I hate to just do a straight repost, but this is a great read for any college football or American sports fan. It's the story of Wilmeth Sidat-Singh, a two-sport athelete for Syracuse in the 1930s. Sidat-Singh was born Wilmeth Webb to two black parents in DC, but his mother married an West Indian pharmacist after being widowed. To hush up his true biological past, Syracuse labeled him a Hindu. When travelling to Maryland, a local sportswriter (of Native American and African-American descent) unearthed his true past. The article goes into detail about how Maryland forced Syracuse to bench Sidat-Singh over his race, and how they are trying to make amends this weekend.
http://deadspin.com/76-years-later-maryland-tries-to-right-a-college-foo...
Comments
Very good read, thank you for the post
Parts of this article remind me of the origin of the "We are Penn State" cheer.
http://pigskinhistory.blogspot.com/2009/03/wally-triplett-and-1848-cotto...
I'm so confused. If his father is a West Indian and thus from the Carribean, why is his father's last name Singh and a non-practicing Hindu?
Maybe the author didn't mean West, but East, or simply Indian.
Pretty cool story; very sad that Syracuse had to hide the fact that Sidat-Singh was a black male. It's crazy to think my grandparents lived at a time when blacks were still thought of as "inferior" by a majority of the country.
I took it as meaning from West India, unless there's a subpopulation of Hindus in the Bahamas... I think I had that in a Civilization game once
+1 for Civilization reference.
Trinidad and Tobago has a lot of Indian (the actual Indian) ties. So it's possible that's where he's from.
Source: I'm Hindu.
right, there were indian slaves brought into the carribean after england conquered the sub-continent, correct?
Yup. And then once they were freed they dispersed through the Caribbean, but mainly to Trinidad and Tobago. I do have to wonder why they would choose Indian slaves though. We are hands down the least athletic race in the world.
I think this entire conversation can be summed up by Russell Peters...
Hands down my favorite comedian. Went to see him with my dad a couple years ago, absolutely hilarious.
Turkey legs for history lessons. Very cool (the dispersion of Indians around the globe, not the slavery)