Jackie Robinson is most well known for breaking the color barrier in baseball. His number 42 is one of the most historically famous numbers for the all the people of color who are able to succeed and do great things because of the struggles he went through to open the door for others. But what is not always was is talked about is his successes on college at the UCLA in California. While most people know the great Jim Thorpe as one of the most overall great athletes throughout history, Jackie Robinson was also a great multi-sport athlete. Jackie was born in Cairo, Georgia on January 31, 1919 to a single mother with four older siblings. His brother Mack won the silver medal in the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games behind Jessie Owens, but Jackie made …show more content…
One of the sports Jackie Robinson excelled in was football despite being only 135 pounds. When he attended Pasadena Junior college he played quarterback, safety and some running back while also returning punts. In 1938 Robinson put up huge numbers rushing for 1,093 yards. Through the season he accounted for 17 touchdowns and 131 of the teams 369 points on their way to conference and state championships. These statistics allowed him to be named a junior college All-American. He later went on in 1939 to play on the UCLA Bruins football team. At the time very few Division I football programs across the country had a black player on their team if any. Robinson was one of four black players to be on UCLA’s football team which was very different. In the years 1939 and 1940 Robinson lead the nation in punt return average while his career average of 18.8 yards per return is fourth all time in NCAA history. He not only could return punts but while being used as mostly a decoy at running back averaged 11.4 yards per carry in 1939. In 1940 Robinson was second in the conference in total offense and set a NCAA record for average punt return yards at 21yards …show more content…
Not just breaking the color barrier in profession baseball was the only thing he did but Robinson put up impressive numbers throughout his Hall of Fame career. Not only did he do well as a professional player but he also excelled while in college. In just his first season at Pasadena junior college Robinson played shortstop while having a batting average of .417 and stealing 25 bases in 24 games. In his only season on the UCLA baseball team he batted only .097. Legend said that Robinson would compete in the broad jump while waiting to bat. Despite not playing baseball for 5 years Robinson continued his baseball career when he went on to play in the Negro Leagues. Jackie Robinson played only one season in the Negro League in 1945. He wanted some professional experience and joined the Kansas City Monarchs. In just one season there he had a batting average of
He was the youngest of 5. in 1937 he enrolled in pasadena junior college. His first year he was a shortstop and hit over 400 and stole over 20 bases in 25 games. During his second year, he played football. He ran for more than 1,000 yards and scored 17 touchdowns in 11 wins. He ever was a kick returner and ran back a 104 yard kickoff to the house for a touchdown. in the same year he played basketball and scored about 19 points a game and led his team to a championship. Later the same year he was MVP on his baseball team leading them to a championship, all while running track. the next year he went to UCLA on a scholarship for football and led the nation with a average of 12 yards a carry. He was the first four-letter athlete at UCLA playing baseball, football, track, and basketball. He later met a nursing student, Rachel Isum, his future wife. After he left college in 1942 he was drafted into the Army and was involved in World War II.For the next seventeen years, Jackie lived a great life after retiring from baseball. He was chosen to be in the Hall Of Fame in 1962. He was a advocate to bring public attention to the African American struggle and to help end racial discrimination..For the next seventeen years, until his death in 1972, Robinson lived an extraordinary yet difficult life.Opponents were always an issue with Jackie. During the games they would use racial slurs and rather cruel
Robinson attended Pasadena Junior College after high school. That is where he continued his athletic career. He played on the football team, baseball team, and he broke school broad-jumping records. Most of Jackie's teammates were white. In 1938,
The grandson of a slave, Jack Roosevelt Robinson was born on January 31, 1919, in Cairo, Georgia; he was the youngest of five children. Jackie grew up very poor, but little did he know that his athletic ability would open the doors for his future. After his father deserted the family when Jackie was six months old, his mother, Mallie Robinson, moved the family to California in search of work. California also subjected blacks to segregation at that time, but to less of a degree than in the Deep South. The young Jackie defused his anger over this prejudice by immersing himself in sports. He displayed extraordinary athletic skills in high school, excelling at football, basketball, baseball, and track. After helping Pasadena Junior College
Jackie continued his education at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he became the university's first student to win varsity letters in four sports. In 1941, despite his athletic success, Robinson was forced to leave UCLA just shy of graduation due to financial hardship. He moved to Hawaii, where he played football for the Honolulu Bears. His season with the Bears was cut short when the United States
Meanwhile, his brother was competing in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Germany. He won the silver medal in the 200-meter dash, just behind Jesse Owens. Jackie continued his education at UCLA because he was inspired by his brother to continue his pursuit of athletics. After being at UCLA for a year. Jackie was a letterman in baseball, football, basketball, and track. In 1940, he placed first in the long jump at the NCAA Track and Field Championships. He played just one season for the UCLA baseball team, and he only had a batting average of .097, but he was still a letterman because of his play in the field. However, just before graduation, Jackie was forced to leave UCLA because he couldn’t afford to go there anymore. He didn’t give up his dream to play sports
After UCLA, Jackie was an athletic direct for a few months for the National Youth Administration in Atascadero, California. Robinson’s dream of playing professional sports pushed him to go to Hawaii in 1941 to join a semipro, racially integrated football team. They were called the Honolulu Bears. He worked as a construction worker for the during the week. On the weekends, he was a member of the team. He returned after the short football season to the United States, right after
He attended high school at john muir high and went to Pasadena junior college. Robinson was an outstanding athlete, while he was in high school and college he played 4 sports, baseball, football, basketball, and track. Robinson continued his education at the university of California, Los Angeles where he won varsity letters in four sports. Robinson
Born on January 31, 1919 Jack Roosevelt Robinson was the youngest of five children. His father left the family before Jackie turned one and shortly after his mom moved the family from Georgia to California in search of work (Contemporary Black Biography). Segregation was still present in California, but was less harsh than in the south. To get away from the problems and racial prejudice, Jackie turned to sports. He was an exceptional athlete excelling in football, baseball, basketball, and track in both high school and college. He played four sports for the University of California Los Angeles (commonly known as UCLA). He was mostly a football and basketball star and had no intentions of playing Major League baseball due to the fact that it was all white. Jackie had always wanted to become a social worker to help underprivileged boys and hoped that travelling the nation for sports would expose him to a job in that field
Robinson certainly faced many different challenges. For example, they did not allow Robinson to stay at white hotels when they had over night games, which left him to be alone most nights. One reporter stated, “Robinson is the loneliest man I have ever seen in sports” (Brown 3). Additionally, many coaches, players, and fans abused Robinson. They did so by name calling at games, sending death threats, and intentionally hitting him with pitches (Graf 2). Opposing teams would always pick at Robinson by saying, “Hey, boy, come and shine my shoes,” or “Boy, why ain’t you picking cotton” (Brown 1, 2). “Robinson was proud and tough.” Despite all the negative activity, Robinson stayed composed and never let himself or his community down. “Proud and tough” was how Robinson became known. Nothing was going to stop him from proving he
In basketball he was the conference’s player of the year and in baseball he led the team to a conference championship (Schutz,pg.9). In 1938, Robinson set the national junior college Amateur Athletic Union Broad Jump record. The former record holder was his brother Mack Robinson (Schutz,pg.9). In 1936, Mack competed in the Olympics when Jesse Owens won four gold medals, Mack won a silver medal (Schutz,pg.9). After his two years at Pasadena Junior College, Jackie attended the University of California in Los Angeles(Schutz,pg.9). At UCLA, Robinson was phenomenal; he led the conference in scoring in basketball, he won the national broad jump title in track but in baseball he had a rough batting average of .097(Schutz,pg.12). At UCLA, he met his wife Rachel Isum. Rachel and Jackie got married February 10, 1946. In March 1941, Robinson moved on from college sports and was offered to play football for the Honolulu Bears in Hawaii(pg.12). He would get paid 100 dollars per football game
Robinson was an undeniably great player who had some of his best years stolen from him. He was a speedster who led his team to six World Series, won Rookie of the Year honors, an MVP award and was a six-time All-Star.
Robinson later went to the University of California after graduating PJC. He was the school 's first athlete to win Varsity Letters in 4 sports, Baseball, Football, Basketball and Track. He also played as one of the four Negro players in the 1939 Bruins Football team, But as it was a time when there were few black players, This made it one of the league 's most integrated team.To add on to that, Robinson also was part of the track team and he ended up winning the NCAA
In his first game for a farm team of the Dodgers, he tore it up. He went four for five with a three run home run, and three singles. He also stole two bases and scored every time he got on base (Goldstein). This game brought him one step closer to bringing down the color barrier. Due to Jackie Robinson's amazing first season he was promoted to play in the major leagues as a member of the Brooklyn Dodgers. This was an amazing feat for an African American ,like Jackie, and it had shattered the barrier that separated blacks and whites in organized sports. Now Jackie Robinson hade made history becoming the first African American to play major league
To the average person, in the average American community, Jackie Robinson was just what the sports pages said he was, no more, no less. He was the first Negro to play baseball in the major leagues. Everybody knew that, but to see the real Jackie Robinson, you must de-emphasize him as a ball player and emphasize him as a civil rights leader. That part drops out, that which people forget. From his early army days, until well after his baseball days, Robinson had fought to achieve equality among whites and blacks. "Jackie acted out the philosophy of nonviolence of Martin Luther King Jr., before the future civil rights leader had thought of applying it to the problem of segregation in America"(Weidhorn 93). Robinson was an avid
Jackie was a phenomenal athlete for young kids to look up to. After the start of World War II he served in the military from 1942 to 1944. After the war he returned to his love for baseball, playing in the Black major leagues. He was chosen by Branch Rickey, vice president of the Brooklyn dodgers, to help integrate the Major Leagues. Rickey hated segregation just as much as Robinson and wanted to change things “Rickey had once seen a Black college player turned away from a hotel… Rickey never forgot seeing this player crying because he was denied a place to lay his weary head just because of the color of his skin” (Mackenzie). He was finally able to do something about segregation and help change baseball and the United States for the better. It wasn’t that all the teams were racist and didn’t want a black player but when the major league teams had an away game they would rent out the stadium to the black teams for them to play at. And the executives of teams didn’t want to loose the money that they were making off of the black teams. “League owners would lose significant rental revenue” (“Breaking”). He soon signed with the all-white Montreal Royals a farm team for the Dodgers. Robinson had an outstanding start with the Royals, “leading the International League with a .349 batting average and .985 fielding percentage” (Robinson). After Robinson’s outstanding year he was promoted to the Dodgers he played his first game on