Editor’s Note: With Texas Tech’s 1,000th game approaching on Saturday, The Avalanche-Journal is revisiting defining moments in Red Raiders football history.
Other black athletes had come out for Texas Tech teams on their own before, but Danny Hardaway became the Red Raiders’ first black scholarship athlete when he signed in February 1967.
Even though he led the Red Raiders in rushing in 1969, Hardaway’s legacy at Tech stems from his pioneering role.
“Of course, I wasn’t thinking about that back then ... but I knew I was put on this earth for something,” Hardaway said on a return trip to Lubbock in 2011.