Preserving History & Legacies
The Turkey Day Classic
By Ro Brown, Louisiana Weekly
Before there was a Bayou Classic between Grambling and Southern, there was a Turkey Day Classic between Dillard and Xavier.
Yes. For those of you who didn’t know, Dillard and Xavier actually had real football teams—tackle football teams, not flag.
The football rivalry between New Orleans’ non-public HBCU’s didn’t last long by football rivalry standards. They met on the gridiron 14 times from 1946 to 1959 with Xavier dominating the series 11-3.
It was a Thanksgiving Day social event for black New Orleanians and along with bragging rights for at least a year, the prize was the “Bone of Contention” – literally, the hind-femur of a bull, mounted on a plaque.
Xavier-Dillard on Thanksgiving Day may have lacked the longevity of Tuskegee-Alabama State, the first such classic lasting nearly 90 years, but it was just as heated. READ MORE
In the 1957 Classic, Dillard edge Xavier, 13-12.
Bayou classic: marching bands light up the game
The Bayou Classic is a annual HBCU classic college football game between two great SWAC rivals, the Grambling State University Tigers and the Southern University Jaguars.
Even though they first played the game under that name in 1974 at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans, the series actually began in 1932.
Since 1990 It has become the best known HBCU annual game nationally televised in the U.S. NBC broadcasted the game from 1991 – 2014, and since 2015 it has aired on the NBC Sports Network. The Bayou Classic was the only NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) game to be shown regularly on broadcast television.
The game is one of two black college football classics to be associated with Thanksgiving weekend; the other is the older Turkey Day Classic. The 2005 The event from the Superdome to Reliant Stadium in Houston, Texas following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, (only time that the Bayou Classic was held outside of Louisiana. The game returned to the Superdome in. READ MORE
DECEMBER CELEBRATIONS
This Month in Black College History
1947 FIRST BLACK COLLEGE FOOTBALL GAME played in the State of California…Wilberforce University Bulldogs defeated the Prairie View Panthers, 26-0…1967 WINSTON – SALEM STATE Men’s basketball team won the NCAA Division II Tournament…the first time ever for a Black College team. Future Hall of Famers coach Clarence “Bighouse” Gaines and Earl “The Pearl” Monroe captured the tournament Most Outstanding Coach and Player Awards.
CATCH THE LATEST PODCAST
Join Host Gil McGregor as he welcomes Dereck Whittenburg, the leader of the 1983 NC State Wolfpack championship team. They discussed the importance of receiving an education, and The Dereck Whittenburg Foundation.
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
