This article argues for Gideon Edward Smith’s admission into the College Football Hall of Fame. He was the first black football player at Michigan State University, contributing to football’s popularity among black men in the early twentieth century. As a coach at Hampton Institute, Smith built the first black football powerhouse program in the 1920s. Smith was also black football’s first apologist, arguing that the game groomed black men for race leadership in the Jim Crow era. Black media’s support of Smith’s mission led to reforms that propelled black college football towards its maturity after World War II. Historians currently discuss black college football through analysis of famed post-World War II coaches who groomed assertive black men in opposition to American racism with the help of black sports journalism. This dynamic began with Gideon Edward Smith–a man whose contributions to the game best explains how college football writ large evolved from an elite pastime for wealthy white men to an objective metric of black achievement.

本文主张吉迪恩·爱德华·史密斯进入大学橄榄球名人堂。他是密歇根州立大学第一位黑人橄榄球运动员，为二十世纪初橄榄球在黑人中的流行做出了贡献。作为汉普顿学院的教练，史密斯在 20 年代建立了第一个黑人足球强队项目。史密斯也是黑人橄榄球运动的第一位辩护者，他认为这项运动在吉姆·克劳时代培养了黑人的种族领导地位。黑人媒体对史密斯使命的支持引发了改革，推动黑人大学橄榄球在二战后走向成熟。历史学家目前通过分析二战后著名教练来讨论黑人大学橄榄球，这些教练在黑人体育新闻的帮助下培养了自信的黑人，反对美国的种族主义。