University of Michigan Hall of Honor
Hubbard, William DeHart
William DeHart Hubbard
- Induction:
- 1979
- Class:
- 1925
He is the answer to a great trivia question: Who was the first African-American athlete to win an individual gold medal at the Olympics? Twelve years before Jesse Owen's monumental performance in Berlin came Michigan's William DeHart Hubbard. Hubbard's leap of 24-feet-5-inches at the 1924 games in Paris easily outdistanced the competition and earned him a place of honor in Olympic history. From 1923-25, there was no better athlete on the University of Michigan campus than Hubbard. The track and field star from Cincinnati, Ohio, set U-M standards that stood for several years. Eight times Hubbard won Big Ten titles, and four times he captured NCAA individual championships. As a sprinter in 1925, he tied the world indoor record in the 60-yard dash (:06.2) and tied the world outdoor standard in the 100-yard dash (:09.6). As a broad jumper, Hubbard established the world mark at the 1925 NCAA Meet (25'10 7/8"). The greatest of his collegiate performances came on June 13, 1925, in Chicago when he won the aforementioned broad jump and earned the 100-yard dash title in a meet record time of :09.8. A long-time employee for the Parks and Recreation Department in Cincinnati, he died in 1976. Hubbard was inducted posthumously into the U-M Hall of Honor in 1979 and into the Ohio Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1985.
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