Former VSU Trojan to be inducted into College Football Hall of Fame
May 2, 2009
William Henry Lewis, who entered Virginia State University in 1883 at the age of 15, and later became the first African-American College Football All-American, has been selected for induction into the National Football Foundation College Football Hall of Fame, the National Football Foundation announced on Wednesday (April 29).
The first ever African-American to earn First Team All-America honors and a selection from the NFF's FBS Veterans Committee, Lewis helped Harvard compile a daunting 22-2 record during his career with the Crimson.
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Born in Virginia, Lewis started college when he was 15 at Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institute (now Virginia State University), the state's first college for African-Americans, IN 1883. He then transferred to Amherst College where he played three seasons before attending Harvard Law. Named Harvard's first African-American team captain, he became an All-American center even though he weighed only 175 pounds.
After his playing career, Lewis coached at Harvard for 12 years. During that time he proposed the "neutral zone" rule that is still used today to lessen the brutality of the game at the line of scrimmage before the snap.
Walter Camp, the de facto father of American Football, even asked Lewis to contribute a chapter on defense to his book "Spalding's How to Play Football."
Elected to the legislature in 1901 and named assistant U.S. attorney general for Boston in 1903, U.S. President William Howard Taft later appointed him as an assistant U.S. attorney general, a position which he was recommended for by Booker T. Washington.
Lewis served as Assistant Attorney General from 1911 to 1913, making him the first African-American to hold a sub-cabinet position.
Lewis passed away on January 1, 1949 at the age of 81.
Lewis and 17 other members of the 2009 College Football Hall of Fame Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) Class will be inducted at the NFF Annual Awards Dinner on December 8, 2009, at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City. They will be officially enshrined at the Hall in South Bend, Ind., during ceremonies in the summer of 2010.
