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As I began to research San José State College’s Speed City of the late 1960s, I soon realized the history of activism in athletics amongst Spartans dated back to at least the early Civil Rights Movement.

The tradition of passive resistance on SJSC’s campus typically discussed amongst scholars centers on the events that took place during the 1967-’68 academic year, when a young college instructor and SJSC graduate, Harry Edwards, led Black athletes in protest of the 1968 Olympic Games.

My research on the activism of athletes and coaches from an earlier time period on campus began in 1995, after I befriended sprinters who had competed for the Spartans during the late 1950s. Within recent years, however, I found that the activism of the athletes and coaches at SJSC dated back to the early 1930s, when SJSC was the State Teachers College at San José.

In reviewing campus yearbooks from the 1930s, I found a significant number of Filipino and Japanese students attended college in San José. Only a few Japanese males, however, competed athletically for the freshman football and track teams.

At that time, Dudley DeGroot, a rather “forward-thinker,” began recruiting Blacks and Hawaiians to play Spartan football. DeWitt Portal, who coached the freshman football team, started the campus boxing program. As DeGroot, Portal eventually recruited athletes of color to compete for his teams.

Cinder coach Lloyd “Bud” Winter came to SJSC in 1940, and recruited Asian, Black, and Hispanic athletes between 1940 and ’70 for his teams. Winter, like Portal, sometimes even provided coaching opportunities for his recruits.

That same year, sophomore Yoshihiro Uchida became SJSC’s first coach of color when he started the judo program. After completing his master’s degree at Stanford University, SJS grad Lincoln Kimura became the Spartans’ first athletic trainer.

Robert Bronzan returned to the Spartans’ football program as an assistant during the mid 1940s. He also recruited people of color to play for the Spartans.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the famous clenched-fist protest staged by SJS sprinters John Carlos and Tommie Smith on the winners’ podium at the 1968 Olympic Games. Carlos and Smith’s protest certainly has proven to be a fitting tribute to the activism that took place during the earlier time period.

Urla Hill, M.A.
Guest Curator | History San José