In 1937, one team threatened not to play.
Maryland trounced #19 Syracuse last weekend, 63-20. The Terrapins put away the game early—up 42-13 at the half—one their way to a 43-point win as a 1.5 point favorite. The long-time rivals were playing for the 38th time in a series that’s one year shy of the century mark.
But one of the most memorable meetings between the Terrapins and Orange had nothing to do with what happened on the field. In fact, the game very well could have been canceled.
1937 was the year. The place was College Park, Maryland (just as it was last Saturday). What made the game eventful? Maryland threatened to boycott the game.
Wilmeth Sidat-Singh, QB, Syracuse (photo, Alchetron.com)
Attention focused on one SU player, a QB named Wilmeth Sidat-Singh. Sidat-Singh wasn’t an ordinary player. He was a star, dubbed “The Syracuse Walking Dream.”
SU claimed Sidat-Singh was “a Hindu from India,” but Maryland thought otherwise. The Terps believed he was African American–prompted to think that way after a local reporter wrote a piece that revealed Sidat-Singh’s true identity.
The reporter was right. Sidat-Singh wasn’t a “Hindu from India,” and his birth name wasn’t Sidat-Singh. It was Webb. Of African-American lineage, Wilmeth Webb was born in Washington DC. He took his stepfather’s surname after his mother remarried.
Why all the fuss? The Terrapins had exclusionary policies in place back then. Maryland was a lily-white team on a lily-white campus. It would be years before the first students-of-color arrived in College Park (early 1950s). The school’s first athlete-of-color didn’t compete until the 1960s.
“Negro to Play U. of Maryland” read a headline in The Washington Tribune. That sealed the deal. Maryland threatened to cancel the game unless SU benched Sidat-Singh. SU complied.
Maryland went on to beat #17 Syracuse, 13-0, that day, October 23, 1937, in front of 10,000 fans. A year later, SU got revenge. The Orange trounced the Terrapins, 53-0, at SU’s Archbold Stadium. It was a home game, so (guess what?) Sidat-Singh played and led his team to victory.
After his college days, Sidat-Singh signed up to serve the U.S. in World War II. He became a pilot and died in 1943 on a training flight over Lake Huron.
Sidat-Singh was gone, but not forgotten. Decades later—in 2005—Syracuse retired his jersey number with his descendants in attendance. Wilmeth’s number hangs in the rafters at SU’s Carrier Dome. (Sidat-Singh also played basketball for the Orange.)
“Growing up, my father always told me about that 1937 game,” Lyn Henley, Sidat-Singh’s cousin, told The Washington City Paper in 2008. “He watched Sidat-Singh the whole game, just seeing him sitting on the bench with a wet towel draped over his head and his head down.”
Courtesy: Syracuse.com
Maryland didn’t forget him, either. It just took longer. The university issued a public apology to Sidat-Singh’s descendants. The day was November 9, 2013, and it was a football Saturday–Maryland v. Syracuse, once again, 76 years later.
Syracuse won, 20-3.
Courtesy: Deadspin.com
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I dedicate this column to Olin “Buddy” Campbell, my brother-in-law, a student of history and SU fan.
