Honoring Jack Trice

He was alone, separated from his team, and overflowing with emotion. 

All Jack Trice wanted to do was play football and earn a college education. But the world in 1923 was not that simple for a promising young Black student-athlete. 

At a time of strict segregation in sports, Trice suited up for the Iowa State Cyclones in his “first real college game.” Two days later, he died from injuries suffered in the second half of that same game. 

But there is more to the story. A lot more. 

Trice, who followed his high school coach from Ohio to Ames, was Iowa State’s first Black student-athlete. He also is the only Iowa Stater to die from injuries received in varsity athletic competition. 

Yet, what makes the Trice story so memorable, so inspirational, is the letter he penned to himself three days before his death. His words unveiled a crusade to honor his “race, family and self” on the football field. If successful, it might open the doors of opportunity for other Black students. “Everyone is expecting me to do big things. I will!” 

Then he died at age 21. 

Years later, his words rallied students in a nearly 25-year effort to rename ISU’s football stadium for him. Never have two sheets of hotel stationery mobilized a student body as passionately as his handwritten letter he expected no one to read.

Today, Jack Trice Stadium at Iowa State University stands proudly as America’s only major college football stadium named for an African American athlete. It symbolizes Trice’s determination and courage that has impacted so many within the university community. 

This autumn, Iowa State is culminating a year-long commemoration of Trice, who died 100 years ago, Oct. 8, 1923.

“Jack Trice speaks to us today as a powerful reminder that preparation, determination, and doing our very best — ‘doing more than our part,’ as Jack wrote — are among the most important attributes we possess,” said ISU President Wendy Wintersteen (PhD ’88 entomology). “That within each of us is the ability to overcome challenges, to break barriers, and to ‘do big things.’”

His enduring legacy is inspirational and a source of pride, said Toyia Younger, ISU senior vice president for student affairs and chair of ISU’s Trice 100 Commemoration Committee. It also is an opportunity to encourage dialogue about race, character, and commitment to doing one’s best.

“It’s an amazing story, but also bittersweet,” she said. “Iowa State had to be a special place for it to open its doors for an African American student-athlete then. It speaks volumes about who we are, because there were still so many segregated schools in the U.S. during that time.” 

But Jack Trice’s story also saddens her. He died too young, closing the door on a world of potential. Younger wants to grow Trice’s powerful legacy and remind others he was more than a football player. He was a good student, loving husband and son, and proud fraternity brother who hoped someday to help Black southern farmers.

“Jack was a regular guy, an intelligent young man with a winning smile,” she said.

Jeff Johnson (PhD ’14 education) has been at Iowa State since 1999 and also serves on the Trice 100 Commemoration Committee. The Lora and Russ Talbot Endowed President and CEO of the ISU Alumni Association has a keen insight into Jack Trice. “First and foremost, he was just innocent,” Johnson said. “He was a young kid who’d been asked by his high school coach to come with him to a place he knew nothing about. But he trusted that coach.”

Johnson also described Trice as resilient, committed to his sports, his studies, and the people around him, and he was transparent. “He understood he was Black in a white society. He knew there was some risk coming to Iowa.” Trice was aware, Johnson added, that race was a factor in football and academics, “and it was just a door he had to walk through if he was going to realize his dreams.”

FOLLOW ME TO IOWA

John “Jack” Trice was born in 1902 near Hiram, Ohio. The grandson of former slaves, his mother sent him to live with relatives in Cleveland for high school. He was too sheltered in his little town. 

At East Technical High School, Trice excelled on powerhouse football teams led by Coach Sam Willaman. When Willaman was hired to coach Iowa State, Trice followed him to Ames. The big lineman and other East Tech alums quickly starred on the 1922 freshman squad. Trice was married by then, having eloped with Cora Mae Starlard before college, but she remained in Ohio during Trice’s first year of college. 

A year later Trice started on the varsity line. After winning its 1923 opener, Iowa State prepped for a tough contest at Minnesota. On the game’s eve, speedy reserve Robert Fisher came late to the team supper in a Minneapolis hotel dining room. Taking a chair, he sensed something was amiss. Then it hit him. “Where’s Jack?” he asked.

Jack Trice, because he was Black, had been barred from eating with his teammates. They protested to no avail. Trice was alone in his Curtis Hotel room burdened by his emotions. He was segregated from his team, away from his young wife, and was expected to anchor the line the next day. 

He released his feelings on hotel stationery.

“October 5, 1923 — To Whom It May Concern: My thoughts just before the first real college game of my life: The honor of my race, family and self is at stake. Everyone is expecting me to do big things. I will!”

When finished, he tucked the heartfelt letter into his coat pocket.

The next day, Iowa State and Minnesota battled to a 7-7 halftime score. Trice was hurt early in the physical game but kept playing. In the third quarter, the hitting intensified as Trice was all over the field on defense. Then everything changed. The Gophers ran a power play toward Trice, who attempted a risky roll block to take out the blockers.

Trice landed on his back, exposing his frontside, and was piled onto by Minnesota players. In pain, he was taken to a nearby hospital. Iowa State eventually lost, 20-17, and doctors released Trice so he could return home with his team. Back in Ames, he immediately entered the campus hospital, where his condition deteriorated. He died Monday afternoon, Oct. 8, 1923. His shocked wife was at his bedside. 

Upward of 4,000 people attended his campus memorial service the next day. His gray coffin was draped with a cardinal and gold blanket. Iowa State President Raymond Pearson, with Cora Mae’s permission, read Trice’s letter — the man’s private, final thoughts. That evening, distraught family members escorted Trice’s coffin home to Ohio for burial. 

A bronze plaque honoring Trice was cast and mounted on a wall in State Gym, where Trice worked for the Athletics Department. Soon, his teammates and most of the coaches moved on. Time further faded memories of Jack Trice.

Jump to 1957. Iowa State journalism sophomore Tom Emmerson (’60 journalism, MS ’63 history) was in State Gym when he noticed a plaque on the wall. It stirred his curiosity. Who was Jack Trice? Long before he became an ISU journalism professor, Emmerson wrote a well-researched article in a student publication, The Iowa State Scientist. It should have started a discussion, should have spurred people to do ... something.

“It did nothing,” Emmerson said. Jack Trice again slid into obscurity.

A STORY WAITING TO BE TOLD, AGAIN

Alan Beals was an Athletics Department tutor for Iowa State in 1973. Like many before him, he wondered about the dingy State Gym plaque. Who was Jack Trice? 

Beals did some research and shared it with Charles Sohn (’63 English and speech), a friend and English instructor on campus. Sohn taught an experimental freshman English course comprised of 12 males and 12 females equally divided by Black and white students. They needed a research project.

“The Trice material was a natural choice,” Sohn wrote, “and the class took to it enthusiastically.”

At the same time, Iowa State was becoming serious about football. The Cyclones had appeared in their first bowl games the previous two years and had outgrown deteriorating Clyde Williams Field, built in 1915 and expanded five times. A new, larger stadium was under construction for the then-princely sum of $7 million. According to Sohn, it sparked a student in his class to say, “Hey, they should name that stadium after Trice.” 

The fight to name Iowa State’s new football home for Jack Trice had begun.

Students organized the Jack Trice Memorial Stadium Committee, and the ISU Black Student Organization threw its support behind the effort. The first of many Iowa State Daily articles about Trice appeared on Oct. 5, 1973, the 50th anniversary of his letter. It brought Trice into the public eye for the first time since 1957.

The Jack Trice Stadium dream gained traction. The Government of the Student Body (GSB) unanimously passed a resolution favoring Trice’s name on the new stadium and a petition with 3,226 pro-Trice signatures was delivered to university leaders. The news went national. A Kansas City Star headline asked, “Why Not Jack Trice Stadium?”

The shiny new concrete stadium carpeted with green artificial turf opened in fall 1975 with no official name. Results of a student government poll later that fall overwhelmingly favored the name Jack Trice Stadium.

However, alumni and donors, many of whom knew little about Trice, preferred a more general name like Cyclone Stadium. Some believed Trice needed to have played more than two games for the stadium to bear his name. University leaders held out hope that a lead donor would step forward and help pay for the structure and earn naming rights.

In May 1976, a university naming committee supported the name Cyclone Stadium, and later that year President W. Robert Parks sought Iowa Board of Regents approval. Jill Wagner (’76 industrial administration), then GSB president, remembered it well.

“Eight of us crowded into an old blue and white station wagon and raced to Council Bluffs for the Regents meeting,” said Wagner. 

Wagner and GSB vice president Don Morris (’78 philosophy, MS ’79 education) were among the students who spoke on behalf of Trice. Morris spoke passionately, Wagner recalled. “He said, ‘This guy died for his school!’”

The Regents rejected ISU’s recommendation because the Iowa State Achievement Foundation (renamed the Iowa State Foundation in 1988) owned the stadium, and it would remain officially nameless until it was paid off. Wagner called the decision a small victory for the students, who were not finished. 

For the next eight years, supporters beat the drums for Jack Trice Stadium. They wrote letters to the editor, raised funds, bought radio ads, and rented a Trice billboard. An airplane circled the stadium one gameday pulling a “Welcome to Jack Trice Stadium” banner. 

In late 1983, President Parks raised eyebrows by taking a dual name to the Regents: “Cyclone Stadium-Jack Trice Field.” He said it was “a compromise we had to live with.” The Regents approved it. Another small victory. But a group of determined students steered by a daisy chain of Daily editors and GSB leadership, with occasional nudges by faculty like Emmerson and Sohn, never quit. 

Students funded a $22,000, larger-than-life Jack Trice statue that was dedicated on central campus in 1988. Cyclone basketball player Marc Urquhart (’89 biology) spoke at the ceremony. 

“This man was willing to die so that I might stand in front of you today as a student-athlete.” Dr. Urquhart is now an orthopedic surgeon in New Jersey. 

In 1995, GSB again voted to fully name the stadium for Jack Trice and a campus forum showed “widespread support for the new name.” A year later, the ISU Advisory Committee for the Naming of Buildings and Streets recommended changing the stadium’s name to Jack Trice Stadium. In February 1997, President Martin Jischke concurred.

“He has become a hero,” Jischke said of Trice, “not so much for what he accomplished, because his life was cut short, but for what he represented.” The Regents voted 7-2 in favor of the new name. 

On an overly steamy Aug. 30, 1997, ISU prepared to host Oklahoma State. Prior to kickoff, Wagner watched excitedly as a black covering was removed, revealing the most awaited signage in school history: JACK TRICE STADIUM.

“After the Regents decision in 1976, I wondered if the students would keep it going,” she admitted. “But they kept it going for years, for decades.”

KEEPING THE TRICE LEGACY ALIVE

Jack Trice is better known today than at any time in the past 100 years. Yet, the farther one travels from campus, the less people know about the man and his ideals. It’s an Iowa State story worth telling, so more work lies ahead.

“If all of us were to sit down tonight and write our own letters ‘to whom it may concern,’ what would they say?” asked President Wintersteen. “Would our thoughts mirror those of Jack Trice, putting our trust in our heart, our abilities, and strengths? Could we come up with anything approaching the profound eloquence of ‘I Will!’ Those two words and exclamation point resound nearly 100 years later, embodying the force of Jack’s spirit.”

“‘I Will!’ Those two words and exclamation point resound nearly 100 years later, embodying the force of Jack’s spirit.” — President Wendy Wintersteen 

“Jack Trice’s legacy is important to the state of Iowa,” said Johnson, the alumni association president. “It lets us all know that he was here.”

Senior Vice President Younger, an Iowan since 2020, was surprised not more students knew Trice’s story. “I think one of the reasons why I’m so passionate about serving on the Trice 100 Commemoration Committee, and it is personal for me as an African American, is telling the story to African American students.”

Iowa State Director of Athletics Jamie Pollard said Trice’s spirit and strength inspires the entire Athletics Department a century after his tragic death.

“His story resonates deeply beyond football with all of our student-athletes,” he said, “and it is important that we ensure his legacy lives on for future generations of Cyclones.”

Emmerson is quick to remind people he was not the first to notice the Jack Trice plaque in State Gym. But he was the first to wave the Trice flag and is still doing so 66 years later.

He credits ISU students for their sustained support for naming the stadium for Trice. “The students made it happen.” And, as he once wrote, “Next to Jack Trice, they are the real heroes.”

 

Steve Jones (’80 journalism and mass communications) is the author of the children’s book, “Football’s Fallen Hero — The Jack Trice Story” (Perfection Learning Corp. 2000), and is a retired Iowa State communication manager.