Ben Deihl | sports editor

*This article was updated for accuracy. It was previously stated that Chuck Cooper was in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

On Dec. 23, 1946, Duquesne and Tennessee had a scheduled game in McKeesport, a highly anticipated match up with a star-studded Volunteers team. At the time, Tennessee’s basketball team was still segregated.

As Tennessee Head Coach John Mauer and his team arrived and saw sophmore star Duquesne center Chuck Cooper, Mauer immediately called a meeting with Duquesne Head Coach Chick Davies, declaring he and his team refused to play a game against a Black center.

“[Mauer] didn’t want his boys to have to go against African Americans on the court,” sports historian Dave Finoli said. “He would always send a note to the coach and have them agree to sit their Black players.”

Davies eventually came to a compromise, stating he wouldn’t play Cooper “unless he had to, in a close game.” But Mauer wouldn’t budge, refusing to play unless there was total segregation. Trapped firmly in the iron grasp of racism, Mauer and Tennessee forfeited the game.

“[Duquesne] stood behind their teammate,” Finoli said. “And that stayed with [Cooper] through his life. That’s why Duquesne was so special to him. They sent Tennessee home.”

Cooper proved why he belonged on the court in the coming seasons. In 1950, as a senior, he shined. He led Duquesne to a 23-6 record and an appearance in the National Invitation Tournament, the premier college basketball tournament at the time.

Although the Dukes would fall in the quarterfinals to the City College of New York, Cooper proved himself as one of the best players in America. From his historic 1950 season, Cooper became the first Black player to become a consensus All-American.

But Cooper wasn’t the first Black player to break boundaries at Duquesne. Almost 30 years before him, Cumberland Posey broke the color barrier at Duquesne in 1916, becoming one of Duquesne’s greats on the basketball court from 1916-1918.

Posey played for the Dukes under the alias ‘Charles Cumbert,’ due to his professional career preceding his time as a student at Duquesne. Posey was later recognized as the first Black athlete in Duquesne’s history.

He revolutionized the game of basketball, using his 5-foot-9, 140-pound frame to his advantage, becoming one of the first hoopers to use a long-range jump shot.

After playing at Penn State and earning a pharmacy degree from Pitt, Posey formed the Monticello Athletic Association in Pittsburgh. Monticello and Posey’s other team, the Loendi Big Five, dominated its league, winning five titles in 1912 and 1920-23.

Throughout the early 1900s, Posey was one of the most renowned athletes of his time, often viewed as “the pinnacle of Black sporting excellence,” sports historian Rob Ruck said.

Posey burst onto the baseball scene in 1911, playing for the Homestead Grays. As a player, Posey helped the Grays rise through the ranks of semi-pro baseball, eventually becoming the dominant force of the Negro Leagues under his leadership.

“If you look back, there’s this long, grassroots story of sports in Pittsburgh,” Ruck said. “Three of the greatest teams ever started on the sandlots.”

Posey quickly climbed the ladder with the Grays, starting as an outfielder, leadoff hitter, then captain, manager and eventually the team’s principal owner.

Under Posey, the Grays won nine straight league pennants, spanning from 1937-1945 and won three Negro League World Series in 1943, 1944 and 1948.

“Some may say he crushed the weak as well as the strong on the way to the top of the ladder,” Pittsburgh Courier sportswriter Wendell Smith wrote of Posey.

Smith credited Posey with being one of the most brilliant minds in baseball at the time, capturing all elements of the sport.

In the dawn of the Civil Rights Movement, the U.S. saw roughly 6 million Black Americans move from the rural South to the North, Midwest and West in what is now known as the Great Migration.

Racism is a deeply rooted part of American culture, a system America has yet to escape today. Many communities, both Black and white, feared that the new influx of migrants would damage community standings, fracture job markets or limit the chances of receiving proper education.

But where politics divided, sports united. Posey’s dominance in the Pittsburgh region gave people a reason to hope, a reason to cheer in one of the hardest times in American history. He helped build Pittsburgh into the sports capital we know today, on the back of overlooked, underappreciated Black athletes.

“Sports built community, gave immigrants and migrated African Americans the chance to be somebody and gave all these non-economic functions, and Posey was in the center of that,” Ruck said.

Cooper came to Duquesne after leading Westinghouse High School to a state title and earning an All-City first-team honor as a center. Cooper played one year at historically Black institution West Virginia State College before being drafted into the U.S. Navy to fight in World War II.

Heading into the 1950 draft, Cooper was regarded as an elite-level prospect, but racism still ran rampant in segregated America. Before the draft, Cooper signed with the Harlem Globetrotters, the best avenue for a Black player to earn money playing professional basketball.

But the Boston Celtics and owner Walter Brown weren’t blinded by color. They saw Cooper’s talent, his resiliency, his levelheadedness.

“I don’t give a damn if he’s striped or polka dot or plaid,” Brown said to critics on draft day. “Boston takes Chuck Cooper of Duquesne.”

Cooper recognized the leap of faith Brown and the Celtics took on him. In a telegram he sent to Brown just after he was drafted, Cooper instilled the confidence his new manager saw in him.

“Thank you for having the courage to offer me a contract in pro basketball,” Cooper wrote. “I hope I’ll never give you the chance to regret it.”

Cooper had a fruitful six-year career in the NBA, achieving the 2,000-mark in both points and rebounds. He played in an era before stats like blocks or steals were recorded, meaning the 6-foot-5 forward’s impact likely reached further than the stat sheets show.

In an era divided by color, two Duquesne natives broke the barrier and gave Black Americans a reason to watch professional sports, eventually extending their reach to trailblaze in more ways than sport.

After his retirement, Cooper served as the first Black department head in Pittsburgh city government as the parks and recreation director. As director, he transformed East Hills Park and oversaw numerous others.

Cooper served on the city school board to oversee the implementation of equality through education. He also served as the first Black executive at Pittsburgh National Bank, expanding resources and assets across the city.

Posey’s impact expands beyond tangible actions, giving the City of Pittsburgh and America a reason to cheer in its darkest days. Posey’s Grays dominated the baseball world in the midst of the Great Depression, giving Americans an easy escape.

“Posey helped build that image of a city of champions, even in the 1930s and 40s,” Finoli said. “He gave Pittsburghers a real sense of community.”

He wrote frequent sports columns in the Pittsburgh Courier, boosting the publication into one of the leading Black newspapers in America in the 1930s. Posey helped spread the notion of equality and carried on his father’s legacy of supporting the paper.

Today, both Cooper and Posey are enshrined in the Duquesne Basketball Hall of Fame, the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, and Posey also resides in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. As fans cheer on their Dukes in the UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse, all should remember the men and namesake that started it all.

Ben Deihl can be reached at deihlb1@duq.edu