Ulysses "Crazy Legs" Curtis (May 10, 1926 – October 6, 2013) was an American professional

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 ...

player who was a

running back A running back (RB) is a member of the offensive backfield in gridiron football. The primary roles of a running back are to receive American football plays#Offensive terminology, handoffs from the quarterback to Rush (American football)#Offen ...

in the

Canadian Football League The Canadian Football League (CFL; french: Ligue canadienne de football—LCF) is a professional sports league in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football. The league consists of nine teams, each located in a ci ...

(CFL) for the

Toronto Argonauts The Toronto Argonauts (officially the Toronto Argonaut Football Club and colloquially known as the Argos) are a professional Canadian football team competing in the East Division of the Canadian Football League (CFL), based in Toronto, Ontario ...

from 1950 to 1954. He won two

Grey Cup The Grey Cup (french: Coupe Grey) is both the championship game of the Canadian Football League (CFL) and the trophy awarded to the victorious team playing in the namesake championship of professional Canadian football. The game is contested be ...

s with Toronto in 1950 and 1952. Curtis was long considered the Argonauts' first black player. On February 2, 2021, it was revealed that Curtis was only their second ever black player after

Ken Whitlock Kenneth E. Whitlock Sr. (March 23, 1920January 31, 2012) was an American professional gridiron football player for the Toronto Argonauts of the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union (IRFU), which later became part of the Canadian Football League ...

, a halfback & kicker who played only 4 games for the Argonauts in 1948. Curtis is sixth on the Argonauts all-time career

touchdown A touchdown (abbreviated as TD) is a scoring play in gridiron football. Whether running, passing, returning a kickoff or punt, or recovering a turnover, a team scores a touchdown by advancing the ball into the opponent's end zone. In Ameri ...

list with 47 touchdowns, fourth on the Argos all-time rushing list with 3,712

yard The yard (symbol: yd) is an English unit of length in both the British imperial and US customary systems of measurement equalling 3 feet or 36 inches. Since 1959 it has been by international agreement standardized as exactly 0.914 ...

s on 529 carries, second on the Argos all-time list with most yards in a game with 208 yards, and third on the team list of most 100-yard rushing games with 12. After retirement from football, Curtis remained in Toronto and raised his family. He owned a cleaning business and later became a teacher and coach in the

North York Board of Education The North York Board of Education (NYBE, commonly known as School District 13), officially the Board of Education for the City of North York is the former public school board for the former city of North York in Ontario, Canada. In 1998, the pro ...

. In 1959 he coached the North York Knights, a team that played in the national Canadian Junior Football championships. He also helped coach the

York University York University (french: Université York), also known as YorkU or simply YU, is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's fourth-largest university, and it has approximately 55,700 students, 7,0 ...

football team A football team is a group of players selected to play together in the various team sports known as football. Such teams could be selected to play in a match against an opposing team, to represent a football club, group, state or nation, an All-st ...

in the 1960s. He was named to the Toronto Argonauts All-Time Argos List in 2005. Curtis died October 6, 2013 in Toronto.

References

Notes

External links

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Historical Albion Michigan bio: Ulysses Curtis
1926 births 2013 deaths Florida A&M Rattlers football players Toronto Argonauts players African-American players of Canadian football Canadian football running backs People from Albion, Michigan Players of American football from Michigan 20th-century African-American sportspeople 21st-century African-American people Players of Canadian football from Michigan {{Canadianfootball-runningback-stub