This week, a committee proposed that the University of Michigan remove Fielding H. Yost’s name from the campus ice venue after a review of his time in Ann Arbor. Yost famously refused to let a Black football player, Willis Ward, play against Georgia Tech in 1934.
For those who are unfamiliar with the story, Michigan and Georgia Tech were set to meet in the third week of the 1934 season. Georgia Tech administration would not let its team take the field as long as Michigan had a Black player on the team. Yost, who died in 1946, would cave to this request in exchange for Georgia Tech benching its own star end, Hoot Gibson, for the game.