Photo courtesy of the Marquette University Law School

DID YOU KNOW? Paul Robeson (1898-1976) had ties to the Ivy League and Ivy League athletics.

A Princeton, N.J., native, Robeson was a gifted football student-athlete before he became a renowed singer, actor and civil rights advocate. The summer before he enrolled at Rutgers as the school's third-ever African-American student, he had a summer job in Rhode Island where he befriended Fritz Pollard (1894-1986).

Pollard went on to star at Brown, playing in the 1916 Rose Bowl, and he then competed in the National Football League where he became that league's first African-American head coach. Called "one of the greatest runners these eyes have ever seen" by the legendary Yale coach and sportswriter Walter Camp, Pollard has been recognized in recent years for his monumental achievements with the Fritz Pollard Alliance Foundation, which was established in 2003 to promote diversity and equality of job opportunity in the coaching, front office and scouting staffs of the NFL, and the Fritz Pollard Award, created by Brown and the Black Coaches & Administrators in 2004 to annually honor an African-American Male Coach of the Year. Perhaps one of the most awaited honors for Pollard's memory came in 2005 when he was inducted posthumously into Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.

While Pollard was at Brown, Robeson was at Rutgers where he earned a full scholarship and excelled on the football field as a two-time first-team All-American as well as in baseball, basketball and track & field. He was an outstanding student who was elected class valedictorian in 1919, and he was also starting to be known as a singer after becoming involved with the Glee Club.

After Rutgers and a brief stint in law school at New York University, Robeson transferred to the Columbia Law School where his singing career began to blossom. He continued to evolve as an artist and became a part of the Harlem Renaissance while also continuing his football career and his law school studies. He was recruited by Pollard to play for the Akron Pros in 1921 and then played his second and final pro football season for the Milwaukee Badgers in 1922. Shortly after his NFL career ended, he graduated from Columbia Law School.

From there, Robeson went on to become one of the most well-known concert singers, actors and advocates for equality of his time. His activitism was a catalyst to what became the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. The impact of his life was felt around in country and around the world and in many areas, from the arts to athletics.

For his contributions, Robeson has been bestowed with numerous honors from the 27th U.S. postage stamp in the Black Heritage Series to being inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1995 to a centennial celebration of his life and work in 1998. Robeson's recognitions have reached far and wide, including where it all began for him in his hometown of Princeton, N.J. Just blocks away from the Princeton University campus, Robeson is honored with the Center of Arts and a street, Paul Robeson Place, named in his honor.

While Robeson may have never stepped on the playing field as an Ivy student-athlete, his influence on the African-Americans who had and will have a chance to compete for one of the League's eight institutions is forever lasting.