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Johnny: I Am Glad We Have Not Forgotten You

Johnny sat in a segregated Minneapolis hotel room, the Curtis Hotel, trying to compose his thoughts before his first big game against the University of Minnesota. His teammates were a few blocks down the road enjoying a team meal and preparing to turn in for the night. While it was not the Jim Crow South, life was not easy for an African-American in the Midwest, especially if you stood out in a crowd. Given Johnny’s large size, broad features, and dark skin, he stood out.

“Don’t look a white man in the eye.” “Watch what you say.” “Don’t backtalk or sass.” “Whatever you do, don’t let him think, that you think, that you’re his equal, especially if you are educated.”

In 1923, fifteen percent of the adult, white male population belonged to the Ku Klux Klan. Lynchings and beatings were commonplace and, more often than not, not reported on. In the state of Iowa, where Johnny played football, a decade earlier, residents of a small town called Villisca beat the bushes for a black man to lynch, after a murder there, even though there was no evidence of such involvement.

A few months earlier, a large section of Tulsa, Oklahoma, the home state of a Big Eight rival, went up in flames after a hysterical young girl claimed that a black teenager had tried to assault her, in an elevator, in an extremely busy office building, in the middle of the work day. Logic and common sense went out the window as 200 men, women and children were killed by a rampaging white mob and most of the African-American homes were either looted or went up in smoke.

Just down the road from Iowa, in Missouri, a few years earlier, anger over blacks competing for the same manufacturing jobs erupted in mob violence. Hundreds died and thousands fled for their lives. Just a few weeks earlier, there was an official report of an even bigger riot in Chicago. A black youth had crossed an imaginary “whites-only” line at Lake Michigan, and had been killed in a hail of rocks thrown by whites from the beach.

The legendary boxer and former heavyweight champion, Jack Johnson, had only been out of prison a few months for violating the Mann Act. The real reason he had been in prison was for being the heavyweight champion of the world and black. Commissioner of Baseball, Kenesaw “Mountain” Landis had let it quietly be known that “negroes” would not be allowed on the same major league diamond, as white players.

Even though most sports fans paid almost no attention to the professional sport, less than two seasons earlier, Fritz Pollard and Bobby Marshall, were the first African-Americans to be allowed on the National Football League gridiron. Both, along with seven other African-Americans, would quietly be removed from professional rosters in 1926. White people did not play well with others.

In the quiet of his motel room, Johnny’s mind probably turned to thoughts of his father, Green, who had died when he was seven. Green, had been one of the infamous buffalo soldiers out of Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, named such by the Cheyenne because their hair resembled that of the bison’s coat and their fierce fighting ability, and later hunted the wooly beasts for the railroads, until the herds declined.

Returning to Ohio, Green did something most men his age would never have thought about doing. He wanted an education. At twenty-six years old, he enrolled in first grade. He worked hard, met and married his wife, and, after a great deal of hard work and saving, bought the farm he was a tenant on, the farm where his only son was born. Then, just like that, Green was gone. He died of a heart attack.

Johnny carried his father’s spirit with him and dreamed of helping his people, maybe even returning to the South where his father had come from. A twist of fate had brought him to Iowa instead. His high school football coach had been named the new football coach at Iowa State College in Ames and Johnny was one of a handful of his players he took with him.

Ames was not a diverse place, friendlier than most universities in the region, but not a place of welcoming open arms. Even though the legendary George Washington Carver had gone there three decades earlier, there were only twenty African-American students on the entire campus and Johnny was not going to be allowed to room with the whites on campus. He had to find a place off-campus, but none of the local residents wanted an African-American living with them. It was especially important for Johnny to find a place, because he had just met his future wife, Cora Mae, shortly before leaving Ohio, and planned to return the next summer to marry her. Finally, the Freemasons allowed him to board in a room located in their Temple.

Big, 215 pounds, with cat-like reflexes, and speed to burn, Johnny would have started on the line, played both directions, as a freshman, but it was against institutional policy to do such. In a time where athlete scholarships were non-existent, Johnny, and later Cora Mae, had to find menial jobs to pay for board, tuition and daily expenses. He put up with degrading comments, lame jokes and ribbing, and the demeaning conduct that was commonplace from whites. Still, he excelled in the classroom and joined the track team in the spring. He even won the Missouri Valley Conference meeting in shot putt and disc.

While his coach and teammates loved having Johnny on the team, he was by far their best player; it was tough to schedule games because other teams refused to break the color line by playing the Cyclones, unless Johnny stayed off the field. (Iowa State got the nickname “Cyclones” under legendary coach, Glenn “Pop” Warner, because they played like Cyclones on the field against Northwestern.) The University of Minnesota agreed to play them, but a majority of the Golden Gophers’ team was not happy about it.

Things did not start out well that crisp October Saturday. On the second play of the game, of his first game, Johnny felt pain in his shoulder. What no one realized at the time is, he had broken his collarbone. In ungodly pain, after visiting the sidelines for a few plays, he put back on his leather helmet and ran onto the field. His teammates needed him in this close, give and take game.

At the end of the third quarter, Johnny attempted to smash up a wedge play run off-tackle. Hurling himself headlong at the blockers, the big tackle crumbled to the ground. Lying on the ground, at least three Minnesota players violently stepped on him. Whether it was an accident, or on purpose because he was black, is still debated. Some in the crowd thought it was an unsportsmanlike gang beating, murder with cleats on. Others felt nothing out of the ordinary had happened. What was clear was the Gopher players did not want him on the field with them. A teammate years later reported, "He was badly hurt, but tried to get up and wanted to stay in. We saw he couldn't stand and helped him off the field." As his teammates carried Johnny to the sidelines, the Minnesota crowd mocked him, chanting, "We're sorry Ames, we're sorry."

Without the Cyclones’ best player in the game, Minnesota won 20-17. Taken to a nearby hospital, it was determined by doctors, that other than the broken collarbone, the star tackle was completely healthy, except for some bumps and bruises. Placed on the team train back to Ames, it quickly became apparent that something major was wrong. Unable to lift himself from the straw mat, Johnny had trouble breathing. The next day, after returning to Iowa, it was determined that the Minnesota doctors were wrong. The young tackle was quickly taken to Des Moines. With surgery deemed to risky, the young man died of collapsed lungs and internal bleeding.

Four thousand students attended Johnny’s funeral on campus, the same campus he was not allowed to live on, and said good-bye to him in his cardinal and gold casket. Cora Mae, broken hearted, a few weeks later moved back to Ohio, never to return to Ames, and a few years later remarried. As memories faded and young men grew old, Johnny was forgotten about, a sad footnote to a forgettable season. That is until a young journalism student found a dirty, long forgotten plaque behind a stairway in the old gymnasium.

In an era where big donors and corporations get ballparks and stadiums named after them, fans need to remember the story of Johnny “Jack” Trice, the only African-American, in the entire United States, to have a football stadium named after him. He needs to be remembered, if for no other reason than the letter found in his breast pocket shortly before his funeral, the words he wrote down the night before the game.

To Whom It May Concern:

My thoughts just before the first real college game of my life: The honor of my race, family and self are at stake. Everyone is expecting me to do big things. I will! My whole body and soul are to be thrown recklessly about on the field tomorrow. Every time the ball is snapped, I will be trying to do more than my part. … Be on your toes every minute if you expect to make good.

Jack

I am glad we did not forget you Johnny.