March 12

In this episode of the Football History Headlines, we discuss the HOF Legendary story of Bobby Marshall.

Bobby Marshall may well be one of the most significant college and professional stars of the gridiron that most people have no recollection of. It all started in March 12, 1880 - Milwaukee, Wisconsin - The stalwart end of the Minnesota Golden Gophers from 1904 to 1906 Robert Wells Marshall was born. The National Football Foundation reports that in the three seasons that Bobby played on the gridiron at Minnesota the Gophers team went 13-0, 10-1, 4-1 in those years. They out-scored their opponents by a whopping margin of  1238-63. Marshall was a Walter Camp All-America selection in 1905 and in the next season he helped Minnesota overcome the powerful University of Chicago team coached by Amos Alonzo Stagg with Bobby kicking a field goal to lift the Gophers to a 4-2 victory over the Maroons. Marshall was a brave racial pioneer too as it is noted that he was the first African American to play football in the Big Ten which at the time was called the Big Nine. The College Football Hall of Fame gathered the gridiron resume of Bobby Marshall and inducted this great player in their hallowed halls in 1971. According to an article on the StarTribune.com Bobby made a significant milestone in the NFL’s very first game. Marshall was 40 years old, and had become a Minneapolis lawyer as well as the state’s grain commissioner when one of his part-time gigs as a three-sport legend in football, baseball and hockey led him to becoming the first person of color to play a game in the American Professional Football Association, which was later renamed the National Football League.
On Sept. 26, 1920, two weeks before Pro Football Hall of Famer and celebrated Black pioneer Fritz Pollard made his debut with the Akron Pros, the 6-2, 195-pound Marshall hopped a southbound train and played both ways at end as his Rock Island Independents blanked the visiting St. Paul Ideals, an independent pro team, 48-0 in the first game played in league history. On Oct. 3, Marshall’s Independents beat the Muncie Flyers 45-0 in one of the first two games between APFA teams. The article continues with a final statement. Marshall and Pollard were the league’s only Black players that year. Eleven more would play between 1921 and 1933 before an unwritten rule among owners — veiled as a “gentleman’s agreement” — kept Black players out of the league until 1946.
 

The picture in the banner above is from the US Library of Congress' collection and was contributed by photographer Harris and Ewing circa 1922 and is titled " Football ."