1947 Rollins Homecomming

In 1947 Rollins was set to play Ohio Wesleyan College in their Homecoming football game. The game had been set the previous season and expectations among the students and alumni of Rollins had been high. The plans had been made however, without the knowledge that the Ohio school would be bringing with them an African American standout athlete and exemplary student alike. This proposition was met with the heavily prejeudiced Winter Park area. The day before the Homecomming game was set to be played, the president of Rollins college at the time, Hamilton Holt, read a speech to the entire student body explaining how the game was canceled. His main reasons for the cancelation of the game were entirely based upon race and reflected the prejeudice of Pre-Civil Rights America. I plan to persue this topic and examine how it's aftermath affected the short lived football program at Rollins.