Speed City: From Civil Rights to Black Power» A Historical Athletics Exhibit curated by Urla Hill
1920-1950 Opening the Field
Dudley DeGroot
SJSC Head Football Coach | 1932 to 1939
Dr. Dudley S. DeGroot might best be remembered for leading the Washington Redskins to the National Football League championship in 1945, but his most notable contribution was made in the collegiate ranks.
While coaching at SJSC between 1933 and 1939, DeGroot began recruiting Hawaiians and Black Americans to [...]
DeWitt Portal
Freshman Football Coach | Boxing Coach | 1934 to 1953
In photo: Coach DeWitt Portal supervises a “bout” between his son, Ronnie, and Julius Menendez in front of the Men’s Physical Education building, circa 1946. The building has since been renamed in honor of judo coach Yoshihiro Uchida. Menendez would take over the boxing [...]
1947 Varsity Boxing
There is no doubt Portal’s staff was one of a kind in the collegiate ranks. It featured Lincoln Kimura, a Japanese-American athletic trainer, and Julius Menendez, a Spanish-American assistant. His team also had Black and Spanish team members, circa 1947.
Spartans Boxing Team in Japan
DeWitt Portal and his wife, Helen, escorted the Spartans’ boxing team to Japan during the fall of 1939. Interestingly enough, the Japanese had begun to train their military pilots as boxers in the years preceding the bombing of Pearl Harbor and America’s entrance into World War II.
Protective Headgear 1948
This newspaper clipping shows Portal’s assistant, Menendez, introducing the Spartans to protective headgear, circa 1948. Portal pushed the NCAA to make wearing protective headgear a requirement for collegiate boxers during the late 1940s.
Portal Training Camp
DeWitt Portal’s family owned thousands of acres in San José during the early 1900s. His teams used to train at the family camp grounds, chopping trees, digging, and running. Here, Portal clowns around with members of the boxing team, circa 1938, in a ring he had built on the property. This photo was taken from [...]
Yoshihiro Uchida
Assistant Judo Coach (SJSC Police Academy) | Judo Coach | 1940 to the Present
Wrestler Sam Della Maggiore coached campus police cadets in judo, and took on Yoshihiro Uchida as his assistant in 1940. Following Della Maggiore’s departure, Uchida worked with Henry Stone of the University of California to redefine judo by adding a weight classification [...]
Yosh Uchida Judo 1937
Yosh Uchida (far right) stands with members of his judo club in Los Angeles, circa 1937
Yosh Uchida WWII
Yosh Uchida enters World War II, and is stationed here in South Dakota, circa 1943.
Uchida takes a bride, Mae, his college sweetheart, circa 1943.
Ben Nighthorse Campbell
Ben Nighthorse Campbell, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1987 to ’93, standing far left, and his teammates at SJSC, circa 1958.
Yosh Uchida & Mel Bruno
Yosh Uchida worked as an assistant under Mel Bruno during his first semester on campus in 1940. Following Bruno’s departure later that fall, he took over the training of SJSC’s police cadets in judo. Before long, Uchida would enter the cadets in competitions against the Southern California clubs against which he had once [...]
First US Olympic Judo Team
Coach Uchida, standing, far left, and members of the first U.S. Olympic judo team, which features SJSC’s Campbell, who also was a Colorado senator, and Paul Maruyama, a two-time Olympic coach, circa 1964.
Judo and the AAU
Uchida (front row, third from left) and judo become part of the American Athletic Union (AAU), circa 1953.
Julius Menendez
SJSC Assistant Boxing Coach | Head Boxing Coach | Head Soccer Coach | 1945 to 1994
Though many Americans remember John Carlos and Tommie Smith’s raised fists on the Olympic Games’ dais in 1968, there is no doubt that the fists of Golden Glover Julius Menendez served as the prequel to their story.
Menendez, the son of [...]
NCAA Champions 1958
Julius Menendez lead the Spartans to their first NCAA championship title in 1958. Notice the racial makeup of the team in this photo.
NCAA Boxing Title 1959
Julius Menendez and SJSC boxing squad celebrates its second consecutive NCAA title in 1959.
NCAA Boxing Title 1960
Julius Menendez and the SJSC Boxing Team 1960. SJSC picked up a third NCAA title in 1960. It would be the team’s final, as boxing was banned by the NCAA following the death of Wisconsin’s Charlie Mohr that year. Mohr slipped into a coma following his bout with SJSC’s Stu Bartell during the NCAA [...]
Bob Bronzan
Assistant Coach | Head Football Coach | Athletic Director | Professor of Human Performance | 1945 to 1980
Dr. Robert Bronzan started his football career at SJSC as a tackle on its 1937, ’38 and ’39 teams, where he competed with Black Americans Bill Lewis, Don Presley, and Lloyd Thomas under coach Dr. Dudley DeGroot.
As DeWitt [...]
NCAA All-American 1939
An NCAA All-American honorable mention as a senior in 1939, Bob Bronzan, pictured with dimples in the second row, is shown on this yearbook page along with NCAA All-American Lloyd Thomas (second row) and Don Presley (bottom row).
Bronzan and The Good Brothers
Bob Bronzan sits amongst many of the Black football players he recruited to play for SJSC during the mid- to late- 1950s, circa 1992. Former Oakland Raider Art Powell (second row), and Melvin Newton (front row), brother of Black Panther Party co-founder Huey Newton, appear in this photo.
Dean Miller
Dean Miller would lead the Spartans to back-to-back NCAA titles during his tenure at San Jose State, circa 1962. Danny Murphy, Ron Davis, South American Jose Azevedo, Ben Tucker, Jeff Fishback, and Horace Whitehead form a circle around Miller.
Dean Miller and Exergenie
Dean Miller played football at the University of Nebraska, and served during WWII. He played for the Los Angeles Rams while working on his doctorate at the University of Southern California following the war. Miller caught the attention of Exergenie while coaching SJSC’s cross country team to back-to-back NCAA titles in 1962 and ’63. [...]
Lloyd “Bud” Winter
Assistant Football Coach | Head Track & Field Coach | 1940 to 1970
Before his arrival on SJSC’s campus in the fall of 1940, Lloyd “Bud” Winter coached the legendary Harold ‘Hal’ Davis at Salinas Junior College (nee Hartnell College). Davis tied Jesse Owens’s world record of 10.2 seconds in the 100 meters while at [...]
Bud Winter & Stan Dowell
Bud Winter and his protégé, Stan Dowell, show off the pheasants they hunted near Dowell’s family’s home, circa 1958. Winter was known for wearing hunting gear to practice, and driving around town with his hunting rifle in the backseat of his 1928 Model T Ford, which, was bound together with wire, his athletes say. Dowell [...]