Notre Dame football's first Black player, Wayne Edmonds broke barriers and paved paths: He was 88
In the autumn of 1952, when Wayne Edmonds arrived at Notre Dame to study and play football, he wasn't so much daunted by the fact that the universi...
In the autumn of 1952, when Wayne Edmonds arrived at Notre Dame to study and play football, he wasn't so much daunted by the fact that the university had never had a Black player on the squad.The western Pennsylvania native was worried about his mother.'In the end, the biggest hurdle to my going to Notre Dame was my mother, Grace Edmonds, who was afraid Notre Dame would turn her Baptist son into a Catholic,' Edmonds wrote last year when he penned an essay for the university.Then-Irish coach Bob McBride, Edmonds wrote, had promised her that her son would attend Baptist services every Sunday.