by E.R. Bills
When the Texas Christian University Horned Frogs look back to 1935, they think of TCU's first national championship in football. They conjure images of gridiron legend Slingin" Sammy Baugh. They remember Hall of Fame Horned Frog helmsman,Dutch Meyer.
Baugh and Meyer were towering figures of lore and legend, and the 1935 TCU football squad was legendary-and they still enjoy the recognition and accolades befitted to their accomplishments today. But not every extraordinary coach or team achieves legend. And not every extraordinary event is celebrated or granted recognition.
One such coach, team and event occurred at TCU before the 1935 national championship.
In the early spring of that year, a TCU assistant history professor named Dr. C. Allen True sponsored the new Frogs Forensic Fraternity to foster and encourage competition in the fields of public speaking and the art of debate. The fledgling group had 12 members: John Bailey, Edith Blakeway, Byron Buckeridge, Leonard Kirkegaard, Dorothy Lewis, Hastings Pannill, Harry Roberts, Mamie Snodgrass, J. B. Trimble, Charles Weaver, Sergeant-at-arms Julius Lile and President W. A. Welsh.
The 1935 Frogs Forensic Fraternity wasted no time, hitting the proverbial ground hopping.
They participated in the West Texas Speech Tournament in Abilene and the Baylor Annual Speech Tournament in Waco. They sponsored an oratorical contest at TCU, and they participated in the Pi Kappa Delta Provincial Tournament in Waxahachie. Pi Kappa Delta was the national forensic organization that governed collegiate debate competition.
The Forensic Frogs were young and eager and ready to match wits and words with any and all takers, so Dr. True invited perennial polemics powerhouse Wiley College of Marshall, Texas, to debate at TCU.
Wiley's Forensic Society had been around since 1924, and from 1930-1940 lost only one contest. Later that spring, on April 2, they would go on to best the reigning national collegiate debate champions, the University of Southern California. But Wiley would not supplant USC as collegiate debate champions or enjoy the collegiate debate crown. The Wiley College-USC contest would be a non-decision affair because Wiley was not a member of the Pi Kappa Delta charter.
Pi Kappa Delta was a segregated organization, and Wiley College was a black college.
Legendary Wiley College debate coach Melvin Tolson had founded an African-American version of Pi Kappa Delta, called Alpha Phi Omega, so historically black universities could have their own governing body to oversee forensics competitions. But, within a few years, Wiley's fellow African-American debate squads, including Bishop, Fisk, Howard, Knoxville, Morehouse, Tuskegee, Virginia Union and Wilberforce, dreaded the small school from Marshall. It was a forensics juggernaut that soon had Wiley College being referred to as "Harvard West of the Mississippi."
TCU was not the first white college that Wiley competed against. In early 1930, Wiley became one of first black colleges to debate a white college in America, matching intellects with law students from the University of Michigan. The event was held at Chicago's large, African-American-owned 7th Street Theater because Caucasian-run venues prohibited racially mixed audiences. Then, on March 3, 1930, Wiley became the first black college to debate a white university in the South, contesting the University of Oklahoma City at Avery Chapel, an off-campus venue in Oklahoma City.
By the time Wiley College faced TCU in 1935, Wiley was such an intellectual force that few black or white colleges dared challenge them, especially in the South, because they dominated every debate. But the Forensic Frogs were undeterred.
Whether Wiley was the only team available at the time or the Frogs simply wanted to improve their skills by facing the best, TCU did the heretofore unthinkable: They became the first white college in the South to host a black college for a forensic contest.
For years, the Wiley College Forensic Society had traveled the back roads of Texas in borrowed cars, letting the lightest-skinned participants drive so the darker ones could duck down in scary areas, avoiding trouble and dodging lynching parties. The Wiley team operated on a shoestring budget and circumnavigated "Whites Only" hotels and restaurants, traveling the Jim Crow South with due caution and concern. So, when Wiley College forensic veterans Hobart Jarrett and Cleveland Gay stepped onto a Horned Frog stage to debate the Forensic Frogs in 1935, TCU made history.
In 1936, Jesse Owens would star in the Olympics in front of Adolph Hitler's Nazi Berlin. In 1937, the Brown Bomber, Joe Louis, would begin his 12-year reign as the world heavyweight boxing champion. And in 1947, Jackie Robinson would send shockwaves through baseball by breaking into the Big Leagues and winning MLB Rookie of the Year. Before them all, the Wiley College forensics squad of 1935 would create their own shockwaves, perform as champions and star in efforts to break color barriers-but very few people of the era would ever know unless they witnessed one of the contests.
The African-American forensics squad that TCU contested in 1935 would go on to become known as "The Great Debaters," which as recently as 2007 enjoyed a movie treatment of the same name, directed and starred in by Denzel Washington and produced by Oprah Winfrey. The movie captures the spirit of The Great Debaters" achievements but leaves out some important characters and events, including Wiley's appearance at TCU.
Dr. Allen True and the Forensic Frogs of TCU hosted a team of championship-caliber African American intellectuals at a time when the achievements of Wiley College received little if any press coverage. Its debate team participants couldn't drink from the same water fountains of their white opponents and whose very presence on campus was frowned upon by much of the Fort Worth community. It wasn't a touchdown or a national championship, and the home team didn't even win the contest-but TCU did achieve something worthy of recognition and accolades.
Jarrett later described it as one of his best collegiate experiences, second only to besting USC.
In the August 1935 issue of the NAACP's monthly magazine, The Crisis, Jarrett wrote that he and Gay encountered no traces of racism at TCU, before, during or after the debate, and noted that Horned Frogs rushed the stage after the contest, grasping his and Gay's hands and congratulating them.
The current TCU debate coach, Dr. Amorette Hinderaker (an assistant professor in the School of Communications), is proud of the Forensic Frogs" contest with Wiley in 1935 and interested in building on the legacy by inviting Wiley College for a debate in 2015 to commemorate the 80th anniversary of their first historic meeting.
"Intercollegiate debate has long been, and continues to be, an integral part of advancing TCU's mission to educate individuals," Hinderaker says, "to teach them to think and act as ethical leaders and responsible citizens of the global community. We're honored to be a part of the tradition."
The 2013-2014 TCU Forensics team will travel to approximately 15 tournaments this year, facing a wide array of colleges and universities across the nation. The debate squad was on hiatus for three decades before it picked back up last year, but Hinderaker, like True, quickly got the program hopping. The team goes into this spring with several of the participants already having qualified for national tournaments.
