Frank D. Dowsing (September 3, 1951 - July 11, 1994) was the first

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...

to play

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

for both

Tupelo High School Tupelo High School is the only public high school in Tupelo, Mississippi. The campus consists of fourteen buildings, including a Performing Arts Center, separate buildings for social studies, English, math, sciences, fine arts, and a self-conta ...

and

Mississippi State University Mississippi State University for Agriculture and Applied Science, commonly known as Mississippi State University (MSU), is a public land-grant research university adjacent to Starkville, Mississippi. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Unive ...

History

In the fall of 1967,

Tupelo Tupelo , genus ''Nyssa'' , is a small genus of deciduous trees with alternate, simple leaves. It is sometimes included in the subfamily Nyssoideae of the dogwood family, Cornaceae, but is placed by other authorities in the family Nyssaceae. In ...

instituted a "choice" system, whereby students at all-white Tupelo High School and all-black Carver High School were given the opportunity to choose which school to attend. While no white students chose Carver, Dowsing was one of five African-American students who chose to attend Tupelo High School, and was the first to play football. Unlike school integration in many other areas of Mississippi and the South, this was a peaceful event. Because of a broken jaw, which had been wired shut, Dowsing was unable to speak or practice football at the beginning of school. His first action was for the B team, where he scored a touchdown on the opening play. Dowsing earned all conference honors in football, basketball, and track, and graduated sixth in his class. He also set a state record by running the

100 yard dash "100 Yard Dash" is a song by American recording artist Raphael Saadiq, released as a single on March 30, 2009, by Columbia Records. It was the second single from Saadiq's 2008 album '' The Way I See It''. "100 Yard Dash" is an upbeat soul song ab ...

in 9.5 seconds. Due to recruitment efforts by former Tupelo resident and future Mississippi State basketball coach Kermit Davis, he enrolled at Mississippi State, where he was also the first black football player. At MSU, Dowsing was an all-American as a defensive back, an academic all-American, and was elected Mr. Mississippi State by his fellow students. This was the first time a black student had won any sort of election at the school. Just before graduation, he married LaFawn Gilliam in the Chapel of Memories at Mississippi State. Upon graduation, Dowsing was drafted by the

Philadelphia Eagles The Philadelphia Eagles are a professional American football team based in Philadelphia. The Eagles compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East division. The team plays ...

, but instead chose to fulfill a lifelong dream by attended medical school at the

University of Mississippi Medical Center University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC) is the health sciences campus of the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) and is located in Jackson, Mississippi, United States. UMMC, also referred to as the Medical Center, is the state's only aca ...

. Within two years of their marriage, Dowsing was divorced, and dropped out of medical school in his third year. This was probably largely due to a secret: Dowsing was gay. Dowsing then worked for Bell Telephone in California, until he was diagnosed with AIDS in the late 1980s. He died of the disease in 1994. In 2010, Dowsing was inducted into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and Museum, where he was nicknamed "The Jackie Robinson of Mississippi". In 2017, Mississippi State dedicated a plaza at the football stadium to Dowsing.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dowsing, Frank 1951 births 1994 deaths Mississippi State Bulldogs football Segregation Tupelo High School alumni Gay sportsmen Carver High School (Tupelo, Mississippi) alumni American LGBT sportspeople LGBT players of American football People from Tupelo, Mississippi