954 NFL Draft. He remains the highest-drafted K-State football player in history.

It all started with Robinson breaking the color barrier in the Big Seven Conference 75 years ago.

“Harold showed me that if I came to Kansas State, I would never regret it,” said Switzer, a 1990 member of the Kansas State Athletics Hall of Fame class. “He gave me that kind of assurance. We didn’t get into the race issue at all.”

Dave Baker sat inside the newly built Douglass Activities Center one day in August 2021. He grew up on Yuma Street just down the street from Robinson and Woods. In the second grade, Baker fielded balls for Woods and the Kansas State baseball team at nearby Griffith Park. In the third grade, Baker became the team’s bat boy. Now the 75-year-old Baker spent the past 10 years as director of the Douglass Community Center. He retold stories of playing as an outfielder and batting .291 at K-State during the 1965-66 season. He so impressed the Kansas City Monarchs that the baseball organization invited him to play. In Baker’s only game as a Monarch, he caught the first two innings for Satchel Paige. As a basketball guard, Baker helped Coffeyville Junior College to a 32-0 record and a national championship under head coach Jack Hartman. Baker later served as assistant basketball coach for Eddie Sutton at Creighton.

But Baker’s passion remained baseball, and he believed things ran full circle when K-State athletic director John Jermier hired him as head baseball coach in 1977. Baker remains the only Black man to serve as head baseball coach in Big Six, Big Seven, Big Eight and Big 12 Conference history.

“In fact, I believe Kansas State University is the only school from a Power 5 conference to have a Black head coach in all three major sports,” Baker said. “In men’s basketball, Darryl Winston, an assistant coach, took over as interim head coach for Jack Hartman when he suffered a heart attack in 1985; Ron Prince was hired as head football coach in 2006; and I was hired as head baseball coach. Kansas State was way ahead of the curve. That’s something I’m so proud of.

“Once we had the opportunity, we performed.”

It all goes back to Eisenhower inviting Graham to speak in his office one week prior to the 1949 Big Seven coaches’ meeting in Kansas City — and his courageousness that would alter the landscape of the Big Seven forever.

“That decision took a lot of guts,” K-State athletic director Gene Taylor said. “That’s tremendous conviction knowing what the reaction could be. Milton Eisenhower was a great leader because he believed in what was right, and he did anything that he could to make sure it happened. That’s not an easy thing to do. There’s a whole lot of pride that this whole effort was initiated by Milton Eisenhower and Kansas State.

“The opportunities that it opened up for young men because of one man who stood up and said, ‘We’re going to play Harold Robinson,’ — wow. I feel a sense of pride that I’m at an institution that has that conviction that started so many years ago and that always stands up for what is right.”

It started with Eisenhower and Graham discussing that the talents of outstanding sophomore center Robinson qualified him to play on the varsity football team. It continued with athletic exploits of Woods, too great to deny him a spot on the K-State varsity baseball roster. Race, Eisenhower told his contemporaries, should have no bearing on athletic participation.

With his power and position, Eisenhower opened the door to give Black athletes opportunities. Little did he know that Robinson and Woods, two lifelong friends who lived down the street from Kansas State College, would pioneer this new era behind a blend of athletic skill that knew no color.