North Carolina State University Athletics
Athletes honor NC State's African-American trailblazers
1/23/2007 12:00:00 AM | Men's Soccer
BY RONNIE BOUEMBOUE
RALEIGH, N.C. – Just a few days ago, I learned about a reception that was being held Monday night at NC State’s African-American Cultural Center to honor the university’s first first class of African-American under-graduates. It’s been 50 years since the four men entered NC State, and the school is celebrating the golden anniversary of the arrival of those four courageous men.
I was a little shocked, I guess, to realize I did not know much about the first class. They are the men in whose footsteps I follow. I began asking questions of Tonya Washington, NC State’s Assistant Athletics Director for Student Development and Community Relations, who graciously answered them all.
She told me the names of the four men who broke the color barrier at NC State – Walter VanBuren Holmes, Irwin Richard Holmes Jr., Manuel Houston Crockett Jr. and Edward Carson. I was fascinated to learn about them, not only because they were the first blacks on this campus and they all received their degrees, but that they all participated in athletics in an environment that was not yet ready to accept them.
One of the many things I have learned from NC State men’s soccer coach Coach George Tarantini is that you find out who people are when things are not going their way. Well, these four guys are a perfect example. They were in an environment that didn’t welcome them, and not only did they graduate from NC State, but they have served for a half-century as role models for NC State students and student-athletes alike.
They all dealt with the negative situations they were faced with every day. They didn’t run away. They didn’t become bitter. I am pretty sure their intent was not to come here to make history; they wanted to go to school like every other student. But what they accomplished was something extraordinary.
I was very honored to be part of this reception. To just sit and
listen to all the speakers was a wonderful experience for me. One of the people there was Lin Dawson, a former NC State football player and the university’s first African-American associate athletics director. He eventually became the athletics director at North Carolina Central. He said that “sports builds character,” but he also said that a person’s true character is revealed when he or she deals with obstacles and hurdles.
There were a couple of amazing video clips of Irwin Holmes and the late Walter Holmes, talking about their experiences as NC State’s first African-American athletes, amazing because I was face-to-face with the people who paved the way for me to be here 50 years later. Irwin Holmes, who was the first African-American member of the NC State track team, told about he was not able to eat certain places when the team was traveling.
He told how all of his teammates, most of whom had grown up in segregated schools, stood by him and chose not to eat in places that he was not allowed to eat. It was a great show of strength and unity on their part to support their teammate, which is a lesson every team-sport participant strives to learn. As a current student-athlete, it is always comforting to know that my teammates are behind me 100 percent.
Sometimes, I think some of us take the opportunity to be a student athlete for granted, not knowing the struggles people before us went through so we can enjoy our sports and travel anywhere in the nation, without fear of the kind of discrimination they once faced. Many of us can’t fully comprehend what it was like to be here in 1956 and ’57. But I was inspired by learning a little more about NC State’s first four African-American students.
New NC State men’s basketball coach Sidney Lowe said it quite well: if it was not for the “strength, power, and godly men that these gentlemen were to go through a time like this,” I may not have the honor to be a student – and better yet, student-athlete – here at NC State.
What made this night very special for me was the conclusion of the event, when I represented the men’s soccer team in correcting a nearly forgotten injustice. The late Walter Holmes was a member of the soccer team during his career at NC State. He played in every home game, but frequently he did not travel to away games because certain opponents did not want to compete against African-Americans. At the time, the school rule was that for a student-athlete to letter in a varsity sport, he had to play in at least 50 percent of every game. Therefore, since he did not play in away games, it was impossible for Mr. Holmes to letter in soccer at NC State.
So I was happy to join Coach Tarantini and several of my other teammates Monday night in presenting an NC State letter jacket to Mr. Holmes daughter, Jennifer Holmes of Yardley, Pa., who came to NC State to participate in the event.
It was an honor that was long overdue.
