The first
intercollegiate football contest between Black colleges took place on this day
in 1892. Biddle College, now Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, N.C.,
and Livingstone College in Salisbury, N.C., played against one another on
Livingstone’s snowy front lawn and gave way to a bowl game that celebrates HBCU
football’s excellence.
According to historians
of the game, women who worked and studied Livingstone’s industrial department
fashioned the teams with uniforms and outfitted street shoes with cleats. The
game was not an official contest and players from both sides had to raise funds
to get a regulation size football.
The men of Biddle had
to study the game of football for two years before mounting the challenge to
Livingstone, which formed its team the year of their game. Biddle won the game
5-0. In 1956, an athletic marker was erected at Livingstone in honor of the
historic game.
Now in its second
year, the Air Force Reserve Celebration bowl pits the champions of the MEAC and
SWAC divisions against each other, serving as an extension of the historic
implication of Biddle and Livingstone’s game. This year’s game featured
Grambling State University and N.C. Central University. Grambling bested N.C.
Central 10-9 in a game that was played at Atlanta’s Georgia Dome on Dec.
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