The University of Kentucky will honor a desegregation pioneer who also happens to be one of its all-time great track athletes this weekend with the renaming of its annual opening indoor meet as the “Jim Green Invitational.”
Green, a three-time NCAA champion and the first black student-athlete to graduate from UK, ran for Kentucky from 1968 to 1971 and was among the first black student-athletes in the Southeastern Conference during the difficult times of a segregated South.
“It’s exciting,” the 70-year-old Louisville resident said of the honor. “And the reason why it’s so exciting to me right now is because my family is going to be there.