Julius Whittier made history when he attended the University of Texas in 1969.
He was one of the first Black football players in the country to get a scholarship when Texas awarded him one, one year after the school became the last to field an all-white National Champion. Whittier became the first Black player to letter in football at UT and was a member of three Southwest Conference titles and a National title in 1970.
The trailblazer died on Tuesday morning. He was 68.
He was inducted into the Longhorn Hall of Honor in 2013 and San Antonio San Antonio Independent School District Hall of Fame this past August. Whittier was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease and his mental state continued to deteriorate, leading up to his death this past Tuesday (Sept. 25).
Texas’ Board of Regents had dropped its ban on black players in 1963 but integration on the team’s football squad was slow to take. Of the many black players who signed to play for the Longhorns, most didn’t last beyond their freshman seasons in Austin to make varsity, in an era when the NCAA made freshmen ineligible to play.
“I wanted to see if the myth about UT’s racism was true,” Whittier said during his senior season in 1972. “If it was, I wanted to see what I could do to change it.”
He earned an undergraduate degree in philosophy and a law degree from UT. He went on to be a criminal prosecutor in Dallas.
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