Bobby Marshall
Bobby Marshall was born Robert Wells Marshall on March 12th 1880 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was the ultimate all-American sportsman. The young family moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, when Marshall was a child, and it was there, at Central High School, that Bobby revealed his immense athletic talent. He was best known for playing football. However, Marshall also competed in baseball, track, boxing, ice hockey and wrestling. When Marshall played baseball for Minneapolis Central High School, he played first base for three years. Bobby was a multi-sport athlete at Central High School, graduating in 1901.
Central was the champion of the Twin Cities High Schools for Marshall’s junior and senior years, of 1900 and 1901. After graduating from Central, he enrolled at the University of Minnesota in 1903 and continued his athletic dominance. When he played football for the University of Minnesota, he also played baseball for two years, 1904 and 1905, helping the Minnesota to win the Western Conference Championship in 1905. Marshall played both ways at end for the University of Minnesota from 1904 to 1906. In 1906, Marshall kicked a 48-yard field goal to beat the University of Chicago 4-2. Back then, field goals counted as four points.
Marshall was the first Black athlete at the University of Minnesota, playing multiple sports and becoming one of the greatest football players in school history. He was also the first Black person to play football in the Western Conference (later the Big Ten). Marshall was also a unanimous selection to the All-Conference squad in 1906. He graduated in 1907 and played with Minneapolis pro teams, the Deans and the Marines.
The aging end and kicker sustained his excellent play. In 1920, the American Professional Football Association (APFA) was created. The league later was renamed the National Football League. On Sept. 26, 1920, the 6-2, 195-pound 40 year old, Marshall hopped a southbound train and played both ways at end as his Rock Island (Ill.) Independents blanked the visiting St. Paul Ideals. From 1921 through 1924, Marshall rejoined the Minneapolis Marines, now formal members of the NFL.
During that 1920 campaign, Marshall started seven of the nine games in which he played, on a team that posted a 6-2-2 record. In 1925, his final year of professional sports, he played end for the Duluth Kelleys. The team failed, and Marshall did not catch on with another team for the 1926 season. Along with Fritz Pollard, he was one of the two first African Americans to play in the NFL. Marshall and Pollard were the league’s only Black players in 1920.
Eleven more would play between 1921 and 1933 before an unwritten rule among owners — veiled as a “gentleman’s agreement” — kept Black players out of the league until 1946. Marshall had continued to play baseball during the summers, and in 1925, despite being 45 years old. Given his achievements, Robert “Bobby” Marshall is one of the most underappreciated athletes of the 20th century”. In view of his vital contribution to the game, he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1971.