Peterson: Is Iowa State's Jack Trice story as well-known nationally as it should be?
AMES – Somewhere in the defensive notebook Jon Heacock provides the Iowa State football players he coaches, are the words of a former Cyclones gridiron pioneer who gave his life for family, for the school he attended and for a race that, for centuries, had been mistreated.
"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 are at stake. Everyone is expecting me to do big things. I will!
"My whole body and soul are to be thrown recklessly about on the field tomorrow. Every time the ball is snapped I will be trying to do more than my part. On all defensive plays I must break thru the opponents line and stop the play in their territory.
"Beware of mass interference, fight low with your eyes open and toward the play. Roll block the interference. Watch out for cross bucks and reverse end runs. Be on your toes every minute if you expect to make good."
Yes, that’s the letter Jack Trice wrote on the eve of a game that ultimately, would lead to his death.
Since last October, Iowa State has been commemorating Jack Trice with an assortment of events. On Oct. 7, the celebration reaches a crescendo with the Jack Trice Legacy game against TCU − inside the only major college football stadium named for a Black man.
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How many people outside our state even know that story? My hunch is not enough.
“I didn’t even know about it before I got to school,” Cyclones’ cornerback star T.J. Tampa said at Big 12 Media Days. “But I do now. That story means a lot to me.”
On Oct. 8, 1923, Minnesota players, some of them, did everything they could to knock Iowa State’s first Black football player out of the game. They stomped him after he’d already suffered a broken collarbone. They stomped again. And again. They weakened Trice, and as much as he wanted to stay in the game, eventually, he was sidelined.
Doctors said he suffered abdominal and intestinal injuries. Initially, he was too hurt to have surgery, after returning on the train to Ames with his teammates.
Two days after the game, Trice died. In 1997, Iowa State’s stadium was named for the determined player who opened locker room doors for others.
“When I got to Iowa State, you were looking for glimpses of excellence and a powerful story to rally around,” coach Matt Campbell said at Big 12 Media Days. “I don't know if there's a greater trailblazer and a greater man of courage that sticks in Iowa State University, or certainly its football program, than what Jack Trice has meant to college athletics and certainly Iowa State University.
“This young man, at 18 years old, leaves Cleveland, Ohio, to travel to Ames, Iowa to break the color barrier of student-athletes at Iowa State.
“With the courage and the resolve to make that journey, he comes to Iowa State, and in a game in Minnesota, loses his life.”
But again, unfortunately, I suspect it’s a legacy that’s not nearly as known outside Iowa’s borders as it should be.
Is the Big 12 planning anything special in conjunction with Iowa State’s year-long celebration of what Jack Trice represents?
“That's a great question,” Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark responded from the podium. “I was not aware of that.
“I speak to (athletics director) Jamie Pollard quite often, and it's something that he and I will have to discuss. Thank you for bringing that to my attention.”
That doesn’t prove Yormark, a college sports outsider before replacing sports lifer Bob Bowlsby a year ago, was unaware of the Trice story. That response shows, though, that the Big 12 had nothing planned, as the conference enters the new expansion era.
More: Why isn't Iowa State legend Jack Trice a better-known part of our national sports history?
This comment from former Michigan star Desmond Howard before Ames hosted ESPN’s "College GameDay" in 2019 still resonates:
“If I wasn’t as closely associated with college football as I am, I don’t think I would have known about it, which is really sad. Other college football programs should talk about that story. All football players should know about that story. It’s a significant story in college football, period, whether it’s today or tomorrow. It’s one of the most significant — maybe the most significant.”
A nerve was struck.
“We like to hype up Rudy, and Rudy didn’t do a damn thing compared to Jack Trice, but we make movies about Rudy,” Howard said, referring to the Notre Dame walk-on’s attempt to play in a game for the Fighting Irish. “That’s how wrong it is.
“I could go to any Power Five school in the country, and I’d say a majority of the Black football players — they may know all the intricacies of the Rudy story, but if I said Jack Trice -- they’d look at me like I had two heads. They’d wonder who that was, and that’s very wrong.
The story is known by Iowa State players. A replica of the letter is on the wall of the players’ tunnel leading to the field.
“The spirit, the courage, and just who he was and what he was able to do for so many after him − it's been a great rallying point for our football program as we've continued to try to send this program to be able to tell this great man's story to the entire world,” Campbell said at Media Days.
“It's another opportunity, this year with the 100th anniversary of his death, to be able to tell how important he's been to our university, but also how transformational he's been to so many of our student-athletes here at Iowa State.”
Iowa State players learn the story. They know it as well as they know their playbooks.
“It means a lot − I’m at a school that dedicates a lot to Jack Trice,” standout receiver Jaylin Noel said. “Playing in a stadium named after an African American athlete means a lot. It means Iowa State cares for everybody that comes to the school. What Jack Trice stands for are some of the standards we stand by now.
“It’s amazing for me to be part of a place with that tradition.”
Iowa State columnist Randy Peterson is in his 51st year writing sports for the Des Moines Register. Reach him at rpeterson@dmreg.com, and on Twitter @RandyPete
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Peterson: Jack Trice story isn't as well-known nationally as it should be
