Morgan State Bears Lacrosse - Background

Background

Morgan State University was founded and chartered in 1867 as the Centenary Biblical Institute. It was built on its present site, in northeast Baltimore, in 1890 and was known as Morgan College from 1890 to 1938. It became a public college in 1939, as Morgan State College. In the 1950s and 1960s, enrollment swelled as African Americans of the baby boom generation sought post high school degrees but were limited by segregation to black colleges and universities like Morgan, Howard, Grambling or Morehouse. (In 1975, the college was renamed Morgan State University by the state legislature to reflect its expanded mission and scope.) By the 1960s, Morgan and Grambling had reached the pinnacle of college football, African-American athletes were still unable to attend most white schools, thus concentrating their numbers and talents at a handful of black schools. Several dozen notable NFL players and Hall of Famers hailed from these schools.
The late 1960s were turbulent years with regard to race relations in the United States. Riots had broken out in major cities across the country, with at least three in Maryland, Dr. Martin Luther King had been assassinated and formerly all white universities and colleges were opening their doors to African-Americans for the first time. But the major lacrosse powers like Johns Hopkins, Navy and Maryland still fielded mostly white teams.

Ironically, by 1975 Morgan became noted for its lacrosse team because black high school lacrosse players from Maryland and New York still had trouble getting into the major white lacrosse colleges and universities. Morgan was the first (and until the turn of the 21st century) the only historically black university to field a lacrosse team.
The team was formed in 1970 when a former Baltimore highschool lacrosse player and Morgan grad student, Howard "Chip" Silverman, realized that many of black Baltimore's high school lacrosse players were at Morgan, but were not playing lacrosse. Silverman had never coached before, but, he put up flyers around campus, and 30 athletes showed up for a meeting. Two-thirds were football players. Some would later star in the NFL, such as Stan Cherry. Silverman started the lacrosse club and two years later petitioned the NCAA for full membership as a college team. At that time, the NCAA had its best 40 teams in Division I and another 80 teams in Division II. It was Division II that Morgan would soon dominate.