Blue White Illustrated

An overlooked PSU pioneer finally receives his due C umberland Posey may be the most forgotten of all the significant ath- letes in Penn State's history. Even now, as you see his name, I am certain some of you, if not many, are un- familiar with Penn State's first black varsity athlete. Perhaps you just heard about him be- cause in early April, the Naismith Me- morial Basketball Hall of Fame an- nounced that Posey will be part of the 2016 class enshrined in the Springfield, Mass., pantheon. You probably are more familiar with the others in the class of 2016: Michigan State Coach Tom Izzo, superstar players Shaquille O'Neal, Allen Iverson, Yao Ming and Sheryl Swoopes, and Chicago Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf. Yet, with his election to the Basketball Hall of Fame, Posey is now the only per- son ever inducted into both the basket- ball and baseball halls of fame. Ten years ago, Posey was enshrined in Cooper- stown as a player and owner of one of the most famous teams in Negro League baseball, the Homestead Grays. If you did not hear or read about this with the Basketball Hall of Fame an- nouncement, I am not surprised. In the official news release and news confer- ence, Posey's connection to Penn State and his unique status involving the Na- tional Baseball Hall of Fame were not mentioned. I doubt that Posey's playing days at Penn State in the early 1900s were noted even by a few in the national media, and from what I saw in the Penn- sylvania media, the coverage of Posey's Basketball Hall of Fame election was mostly ordinary. This unique honor for Posey wasn't even front-page news in the two local State College daily newspapers, the Centre Daily Times and Daily Collegian, or in the weekly Centre County Express. Nor was the story prominently high- lighted on their websites. In fact, the printed edition of the Centre Daily Times buried the story inside the sports section with a couple of paragraphs un- der its routine Penn State Digest feature. Two other websites popular with Penn State fans, Statecollege.com and On- ward State, did little more than rewrite the news release from Penn State. In a way, I can understand this lack of impact of Posey's election to the Basket- ball Hall of Fame and his direct tie to Penn State. I may be partly at fault. You won't find Posey's name in Penn State's HISTORY HISTORY MAKER Before joining the varsity, Posey played in "inter- class" games as a member of the Class of 1913. Pho- to courtesy of La Vie/Penn State Li- brary Archives

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