IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Feb. 15, 2008
CONTACT: Gordon Ovenshine:

Office: 724.738.4854

Cell: 724.991.8302

gordon.ovenshine@sru.edu

SRU’s Levy tapped for KDKA Black History Month feature

SLIPPERY ROCK, Pa. – Alan Levy, Slippery Rock University history professor and an expert on the desegregation of professional sports, will be the featured guest on KDKA Newsradio 1020 from 3-4 p.m. Saturday. Levy will discuss his book “Tackling Jim Crow: Racial Segregation in Professional Football” in conjunction with Black History Month.

            While most sports fans know the story of Jackie Robinson and the integration of Major League Baseball, fewer know the sequence of events leading to the integration of professional football.

            “It remains a significant story,” he said. “If you ask people, ‘Did you know that professional football used to be segregated?,’ a lot of people would not know.”

            In his book, published by McFarland and Co. Inc. and available at the SRU bookstore and from amazon.com, Levy describes how the Cleveland Browns of the old All-America Football Conference and the Los Angeles Rams of the National Football League broke the racial barrier in 1946. Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier in 1947.

            Among Levy’s other books are biographies of baseball strikeout artist Rube Waddell and New York Yankees manager Joe McCarthy. He joined SRU in 1985.

Slippery Rock University is Pennsylvania’s premier public residential university. Slippery Rock University provides students with a comprehensive learning experience that intentionally combines academic instruction with enhanced educational and learning opportunities that make a positive difference in their lives.