By Joel Alderman
Harvard helped to open the Yale Bowl in 1914. Those present that day, the players and over 70, 000 spectators, mostly from wealth, aristocracy and the white middle and upper classes, saw the Harvard captain, Charley Brickley, and Yale’s leader, Bud Talbott, meet on the 50-yard line for introductions and the coin toss. It must have been inconceivable for them to have thought it possible that one day, when the same ritual takes place 100 years later, the Harvard and Yale captains would both be African-Americans.
Norm Hayes, the Harvard captain will shake hands with captain Deon Randall of Yale. It will be the first time the universities have been so represented in a series that started on November 13, 1875. It will symbolize a momentous milestone in the history of college football and the social progress in our country.
This will be the 131st game in the series. During that span of years, both Harvard and Yale became racially integrated, in the classrooms and on the playing fields.. It was a gradual and slow process.
Achieving the football captaincy at Harvard and Yale has always been a major hurdle. Both teams, steeped in tradition, elect just a single man to be their captain. That reduces the odds of being elected. Arthur Daley of The New York Times wrote on a few occasions that being elected as the Harvard captain was akin to, or even more of an achievement, than becoming president of the United States. That could also have applied to Yale.
Since they began playing football, there have been four black captains at Harvard, and four at Yale. But until this year they had never coincided. Now, Hayes and Randall will be linked in the Yale-Harvard football annals. Let’s look first into their predecessors.
William Henry Lewis was a fill-in captain of Harvard in 1893
William Lewis played three years at Amherst, was its captain in 1891, and the first African-American to play on any college team. After graduating from Amherst, he enrolled at the Harvard Law School. Under the loose eligibility rules at that time, he was permitted to play two more years there as well. He was a center for Harvard and was selected as an All-American in 1893.
In November that year, Harvard’s captain was unable to play in the last game of the season due to an injury. His teammates voted Lewis as the acting captain against Princeton. Although it was just for one game, Lewis became Harvard’s original African-American team captain.
Fifty-six after Lewis was chosen by Harvard, Yale unanimously elected Levi Jackson to be the first black captain in Yale’s sports history. Actually, he was the first one of his race to even play the game there and one of only three in the entire student body. He was a great star at Hillhouse High School in New Haven, and his father was a steward in the Yale dining halls. Levi Jackson served in the Army as a staff sergeant.
Levi Jackson was captain of Yale in 1949
He played four years at Yale. When he wasn’t hampered by injuries, he was a spectacular halfback. Newsreel film of his 86-yard touchdown return in the rain against Columbia his freshman season was shown in movie theaters throughout the country.
