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On June 4, 1947, Jackie Robinson changed the face of sports for all time. As a member of the Brooklyn Dodgers, he trotted out onto the field to become the first black player in major league baseball history, and the walls of segregation came tumbling down.
Today, we take it all for granted. Can we even imagine pro sports without the great black athletes of the past 60 years - sports without Tiger Woods, Barry Sanders, Michael Jordan, Walter Payton, Barry Bonds and Venus Williams?
Impossible!
And yet the color barrier existed in nearly all sports until 1947. Boxing was the major exception; Jack Johnson was the first black world heavyweight champion, winning the title way back in 1910. And Joe Louis was champion from 1937 through 1949.
But it was up to Jackie Robinson to blast through the color barrier once and for all. Here's what Hank Aaron, the all-time home run king of baseball, said about the impact Robinson had on his life, and sports in general.
"Before Jackie Robinson broke the color line, I wasn't permitted even to think about being a professional baseball player," wrote Aaron. "I once mentioned something to my father about it, and he said, 'Ain't no colored ballplayers.'
"There were the Negro Leagues, of course, where the Dodgers discovered Jackie, but my mother, like most, would rather her son be a schoolteacher than a Negro Leaguer. All that changed when Jackie put on No. 42 and started stealing bases in a Brooklyn uniform."
HOW ABOUT THE sport of wrestling? When did the color barrier come crashing down in collegiate wrestling, if there ever was one?
March of 2007 will mark the 50 th anniversary of the first African-American national champion in collegiate history. In 1957, Simon Roberts of the University of Iowa captured the NCAA title at 147 pounds with a 2-2, 2-0 overtime victory over Ron Gray of Iowa State. It was a watershed moment in wrestling history!
"To my knowledge, Simon Roberts is both the first African-American NCAA champion ever, and the first All-American, as well." said Bobby Douglas recently. "I've done research and that's what I'm coming up with."
Growing up in Ohio, Douglas became the first black high school state champion in Ohio, and the first African-American to make a U.S. Olympic team. He went on to become one of the sport's biggest legends and most influential figures, as a wrestler, coach, clinician, author and all-around ambassador. He says the impact of Roberts was profound.
"For me as a youngster, when I heard about Simon Roberts winning the NCAA title, that really motivated me," said Douglas, who retired as Iowa State head coach this past spring but still works in the Cyclone athletic department. "Back then, I was reading everything I could get my hands on about the sport and to discover there was a black champion meant that I could dream of doing things in this sport, too.
"If there is someone you could compare Simon Roberts to - well, to me he was the Jackie Robinson of the sport of wrestling. I went into wrestling heart and soul after I found out about him. Simon was definitely a pioneer."
Roberts finished the 1957 season as a junior with an overall record of 13-1-1. The next year, he compiled a 12-0-1 season record and went into the NCAAs as the top seed at 147. But he was upset in the second round by Earl Dearing of Oregon in overtime and didn't place that year. Iowa State's Ron Gray won the title as a junior, and repeated in 1959.
Ironically, Roberts and Gray had met in the state finals of the Iowa high school tournament in 1954, at 133 pounds. Roberts also won that match, stopping Gray from becoming Iowa's first-ever four-time state champion!
Roberts moved back to the Quad Cities are after graduating from Iowa and got into coaching at the high school level. Among the young wrestlers he worked with was Mark Johnson, who went on to become a two-time All-American at Michigan, a Greco-Roman national champion, 1980 Olympian, and head coach at Illinois.
Simon eventually moved into educational administration and spent his last 18 years at Black Hawk College, retiring in 1995. He then moved to Los Angeles. But he hasn't forgotten his wrestling and Iowa past. When I called him recently to discuss his role as the first African-American NCAA champion, he was pleased to talk about the past and, after some prompting from me, his historic role.
"Well, yes, I was aware that I was the first African-American NCAA champion in wrestling," he said. "It's a great honor and I do think about it from time to time. I'm proud of the fact that it might have opened doors for others."
Like so many others, Roberts' wrestling odyssey began with disappointment in another sport. He was cut from the basketball squad in eighth grade and several friends talked him into trying wrestling.
"I had fine coaches like Jim Fox and Bert Seidler at Davenport (Iowa) High School," he said. "As I think about my wrestling career, it all goes back to those men who inspired me, and friends who talked me into trying wrestling after being cut from basketball."
Among his teammates at Iowa were such wrestling icons as Terry McCann, 1960 Olympic champion; Ken Leuer, who went on to become a major general in the United States Army, and Gary Kurdelmeier, who was the head coach at Iowa who brought Dan Gable to Iowa City. All four of them - McCann, Leuer, Kurdelmeier and Roberts - were NCAA champions as Hawkeyes.
Simon Roberts' position in wrestling history is forever secure. He stands tall as the first African-American national collegiate champion in Division I, and blazed the path for the great wrestlers to come - men like Lee Kemp, Nate Carr, Kenny Monday, Kevin Jackson..and Bobby Douglas.
On April 14, Roberts will be among seven legendary figures inducted into the Glen Brand Wrestling Hall of Fame of Iowa, in the new Dan Gable International Wrestling Institute and Museum in Waterloo, Iowa. The committee has asked Bobby Douglas to introduce Roberts.
"It will be a great honor," said Douglas, who has met Roberts just once, briefly. "I'm not sure if I'm the right guy to do it, but I'm very flattered that the committee has asked me to do so."
Perhaps the only person more fitting would be Jackie Robinson himself.
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