First African-American basketball player for Indiana University in the Big Ten conference
Six months after leading Shelbyville to its only state high school basketball in 1947, Bill Garrett (1929-1974) enrolled at Indiana University. Freshmen were ineligible at that time to play varsity sports, but on Dec. 4, 1948, 6-3 center Garrett took the court for a game-opening jump ball. He scored 8 points as IU beat DePauw that night, a down payment on the record 792 points he would score in an All-American career that also ended an ugly era: More than two decades of a “gentlemen’s agreement” that had closed Big Ten basketball to men of Garrett’s race. While Dick Culberson of Iowa University was technically the first African-American man to play in the Big Ten conference (playing in three Big 10 games in the 1944-45 season), Garrett holds the distinction of being both the first African-American ball player on the IU team and the first African-American man to regularly play in the Big Ten. As a collegian, Garrett never played with or against another black player. After Garrett had graduated, other Big Ten schools slowly integrated their basketball programs. His Hoosier career point record eventually fell, but the door he opened stayed open for a long line of African-American players who were beloved by IU fans for their basketball excellence as well as for the rich contribution they made as people to IU and the Big Ten.