Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, is establishing the Perry E. Wallace Scholarship to honor the first African American to play a varsity sport in the Southeastern Conference. The scholarship will be awarded to a student in the School of Engineering, where Wallace earned his bachelor’s degree in 1970. Wallace is now a professor in the College of Law at American University in Washington, D.C.
After graduating from Vanderbilt, Wallace went on to earn a law degree at Columbia University. He then worked for the U.S. Justice Department and the Environmental Protection Agency. Before joining the faculty at American University in 1993, Professor Wallace taught at Howard University and the University of Baltimore.
The saga of Wallace’s integration of varsity athletics in the Southeastern Conference is told in the biography Strong Inside: Perry Wallace and the Collision of Race and Sports in the South (Vanderbilt University Press, 2014)
article via jbhe.com
Posts tagged as “college basketball”
Sometimes stories emerge during March Madness that force you to put down your brackets and pay attention to what’s really important. The friendship between Michigan State basketball star Adreian Payne and 8-year-old Lacey Holsworth is one of those stories.
They met two years ago when the Spartans visited a hospital where Lacey was getting treatment for neuroblastoma, an aggressive cancer of the nerve tissue. Their relationship has thrived, and they reportedly text every day.
As the Washington Post notes, Payne attended a fundraiser for Lacey, and Lacey, who was Payne’s guest on senior night, helped him cut down the net after Michigan State won the Big Ten tournament.
Now that Payne and Michigan State have advanced to the Sweet 16 in the NCAA Tournament, the duo’s touching bond continues to move fans. A video posted by the Big Ten Network earlier this month covers Payne and Lacey in tear duct-draining detail (watch below).
“She’s like a sister to me,” Payne says in the segment. “I love him,” Lacey declares. If your favorite team has been eliminated, you might just cheer for Payne and Michigan State on the basis of the video alone.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBmEQlToMFA&w=560&h=315]
article by Ron Dicker via huffingtonpost.com