More On Forgotten Black Fives Era Phenom Sidat-Singh


One of the best articles ever written about Wilmeth Sidat-Singh appears this morning in the Washington City Paper, as a cover story by sports journalist Dave McKenna titled “The Syracuse Walking Dream: The Most Famous D.C. Athlete You’ve Never Heard Of.”

Here’s an excerpt:

Washington City Paper cover

In October 1937, Syracuse University’s undefeated football team traveled to Baltimore to face the Maryland Terrapins. The visitors’ rising star heading into the game was Wilmeth Sidat-Singh, a junior halfback playing his first season of organized football.

Over the next few years, on all sorts of playing fields, Sidat-Singh would build a case for himself as one of the greatest all-around athletes ever to call D.C. home, then he’d die a hero’s death. Evidence of his greatness can still be found in old newspaper clippings and in the memories of the few folks alive who got to see him perform. Yet nothing about Sidat-Singh’s short and brilliant athletic career is more memorable than what he endured in that game with Maryland.

And he didn’t even get to play in it.

Sidat-Singh had come to Syracuse on a basketball scholarship, earned while leading DeWitt Clinton High School to the New York prep finals two years in a row. A Syracuse assistant football coach saw him tossing the pigskin in an intramural game and coaxed the kid into coming out for a second sport.

He’d learned to pass a football on the sandlots of Harlem, where his dad had a medical practice.

“We played football or basketball every day, and Wil was good at everything,” recalls John Isaacs, now 92, a longtime buddy of Sidat-Singh’s. Isaacs’ Textile High beat DeWitt Clinton to win New York’s 1935 prep hoops title. “He always tried to get me to play him in tennis, but there was no way. Baseball, even swimming, anything.”

Continued …

I mentioned Sidat-Singh in a blog post last week, remembering the anniversary of his tragic accidental death. Sidat-Singh played for the New York Rens and Washington Bears, as well as other top pro basketball teams.

A couple of comments about this piece:

  • Syracuse University (the modern day version) deserves another huge shout out for it’s decision to honor Sidat-Singh the way they did;
  • Kudos to McKenna for getting that Syracuse didn’t retire Sidat-Singh’s jersey based solely on the merits of his performance in a Syracuse University varsity basketball uniform (wouldn’t it be great if the N.B.A. retired the jerseys of Lloyd, Cooper, and Clifton league-wide … or at least the Knicks with Clifton??);
  • McKenna did excellent research and got all aspects of the story straight;
  • One can tell how McKenna feels about what happened to Singh, from his own original coloration of what happened, which make this a poignant piece;
  • Adding rare first hand quotes from relatives and contemporaries like Hal Jackson and John Isaacs brings the whole thing to life.

Please stop by the Washington City Paper to check out this story, and to leave a comment for Dave McKenna, who deserves a lot of praise for his effort to make history now.

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10 years ago

HBO Sports’ ‘Glickman’

“The story of arguably the most innovative sportscaster of all time, Marty Glickman, is virtually unknown to anyone under a certain age.

His greatest regret was not speaking up for Wilmeth Sidat-Singh, a former Syracuse teammate, when it was revealed that he was African-American before the team would play at the University of Maryland. Because Maryland was a segregation state, integrated Northern teams either had to sit their black players or forfeit. Though he knew what it was like to be denied a chance to perform because of his heritage (not able to run at the 1936 Olympics because he was Jewish), Glickman did not speak up for Sidat-Singh because he feared being blamed for the potential forfeit. Sidat-Singh eventually won his wings as a pilot among the Tuskegee Airmen but died during a training mission in 1943.”

Sidenote: Marty Glickman was replaced by his friend Jesse Owens in the 1936 Olympics and after Jesse Owens’ death, Glickman served on the Board of Jesse Owens’ Foundation.

rashid
15 years ago

Sadat-Singh was also one of the Tuskegee Airmen.

carl campbell
15 years ago

i remember this gentleman as being a allround athelete in harlem-boy wonder /john issacs would always remind us of his teamates–the washington bears were a wonderful team with a lot of family..