1906/Minority Tradition

August 16, 2003
1906/Coach, Player Start Minority Tradition
St. Thomas has provided opportunity for people of color throughout its history. That's been reflected in athletics, where minority student-athletes and coaches have made significant contributions.

Several Native Americans had prominent early roles. One of the first Tommie head football coaches was Ed Rogers, a Carlisle Indian who played for the Minnesota Gophers while attending law school there. One of the institution's first multi-sport athletes was a Chippewa Indian from Wisconsin, Philip Gordon, who graduated with honors in 1908. Gordon was called "St. Thomas' Jim Thorpe" after his four-year basketball career along with his solid play as a baseball pitcher and football end. He was later ordained and served as a pastor in his home state.

Another Native American, wrestler Andrew Favorite, was the MIAC heavyweight champion in 1969 and 1970 and was inducted into the Athletic Hall of Fame in 1995.

One of the MIAC's most accomplished distance runners was Nic Manciu, who won three individual national championships in track and cross country in the 1980s. His Tommie coach, Larry Russ, said Manciu1s mother fled Romania in the late 1970s to escape government persecution. Nic and other family members came later to the United States to join her.

"I was tipped off that this Romanian kid was doing well in a lot of local road races," Russ said. "He came over to campus with his mother on a recruiting visit and she said right away this is where she wanted him to go."

Several international players have competed in the Tommie soccer program. Jamaican-born Denzil Lue had a 30-year affiliation with St. Thomas soccer as a player, assistant coach and head coach. He won more than 200 games before retiring as head coach in 2001. An elite soccer player and school scoring leader who made the Athletic Hall of Fame is Brazilian native Rubens Pedrosa.

St. Thomas' first African-American student-athlete is believed to be Charles "Tex" Bellinger, a San Antonio native and Pre-Med major who competed in football and track from 1917-19.

The three African-Americans in the Athletic Hall of Fame all hail from Minneapolis, and all were track and field stars - Leonard Jones, Lee Bellfield and Jenny Phillips. Bellfield and Jones still teach and coach in the Minneapolis schools. In 2004, Kristal Grigsby of Minneapolis became the Toms' first female African-American to win an individual national championship as she beat the defending champion with a conference-record 19-10 3-4 in the long jump.

Jones won three individual titles in the 1994 NCAA indoor championship meet as he swept the high jump, long jump and triple jump. How rare is it to win three championships in a single competition? Jones was the first Division III athlete to do it, and only one NCAA track athlete has ever won four --- an Ohio State sprinter in 1935 named Jesse Owens.

Phillips also starred in basketball and still ranks second in UST career steals.

The Tommis' current school-record holder in the 100- and 200-meter dashes, Roman Cress, was born in the Marshall Islands and represented that nation in several international competitions in recent years. Cress was an NCAA runner-up indoors in 2000.

Another African-American destined for the Athletic Hall of Fame is New Orleans native Karnell James from men's basketball. James ranks third in career scoring (1,854 points), including a school-record 47-point game vs. Carleton in 1997. James played on the Tommies' 1993-94 Final Four team and led the 1994-95 team to an unprecedented 20-0 MIAC record and a 27-0 start. Twice James was named Player of the Year in the MIAC.

The most recent head coach hired at St. Thomas, Volleyball's Thanh Pham, has a unique story. Born in Vietnam, Thanh was eight weeks old in 1975 when he fled his homeland with his parents and two siblings during the fall of the Saigon government.

"My father was a fighter pilot for the South Vietnamese army, and he probably would have been killed if we stayed," Pham said. "We had to get on an airplane and then take a boat to the Philippines. The plane was full and we almost didn't get on. My mother had to talk sweet to a soldier for him to let us on board. Most of my parents' brothers and sisters and their families are still in Vietnam."

Pham knows his life would be very different if he had remained in Vietnam. "I wouldn't be a volleyball coach, I know that," he said.