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Today's Tidbit... The First Black College Football Coach At A Non-HBCU
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Today's Tidbit... The First Black College Football Coach At A Non-HBCU

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Football Archaeology
Aug 09, 2023
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Football Archaeology
Today's Tidbit... The First Black College Football Coach At A Non-HBCU
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I and others have previously identified Matthew Bullock as the first Black coach at a predominantly White college. Last year, I wrote a story about Bullock's younger brother, William, who appeared in images of Exeter playing Tufts in 1903. That story included the following passage about Matthew Bullock:

After graduating from Dartmouth, Matthew Bullock went to Harvard Law and coached a high school team and the Massachusetts Agriculture College (now the University of Massachusetts Amherst). As coach of UMass during the 1904, 1907, and 1908 seasons, Matthew Bullock was the first African American to coach football at an integrated or predominantly white college.

Bullock on the far right wears his Dartmouth letter sweater for the 1904 Massachusetts team picture. (1906 UMass yearbook)

As it turns out, the passage is wrong since I recently found another coach who beat Matthew Bullock by one year. Regular readers know that yesterday's Tidbit told the story of the Eastern Coaches of 1903 and included their portraits in a composite image.

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