<\/p>\n
James Means was inducted into the UT Athletic Hall of Honor in 2023 at Darrell\u00a0K. Royal\u2013Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin.<\/p>\n
Mikala Compton\/American-Statesman<\/p>\n
Businessman James Means Jr., one of the\u00a0first Black athletes at the University of Texas<\/a> \u2014 he integrated the Southwest Conference in 1964 \u2014 died of cancer July 18. He was 80.<\/p>\n Born July 30, 1945 in Austin, Means was the son of civil rights pioneers James Means Sr.<\/a> and Bertha Sadler Means<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n A sprinter and a relay runner at UT, Means posted a career-best 9.5 seconds in the 100-meter race, according to the Texas Athletics Hall of Honor<\/a> website. He was inducted into the Hall of Honor in 2023.<\/p>\n Always frugal, Means, a graduate of Austin High School, worked his way through UT. He walked onto the track team in 1963, then competed for the university’s varsity team at the Fort Worth Recreation Meet in 1964 \u2014 the first African-American to do so and the first Black athlete in the Southwest Conference.<\/p>\n Means began running track in high school after a member of his church suggested that he try the sport, he told the American-Statesman in 2023. Did he dream he’d ever join the Longhorns? “I didn’t even think about it in high school. I didn’t think I was that good,” he told Statesman sportswriter Danny Davis.<\/p>\n Means sat out 1965, but excelled when he returned in 1966 as the first African-American student to receive an athletic scholarship to the University of Texas. He helped the Longhorns win two Southwest Conference championships.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n A legacy of excellence<\/p>\n Means\u2019 parents made their primary careers as educators, James Means Sr. taught at what became Huston-Tillotson University; Bertha Means worked in key roles in the Austin school district. She is the namesake of the Bertha Sadler Means Young Women’s Leadership Academy<\/a>.<\/p>\n Together, the couple helped found an integrated St. James Episcopal Church in East Austin.<\/p>\n The family expected leadership in each generation<\/a> through academics, athletics, business and community activism. They invested in real estate and, from 1984 to 2019, owned Austin Cab Company, formerly Harlem Cab, founded in 1943. A sister helped break the color line at Barton Springs Pool. A nephew<\/a> started a school with an international educational emphasis.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Means\u2019 Longhorn dreams might not have happened if his mother had not written to ask Regent Frank Erwin why her son could not compete. According to Means family accounts, Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson intervened. On Nov. 9, 1963, the university announced that Black athletes could participate.<\/p>\n A humble family man<\/p>\n By all accounts, Means did not like to toot his own horn. His daughter, Alyssa Means, knew little about his achievements while growing up.<\/p>\n “To me, my dad was just the guy who taught me how to throw a football, baseball, shoot hoops, change a tire, drive a stick-shift,” Means told the American-Statesman in 2023. “Are you James Means’ daughter?” Means remembered her classmates asking after her name was called during a roll call. “Yeah,” she replied. “And?” “Do you not know? Your dad is awesome. We just had a class about him and the things that he did to further civil rights.”<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n James Means Jr. graduated with a degree in business administration before he was drafted into the U.S. Army. He served two years, then returned home to Austin. While working in the business world, he met Carol L. Adams, a drama student from San Antonio. Their marriage lasted 54 years. They had a daughter, Alyssa, and a son, James “Tito” Horatio III.\u00a0<\/p>\n Carol Adams-Means served as a communications professor at Huston-Tillotson. She is an independent media consultant.<\/p>\n Always modest, James Means Jr. told the Statesman that he was not expecting the Hall of Honor selection. “I never lobbied for it or anything else like that,” he said. “It’s a great honor.”<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Despite the racial animus of the 1960s, Means told Davis in 2023 that he enjoyed college. He described his time at the University of Texas as “nonconfrontational.”\u00a0<\/p>\n “I had good teammates. I never had a personal discussion with anybody about race, me being Black,” Means told Davis. “The head coach was Jack Patterson, and he was an excellent coach. He told me that if we had any problems on the road trips, he would basically be there taking care of me like a guardian. So I never had any problems with the coach or anybody else.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"James Means was inducted into the UT Athletic Hall of Honor in 2023 at Darrell\u00a0K. Royal\u2013Texas Memorial Stadium…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":383969,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,2919,261,537,536,4100,4101],"class_list":["post-383968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-civil-rights","tag-college-football","tag-texas-longhorns","tag-texas-longhorns-football","tag-university-of-texas","tag-university-of-texas-at-austin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/383969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n