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Prairie View A&M student-athlete broke racial barrier in college tennis
Prairie View A&M student-athlete broke racial barrier in college tennis
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By Leilana McKindra
The NCAA News
The NCAA News
Former Prairie View A&M University tennis student-athlete Leon Woods was one of 93 singles entries in the 1947 NCAA Tennis Championships hosted by the University of California, Los Angeles. He and teammate Harold Adams also made up one of the 40 doubles teams vying for a national title at the 63rd annual event.
Their presence as the first black student-athletes to appear in the NCAA Tennis Championships suggested far more than the fact they were among the top student-athletes in the nation. It also signaled that progress, though perhaps slow in coming, was no longer content to simply hug the baseline.
Woods didn’t take up tennis until his senior year in high school. An obvious talent, he went on to claim the state championship and with it a scholarship to Prairie View A&M. There, the chemistry and pre-med major promptly netted Southwestern Athletic Conference singles titles in 1942 and 1943. His streak was interrupted by a stint in the Army fighting in World War II, but he returned to winning form in time to capture the 1947 SWAC singles title. That same year, he partnered with Adams to win the doubles championship.
Fresh off his third league singles title and first doubles championship, Woods was pleasantly surprised to be invited to the NCAA finals.
“It was a complete surprise to me and I guess to everyone involved. For some reason, the time was right for things to break open and they did,” he said.
In recapping the 1947 championships, the 1948 NCAA Convention Proceedings noted an upswing in the number of tournament entries and speculated it was due, at least in part, to soldiers like Woods who were resuming their academic and intercollegiate athletics pursuits after the end of the war. Although Prairie View A&M wouldn’t become an NCAA member institution until 1951, Woods and Adams qualified through the SWAC, which was an affiliated member at the time.
Woods was certainly no stranger to big matches and a high level of competition. In the summers, he traveled across the country with a handful of other teammates competing in tournaments, including the annual American Tennis Association national championships (the black counterpart to the United States Tennis Association). Nevertheless — and not unexpectedly — Woods was nervous heading into the NCAA tournament. A sighting of screen stars Orson Wells and Rita Hayward in Beverly Hills (where the draw was being hosted) and Woods drawing the tournament’s No. 10 seed as his first-round opponent only added to the jitters. But unlike the other athletes gearing up for the competition, Woods, Adams and their coach bore the additional indignities associated with the prejudice and discrimination still commonplace at the time.
They were prohibited from staying in the university’s new men’s dorms or eating in the new dining halls. Instead, they relied on the gracious hospitality of the local black community for food and slept in a construction Quonset hut elsewhere on the campus. In quiet protest, the trio walked out of the pretournament banquet when one presenter began spewing racist jokes.
“If you’ve been through years of prejudice and segregation,” Woods said, “you’re not immune to it but you’re used to it. We suffered through it, but we said at least we’re breaking the barrier and that will help someone else.”
Woods ultimately lost both his first-round singles and doubles matches, but not his place in NCAA history or, as it happens, his trailblazing ways. Eight years after his ground-breaking appearance in the championships, he moved to Sacramento and went on to integrate one of the tennis clubs there. Later, he became the first black chemist hired by the California Department of Fish and Game, where he conducted pesticide research.
“It’s just a matter of going out into the world and trying to do your best with whatever you have and hoping for the best,” he said. “You never know how these things are going to work. These things become much more meaningful when you’re recognized by someone else. While you’re doing it, you just do it because that’s what you think you should do.”
Woods’ nephew, James Reede, called his uncle’s accomplishments a source of pride and an important legacy and lesson for his children and others.
“Here’s their uncle who has been treated badly, but he still walks with dignity. So no matter how bad stuff gets, don’t let go of your dignity,” Reede said.
Woods spent his entire career working for the state of California and retired in 1988.
Their presence as the first black student-athletes to appear in the NCAA Tennis Championships suggested far more than the fact they were among the top student-athletes in the nation. It also signaled that progress, though perhaps slow in coming, was no longer content to simply hug the baseline.
Woods didn’t take up tennis until his senior year in high school. An obvious talent, he went on to claim the state championship and with it a scholarship to Prairie View A&M. There, the chemistry and pre-med major promptly netted Southwestern Athletic Conference singles titles in 1942 and 1943. His streak was interrupted by a stint in the Army fighting in World War II, but he returned to winning form in time to capture the 1947 SWAC singles title. That same year, he partnered with Adams to win the doubles championship.
Fresh off his third league singles title and first doubles championship, Woods was pleasantly surprised to be invited to the NCAA finals.
“It was a complete surprise to me and I guess to everyone involved. For some reason, the time was right for things to break open and they did,” he said.
In recapping the 1947 championships, the 1948 NCAA Convention Proceedings noted an upswing in the number of tournament entries and speculated it was due, at least in part, to soldiers like Woods who were resuming their academic and intercollegiate athletics pursuits after the end of the war. Although Prairie View A&M wouldn’t become an NCAA member institution until 1951, Woods and Adams qualified through the SWAC, which was an affiliated member at the time.
Woods was certainly no stranger to big matches and a high level of competition. In the summers, he traveled across the country with a handful of other teammates competing in tournaments, including the annual American Tennis Association national championships (the black counterpart to the United States Tennis Association). Nevertheless — and not unexpectedly — Woods was nervous heading into the NCAA tournament. A sighting of screen stars Orson Wells and Rita Hayward in Beverly Hills (where the draw was being hosted) and Woods drawing the tournament’s No. 10 seed as his first-round opponent only added to the jitters. But unlike the other athletes gearing up for the competition, Woods, Adams and their coach bore the additional indignities associated with the prejudice and discrimination still commonplace at the time.
They were prohibited from staying in the university’s new men’s dorms or eating in the new dining halls. Instead, they relied on the gracious hospitality of the local black community for food and slept in a construction Quonset hut elsewhere on the campus. In quiet protest, the trio walked out of the pretournament banquet when one presenter began spewing racist jokes.
“If you’ve been through years of prejudice and segregation,” Woods said, “you’re not immune to it but you’re used to it. We suffered through it, but we said at least we’re breaking the barrier and that will help someone else.”
Woods ultimately lost both his first-round singles and doubles matches, but not his place in NCAA history or, as it happens, his trailblazing ways. Eight years after his ground-breaking appearance in the championships, he moved to Sacramento and went on to integrate one of the tennis clubs there. Later, he became the first black chemist hired by the California Department of Fish and Game, where he conducted pesticide research.
“It’s just a matter of going out into the world and trying to do your best with whatever you have and hoping for the best,” he said. “You never know how these things are going to work. These things become much more meaningful when you’re recognized by someone else. While you’re doing it, you just do it because that’s what you think you should do.”
Woods’ nephew, James Reede, called his uncle’s accomplishments a source of pride and an important legacy and lesson for his children and others.
“Here’s their uncle who has been treated badly, but he still walks with dignity. So no matter how bad stuff gets, don’t let go of your dignity,” Reede said.
Woods spent his entire career working for the state of California and retired in 1988.
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