Preserving History & Legacies
Xavier Revives Gold Rush Baseball
Xavier University of Louisiana announced the return of the baseball program that had been discontinued in 1960.
Established in 1925 by St. Katharine Drexel and the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, their first organized sport was football.
In former years, they were competitive in other NAIA sports…men’s and women’s basketball, track and field and tennis.
The baseball and softball teams will begin to compete in the 2020-21 academic year.
The softball team will be the only active intercollegiate program
in the Crescent City and will compete as a member of the NAIA and the Gulf Coast Athletic Conference for regional and national honors. Women’s indoor track and field and a new co-ed competitive cheer program will debut in the 2019-20 season which will bring their intercollegiate teams to 13 in 2020-21.
See Notable Alumni | The Championship Seasons
Otis Washington,one of the first XULA baseball football stars.
OCTOBER CELEBRATIONS
This Month in Black College History
1887 Florida A&M University founded as the State Normal College for Colored Students…1877 Natchez Seminary (Jackson State University) founded by the American Baptist Home Mission Society of New York and moved to Jackson, MS in 1882, and renamed Jackson College…1928 Johnson C. Smith University organized its First Men’s Basketball Team…1867 Morehouse College founded as Augusta College in the basement of Springfield Baptist Church in Augusta, Georgia and relocated in Atlanta in 1879…1927 Soul Bowl A football game featuring Alcorn State and Jackson State. The series was played in a classic format and known as the Dixie Classic…1950 First All-Black District 29 organized by the NAIA in the first step towards breaking the color barrier in college basketball…1983 Circle City Classic was established in Indianapolis, Indiana as an annual football classic featuring two Historically Black Colleges & Universities…
The King of Baltimore
The Coppin State University roadmap began on the strip – Pennsylvania Avenue in 1900, which was the epicenter of Black culture in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1978, Ron “Fang” Mitchell was hired as the men’s basketball coach and in 1993, they had the rest of the college basketball world asking, “Coppin who?” Read more…
Al Attles Joins Naismith Hall of Fame
A North Carolina A&T standout point guard, Al Attles had a 11-year NBA career. He averaged 8.9 points, 3.5 rebounds and 3.5 assists in 711 regular-season games and currently ranks fifth on the Warriors all-time games played list (711). Attles spent his entire 23-year NBA career with the Philadelphia and Golden State Warriors . He coached the Golden State Warriors 1974-75 championship and still holds the record as the winningest coach in Warriors history. See Black College Naismith members
