LOUDONVILLE, NY – Since the inception of the Siena College Athletics Department shortly after the school's founding in 1937, Siena Athletics has strived to accompany the College in embodying the vision and values of St. Francis of Assisi. Among those values is a "reverence for all creation" and an "affirmation of the unique worth of each person". While the Saints have used their platforms to express opinions on equality and social justice while it has been at the forefront of news headlines over the past year, the department's mission to provide equal opportunities and fair treatment to all student athletes, coaches, and personnel goes back much further, back to the beginnings of its more than 80-year history.

 Siena's first athletic director, Reverend Maurus Fitzgerald, OFM (1902-1993, pictured left) was known as a "renaissance man" who blended his passion for teaching English and his love for students with his enjoyment for athletics, specifically basketball. After earning his master's degree at Oxford University, he arrived at Siena, where he would teach and guide the athletic department for 16 years. Regarded as the "Father of Siena Basketball," Rev. Fitzgerald became an ambassador for what was at the time an upstart program that competed with more established schools and the military for the attention of prospective players.

 "He really talked up athletics at Siena, believed in it, and advocated for athletics within the administration of the school as essential to the overall experience of a collegiate institution," Former Siena College President Fr. Kevin Mullen, '75, O.F.M., Ph.D., recalled.

 While at the helm of Siena's athletic department from 1939-55, Rev. Fitzgerald also kept with the Franciscan values of treating all people equally, even at a time when segregation and Jim Crow Laws were still prevalent in American society.

"The Holy Name Province at the time had a number of missions in the South, and most of the churches that our friars went to were African American," Mullen added. "Our churches in the south were the only ones at the time that were not highly segregated. That was a legacy within the Province, and at that time they advocated for civil rights." 

In 1948, with the help of Rev. Fitzgerald's willingness to take a stand against segregation within college athletics, Siena played a small part in breaking the color barrier within national postseason tournaments in college basketball.

At the time, the most notable of the three major college basketball postseason tournaments was the National Association of Intercollegiate Basketball (NAIB, presently known as the NAIA) Tournament, held annually in Kansas City, Missouri. Founded by Dr. James Naismith in 1937, the NAIB was the premier postseason tournament for smaller schools at the time, but carried a rule that prohibited black athletes from participating in the tournament.

With Siena evolving to play a "big-time basketball" schedule following the conclusion of World War II, Manhattan College emerged as one of the team's bitter rivals by the end of the 1940's. The Jaspers were invited to participate in the 1948 edition of the tournament, but declined after the NAIB refused to change the rule. Siena then received an invitation in place of their Big Apple counterparts, but also declined in protest. Both of these gestures came despite neither Manhattan nor Siena having any African American basketball players on their rosters at the time.

Writing in an op-ed to the Siena News, the popular campus newspaper at the time, Rev. Fitzgerald explained the athletic department's feelings behind Siena's decision to decline the invitation to what would have been their first taste of the national spotlight:

The Siena College Athletic Association, when it learned of Manhattan's refusal to accept the bid, had three choices open: The first was to decline the invitation and stay at home. The second was to accept the N.A.I.B. bid and refrain from protesting the Negro Eligibility Clause. The third was to accept the bid, go to the tournament, and when the meeting of the members was held on March sixth, to protest the ineligibility clause and try to get it removed from the rules of the tournament, and if it was not removed refuse to participate further in the association.

The Siena College Athletic Association favored the third choice but was refused permission to participate by the Administration Board of the college, who felt that a direct refusal to participate would express more positively the college's attitude on racial discrimination.

In view of the numerous letters and telegrams we have received questioning our attitude toward racial discrimination, we feel that our position should be made clear. No charge of racial discrimination could in fairness be brought against Siena College by anyone who is familiar with the roster of our student body. Furthermore, we might add the non-participation is not the only form of protest against an admittedly un-American practice.

In response to mounting pressure related to the decisions by Manhattan and Siena to decline invitations to the tournament, and by a motion considered by the U.S. Olympic Committee to not allow the NAIB Champion to participate at Olympic Trials (national postseason champions were invited at the time), the NAIB took a poll by telegraph and rescinded the ban on African American players.

This ruling paved the way for Indiana Teacher's College (now known as Indiana State) to accept a bid and play in the 1948 NAIB. The Sycamores were coached by a young John Wooden, who refused to participate in the tournament the year prior due to the rule. Indiana State went on to lose in the 1948 NAIB Championship Game, and role player Clarence J. Walker of Indiana State became the first African American player to participate in a national collegiate postseason basketball tournament.

Fast-forward two years and the first African American basketball player at Siena was embarking on what would go down as one of the greatest athletic careers in the history of the College to this day. Born in Norristown, Pennsylvania in 1928, Billy Harrell '52 (1928-2014, pictured below) moved to Troy, New York as a child, and starred at Troy High School in both basketball and baseball. He would receive an athletic scholarship to play in Loudonville at Siena, and helped the team to a 70-19 record on the basketball court in three years, while also starring on the diamond.

After compiling a 22-6 record under legendary Siena coach Dan Cunha (1912-1968, pictured below coaching in 1950) during the 1948-49 campaign, Siena was invited to participate in the National Catholic Invitational Tournament and made its first-ever national postseason tournament appearance in Denver, Colorado, losing in the first round of the Tournament. The team was once again invited at the conclusion of the 1949-50 year after going 24-5, with the 1950 edition of the Tournament scheduled to be held in segregated Baltimore, Maryland.

This meant that Harrell, a sophomore who set the program's single season scoring and rebounding records that year, would have to lodge in a separate hotel and eat at separate restaurants if the team decided to make the trip. Both Siena and Saint Francis College of Brooklyn, who also had a black athlete on its roster, refused to participate. In response, the tournament was moved, and Siena partnered with the City of Albany to host the tournament, which was held in the Capital Region for the final three years of its existence (1950-52).

Under the direction of Fitzgerald and Cunha, this motion expressed the sentiment that the basketball team shared about their teammate, and that they viewed him as an athlete and a member of the Siena College community before anything else.

"He didn't have to be black to get the respect of the players, and he didn't have to be a good ball player to get the respect of the players," Ed Kolakowski '51, who starred alongside Harrell, said. "His personality was such that all of the players enjoyed having him as a teammate."

The 1949-50 Siena Basketball Team

Kolakowski, who joined Harrell, Cunha, and Fitzgerald by being inducted into the Siena Athletics Hall of Fame in 1971, had much more to focus on when playing with Harrell than the color of his skin, like how good of a ball distributor he was.

"Billy would come in a game and the team would immediately improve. He would make a couple of steals, get a couple of rebounds, make a shot. He would get me six or eight more points in a game by getting us the ball."

With both programs in the midst of standout seasons, Siena and Saint Francis Brooklyn went on to face each other in the 1950 NCIT Championship Game at the Washington Avenue Armory in Albany. The hometown team prevailed, 57-50, with Harrell and Kolakowski each contributing nine points to help Siena win its first national postseason title.

The next season, Siena made a trip south to play Georgetown in segregated Washington, D.C. Kolakowski described the team's swift reaction when faced with a decision.

"After the game, we went to get something to eat and we tried this one restaurant, and they wouldn't let us in because of Billy. Now this was in 1951 in the Capital of the United States. So what we did was we just went on and we found a restaurant that accepted everyone."

Harrell's time at Siena paved the way for many more athletes of color and diversity to carve out memorable athletic careers on the field of play. Thanks to the unsung efforts of Rev. Fitzgerald and others, Siena Athletics incorporated a culture of inclusiveness and equality from the very beginning.