Willie Thrower: First Black Quarterback in the Modern NFL

Here in New Kensington, Willie Thrower first learned to play football, leading the high school's team to championship seasons in the Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League in nineteen forty-six and nineteen forty-seven. He went on to Michigan State, where he was a member of the national championship team in nineteen fifty-two, and then to the Chicago Bears, where in nineteen fifty-three he became the first African American to play quarterback in the modern National Football League. He also made history in the Big Ten Conference.

The NFL had only recently reintegrated after a twelve-year exclusion of Black players, and Thrower's presence behind center, even briefly, was a milestone. He finished his professional career in Canada. New Kensington remembers the quarterback it produced.