In the fall of 1937, Montgomery was one of three Black students in the BC freshman class and became the first Black student-athlete on the Heights as a running back for the football team. He starred out of the backfield for coach Frank Leahy's squad in 1939 and 1940, but was forced to sit out the 1940 Cotton Bowl and 1941 Sugar Bowl due discriminating laws that prevented Black athletes from competing against white athletes in America's south.
An education major, Montgomery was also the first Black player on the Boston College baseball team during his sophomore spring of 1939.
Lou Montgomery '41 arrived on the Heights and instantly became the first Black student-athlete in Boston College history. Montgomery, an All-Scholastic athlete from Brockton High, where he was the only starting Black player on the football team, followed in the footsteps of Casper Ferguson '37, who was the first Black student in school history and had graduated just a semester earlier.
Montgomery chose to attend BC on a partial scholarship, turning down an offer to UCLA, where he would have overlapped with four-sport star Jackie Robinson. A running back on the football team, he was one of three Black students in his class at BC, but the only Black athlete.
Under head coach Gil Dobie, Montgomery played with the freshman team in 1937 and on the varsity squad as a sophomore in 1938. With the arrival of new head coach Frank Leahy for the 1939 season, the Eagles debuted a newer and faster open-field offense, which heavily featured Montgomery at halfback.
BC had also recently adopted an athletics philosophy to aggressively schedule more nationally prolific games against well-known competition. Adding games against schools such as Auburn, Florida and Kentucky, all of which were charter members of the Southeastern Conference in 1932, would raise BC's profile, its earning potential through ticket sales at home games and for participation in one of college football's exclusive postseason bowl games.
In 1939, Montgomery averaged 9.68 yards per carry; a BC record that still stands over 80 years later. However, Montgomery played in just nine of 11 games for the Eagles, who finished the season 9-2. Montgomery was forced to sit out games against Florida and Clemson; BC's only two losses on the season.
Jim Crow laws of the South and disgraceful "gentlemen's agreements" prohibited Montgomery from taking the field against universities that remained segregated; even BC's home contest against Florida at Fenway Park. Although these barriers had prevented Black athletes from playing against segregated teams in the past, that was not always the case, but many have accused BC's administration for not doing enough to push back against the agreement and insist Montgomery be allowed to play.
Author Charles H. Martin, who wrote Benching Jim Crow: The Rise and Fall of the Color Line in Sports, 1890-1980, claims the research into his book found that Montgomery was excluded from more contests that any other Black athlete playing for a school in the North. Upon his exclusion from the game against Florida, the Pittsburgh Post Courier accused southern schools of "bamboozling Boston College into benching Montgomery, not because they objected to his color, but because it was an opportunity to eliminate a star player."
A key piece of coach Leahy's offense, Montgomery began to see a reduction in playing time following the 1939 Florida game as BC prepared to enter games without Montgomery in its backfield. At the end of the regular season, BC accepted an invitation to the 1940 Cotton Bowl in Dallas, Texas to face Clemson. Montgomery was forced to stay behind, while Boston College chose to play in a game that one of its players was not permitted to attend.
The Daily Globe covered the Eagles' departure for the game at South Station in December of 1939, which Montgomery attended. His appearance was described as "the most touching incident of the occasion". It was ultimately the selfless decision of Montgomery's to stay behind so that his team would not face the threat of consequences aimed at a team allowing a Black player to participate. The Globe report went on to add, "so when with tears streaming out of his eyes and with a choked voice, he mumbled to the gripped multitude, 'I hope the fellows win,' the entire crowd cheered him louder than anyone else present."
Montgomery had written in a letter to his teammates that he didn't want to put himself or his team in an embarrassing situation and that his decision to stay behind was a matter of "self-respect". Rather than insist on Montgomery's inclusion, BC traveled to Dallas and suffered a 6-3 defeat to Clemson.
At the end of the Eagles' perfect 11-0 season of 1940, Montgomery again found himself sidelined as BC headed south for the 1941 Sugar Bowl. This time he was permitted to travel, and did so at the urging of his teammates, but he had to stay with a local Black family as he was barred from the segregated team hotel. Although he was in New Orleans, Montgomery still could not participate in the bowl game; a 19-13 BC win over Tennessee on New Year's Day, which he watched from the press box.
The southern bowl color barrier would not be broken until 1947 when the Cotton Bowl agreed to let Penn State and its two Black stars Wallace Triplett and Dennis Hoggard compete against Southern Methodist. A year earlier, Triplett and Hoggard were prohibited from playing against Miami in a regular season game at the Orange Bowl. Penn State negotiated in an attempt to get Triplett and Hoggard into the game, but to no avail. In response, the Nittany Lions pulled out of the game rather than compromise.
Speaking with Glenn Stout for Boston Magazine in 1987, Montgomery said, "I may have done the things that were easiest on the players and on the school, but it wasn't necessarily the best thing that should have been done."
Montgomery, who passed in 1993, was inducted into the Boston College Varsity Club Hall of Fame in 1997. In 2012, his jersey was retired at Alumni Stadium.
Beginning in 2020, "Lou Montgomery: A Legacy Restored", a 2015 documentary, became standard viewing for all Boston College student-athletes at the start of each fall semester.
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Lou Montgomery's Story Revisited - Boston College Athletics
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