LeVias Unwittingly Blazed Trail in Southwest Conference

Black History Month has been celebrated in some form since 1924. For sports fans, it is a chance to reacquaint themselves with those who broke down barriers in all areas of competition and all segments of society. Many are now household names and American icons: Joe Louis, Jesse Owens, Jackie Robinson, Wilma Rudolph, Muhammad Ali, up to Tiger Woods, Tony Dungy and Venus and Serena Williams today.

Every day throughout February, FanHouse will shed light on the other figures in the history of sports whose breakthroughs were as significant as those mentioned above, but who aren't as instantly recognizable as pioneers. During Black History Month 2010, FanHouse aims to give them their due.

Jerry LeVias

Became the first African American scholarship athlete in the old Southwest Conference in 1965.

Jerry LeVias never set out to be a pioneer when he enrolled in Southern Methodist University and became the first black scholarship athlete in the Southwest Conference. He said he was just adhering to the desires of his grandmother, SMU coach Hayden Fry and, even bigger, God when in 1965 he accepted a scholarship from the Mustangs instead of the more than 100 other college suitors.

LeVias seemed to constantly pay for his decision, facing open acts of racism which included being spat upon, having his eyes gouged and, maybe most troubling, being the target of death threats. It was one thing to go through trials against the opposition, but LeVias also suffered those indignities on his own Dallas campus.

"I'm one that believes God has big plans for you because I certainly was a coward," LeVias, now 63, recalls. "I wouldn't have gone where I would have subjected myself to that type of treatment. I remember as a kid watching that stuff on television, people being beat over the head with clubs, and fire hoses and dogs. I would have never put myself in that position knowingly."

LeVias stepped on the football field for SMU in 1966 as a sophomore receiver (true freshmen were not eligible to compete on the varsity level at that time) and his impact was immediate. The 5-foot-7, 140-pound -- listed at a more imposing 5-9, 190 pounds -- speedster from Beaumont, Texas, helped lead SMU to its first SWC title in his first season.

LeVias, who left SMU with nearly every career receiving mark along with a degree, was consensus All-SWC from 1966-68 and was named an All-American following his senior season. He went on to spend six years in the NFL between the Houston Oilers and San Diego Chargers before going into business.

Today, LeVias lives in Houston and serves as the director of community outreach for Boys & Girls Harbor, an organization aimed at keeping families together through difficult times.

LeVias' story has been chronicled in two documentaries, Fox Sports Net's A Marked Man and HBO's Breaking the Huddle: The Integration of College Football.

"The last few years I'm amazed that I did play such a great role because that was not my intentions when I first entered into Southern Methodist University," LeVias said. "As a matter of fact, I would say I was kind of naive. Over the last couple of years, I've had more attention given to me with that role.

"It has been the last couple years since the Marked Man that I've only began to talk about what had happened to me because I didn't think that much of it personally, but a lot of other people did. I couldn't really deal with it because for years I didn't realize. I was hiding from the trauma and posttraumatic stress that I suffered from those years.

"So for years I sort of grazed over and didn't deal with the fact I maybe had something to do with the progress that we as African-Americans or blacks made in these United States."

Known in some circles as the Jackie Robinson of the Southwest, the most poignant moment for LeVias during that time may have come in a conversation with Civil Rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King.

"Dr. Martin Luther King told me one thing when I met him: 'Always keep your emotions in control,'" LeVias recalled. "I could have ruined everything by being radical. But I took it in stride. I can't tell you how I learned to turn the other cheek all those times of being spat on and called out of my name. It's one heck of a journey."