Black athletes drive the success of sports at Ole Miss, but this was not always the case. It was not until Coolidge Ball signed his national letter of intent in 1970 to play for the men’s basketball team that the athletic color barrier was finally broken at UM, eight years after the university desegregated.
“(Ball’s legacy) is monumental,” Zach Graham, who played basketball for Ole Miss from 2007 to 2011, said. “He paved the first footsteps of opportunity for us; that deserves the utmost respect.”
Ball, born on Nov. 6, 1951, in Indianola, Miss., signed on to play forward for Head Coach Cob Jarvis at Ole Miss.