It is arguably one of the finest traditions in college football. Before each game, the coaches, players and support staff for North Carolina A&T, an FCS program in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, get off the bus and walk a few steps to a statue titled “February One.”
On Fridays before leaving for a road trip or Saturdays before continuing on to the stadium, the Aggies touch the feet of the four men — Franklin McCain Sr., Ezell Blair Jr. (now Jibreel Khazan), Joseph McNeil and David Richmond — who staged a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth’s in Greensboro in 1960.