Bill Garrett: All Big-10 and All-American player for Indiana University, graduating in 1951. First African-American to play regularly in the Big Ten. Mr. Basketball while leading Shelbyville to state championship in 1947. Courtesy photo
This weekend a state historical marker for Bill Garrett, Indiana University’s first black basketball player and the man credited with breaking the sport’s color barrier in the Big Ten, will be unveiled in front of a building that bears the name of a former IU trustee who vehemently opposed racial integration and believed blacks were inferior to whites.
Garrett’s children, and the two men who submitted the application for the marker, feel it should be placed in front of the Ora L. Wildermuth Intramural Center because the old fieldhouse is where Garrett played.
“I think it’s the right thing that’s happening,” said Laurie Garrett-Cobbina.
As for Wildermuth, Garrett’s daughter can’t even mention his name.
“That guy was a frightened, closed-minded little boy,” she said. “That’s how I think of him. He doesn’t stop anything from happening, that guy.”
He certainly couldn’t stop Bill Garrett.
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