Post-SAE, the Oklahoma Sooners visit a stadium named for a racial martyr
AMES, Iowa — As the Iowa State Cyclones clustered at the front of their tunnel Thursday, preparing to enter Jack Trice Stadium to face Oklahoma, they were greeted by the face and words of the venue’s namesake, a player, just like them, but one who left Iowa in a coffin 93 years ago.
Trice, Iowa State’s first African-American football player, was pummeled during a game at Minnesota on Oct. 6, 1923, breaking his collarbone early and suffering internal injuries after returning to the game.
Trice, who rode the 200 miles back to Iowa in a train car filled with straw in an attempt to ease his pain, died two days later. As the decades have passed, and the role of race and sports in America have grown more complex, his death has been viewed in a changing light.
“There was an initial investigation, a question into it, when he died in 1923, and people testified that ‘no, it wasn’t racially motivated.’ Over the course of history, people have asserted that it absolutely was,” said Jaime Schultz, a sports historian at Penn State whose book “Moments of impact: Injury, racialized memory, and reconciliation in college football” includes Trice’s story. “So we have two different accounts, and it’s hard to sort out which is accurate.”
“Everyone who was ever interviewed that was in the game said … he was not singled out because he was black,” said Tom Kroeschell, the director of athletics communication at Iowa State from 1993–2013. “Can any of us unequivocally say we know? No.”
Trice eventually took on a mythical quality, viewed by some as a college football racial martyr. Former Sooner Eric Striker remembered being struck by Trice’s story when an OU trainer told it to him during Oklahoma’s visit to Iowa State in 2012.
“As an African-American player, you appreciate the things that he has done and his life and his struggle,” said Striker, whom OU honored for his leadership after a racist fraternity chant became public and roiled campus last year. “It’s just a moment that you have with yourself before you play on that field. I know I’m not a Cyclone, but his story is just touching, being an African-American male.”
Trice, having been banished to eat alone in a private room in the Minneapolis hotel where the team stayed before the fateful game, seemed to recognize the importance of the moment in a letter he wrote to himself on Curtis Hotel stationery — the same words Iowa State players see as they come out of the tunnel.
“The honor of my race, family and self is at stake,” the letter began. “Everyone is expecting me to do big things. I will. My whole body and soul are to be thrown recklessly about the field.”
No. 12 Oklahoma beat Iowa State, 34–24, Thursday night in Ames, recording its 74th win in 81 tries against the Cyclones. In a sport known for the unexpected, Oklahoma-Iowa State is as consistent as it gets.
What was different this year is that it was the Sooners’ first game in Jack Trice Stadium since the Sigma Alpha Epsilon video scandal rocked Norman, which sprung the football team into a public crusade against racism.
The SAE scandal and its aftermath was just one in a recent series of high-profile racial protests in the sports world. Last fall, the University of Missouri football teamed threatened to boycott a game against BYU if the school’s president did not resign for allegedly failing to react properly to complaints of racial abuse on campus.
Then, this August, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick began kneeling during the national anthem before games to protest police brutality against people of color. Players from around the league — including Miami Dolphins receiver and former Oklahoma star Kenny Stills — soon joined him.
History shows that the issue of race in sports, at Oklahoma or elsewhere, won’t go away. It’s always there, regardless of whether it’s vocalized, surging at different points.
“Sometimes it’s simmering beneath the surface, and sometimes it erupts in the form of somebody like Colin Kaepernick or people at Missouri or Oklahoma where they just say, ‘Enough is enough. We’re not going to take it anymore,’” Schultz said.
As some of the Sooners’ leaders at the time of the SAE incident have moved on from the program, the activism has quieted. The younger players they left are not publicly grappling with the racism they encounter.
“I definitely think it’s something that we all think about, that we had to go through last year to make us a better team,” sophomore offensive tackle Orlando Brown said. “And man, as far as it being an issue, we don’t really have to deal with it anymore obviously because of what happened to them and things like that. So we haven’t had to deal with it really.”
Players say the ongoing protests driven by Kaepernick’s stance haven’t made a ripple among the team.
“Honestly, I haven’t really heard anyone talk about it in the locker room. We’re never out there for the national anthem and things like that,” Brown said. “I mean, we’ve got a bunch of positive guys, so if one guy kneels I’m pretty sure we all would, but there isn’t much talk about it.”
But Striker, the most outspoken Sooner player during the days following the SAE incident, said the conversations are ongoing at OU, even if one player isn’t pushing the issue into the public eye. He said the Sooners are just waiting for the next outspoken leader to emerge.
“The conversations are always had with administration, different groups on campus and also the football team, but I think it takes somebody to want to come out,” Striker said. “It’s a sacrifice, to put some things on the line to lead it. It has to be somebody, and I think that’s what the search is for now.”
It would be five decades after Trice’s death before integration became mainstream in college athletics. Even at those schools that were seen as pioneers, the transition was not smooth.
When Trice came to Ames in 1922, he had trouble finding a place to live because locals were reluctant to rent to an African-American, Kroeschell said.
“In the ’20s, ’30s, ’40s, ’50s, black athletes weren’t allowed to live on campus. Even at majority schools that were integrated like Ohio State, they had to live off campus,” Schultz said. “They couldn’t get their hair cut at local barbers. They couldn’t eat at local restaurants. So you’ve got a community that will really cheer and adore and love people on Saturday gameday, but the rest of the time people are treated like second class citizens.”
Even among the pioneering schools, the integration wasn’t full. Former Oklahoma coach Barry Switzer, seen by many as a trailblazer for the recruitment of African American players, said coaches weren’t free to recruit African Americans at every position while he was an assistant coach in the ’60s and ’70s.
“There was a quota system, obviously by coaches, it wasn’t something that was talked about. You went out and you didn’t recruit right guards, you recruited fullbacks, running backs, receivers, your skill people to play — the black athletes,” Switzer said. “You weren’t doing the right thing trying to recruit all the best players at all positions.”
Switzer changed that when he took over in Norman.
“When I became the head coach in ’73, that was my philosophy and that’s what I told my coaching staff. That you’re coaching for the wrong guy if you don’t believe in what I believe in. We’re going to recruit the best players at all positions, gives us the best chance to win. It’s the right thing to do.”
About the same time, a group of students at Iowa State rediscovered the Trice story as the school was building a new football stadium, and a campaign began.
“From this class emerged a big movement to name the stadium for him. There were other people who said ‘No, we should name it after a donor, we should do it — Trice played in two games in the ’20s, why should we name a stadium after him?’” Schultz said.
In 1984, they found what Schultz called a compromise: the field, but not the stadium, would be named after Trice.
Similarly, Oklahoma under Switzer wasn’t a complete sanctuary for African-American athletes, as his players found out when he started black quarterbacks.
“There was letters to them, there were some comments,” Switzer said. “I laughed at them. Those things never influenced me.”
Progress has been made, but tension remains. Those feelings of disenfranchisement felt by players in the early 20th century were echoed in an explosive Snapchat video Striker made following the SAE incident.
“This is always a conversation on college campuses, period, and will continue to happen,” said Striker, who was not selected in the NFL draft but spent training camp with the Buffalo Bills. “And they’re always trying to make progress when it comes to race relations and those types of things.”
Years passed, yet the campaign to name the stadium after Trice wasn’t done. In 1997–74 years after his death, and spurred as part of a student political platform — he got his full recognition as Cyclone Stadium was renamed Jack Trice Stadium.
The move was part of another surge, just like the collapse of segregation in college football in the ’70s and the protests of today.
“I think there is an idea that there’s a critical mass of black athletes when historically they were simply tokens on white campuses,” Schultz said of the current climate. “It’s encouraging that people can speak out now, but it’s also disheartening that they’re feeling some of the same types of disenfranchisement that they did in early 20th century.”
This moment of racial protest may dissipate like so many others, but the sentiment will always be under the surface, looking for a moment to make an impact, just as Trice wrote, sitting alone in that Minneapolis hotel room.
“Every time the ball is snapped, I will be trying to do more than my part. Fight low, with your eyes open and toward the play. Watch out for crossbucks and reverse end runs. Be on your toes every minute if you expect to make good.”
