COLUMN: Crossing finish line was not enough

Scott Miller, Commentary Every record, photo, result and statistic from the 1918 Penn men's cross country team was missing -- gone from anywhere in the Office of Sports Information, let alone the University. So in 1963, Willis Cummings turned over his scrapbook, which contained newspaper clippings, mementos and other keepsakes from the missing season, to the Athletic Department. The records were missing because Cummings was on the team. Actually, they were missing because he was African American -- the first African-American varsity sport captain in what would become the Ivy League. Of the items handed over, however, nary a team photo was in the bundle. In fact, no team photo was ever taken. The University said no team portrait would be shot so as to help the war effort -- or something to that effect. However, the 1918 edition of The Record (the former name of Penn's yearbook) shows a team photo for every other varsity sport. According to Cummings' testimony in 1980, he would have had to sit in the front center of the team picture -- quite the racial taboo in that era. On one trip to Columbia, the rest of the team ditched him, and he was forced to track down friends and family in Harlem. The coach, Lawson Robertson, was in the unenviable position of trying to support both Cummings and the rest of the team at the same time. Allowing Cummings to captain the team in the first place certainly was admirable, although Robertson's intentions threw almost every ideal of captainship out the window. Robertson "suggested" to his charges that Cummings be captain, but only because he could run. That year, Cummings would win the Mid-Atlantic AAU cross country championship, despite having never run in an organized program as an undergraduate at Fisk College. Although Robertson's motives for naming Cummings captain had nothing to do with traditional leadership capacities, like the ability to rally teammates together, he stuck by his choice. In fact, when Cummings' teammates refused to room with him, Robertson blasted the squad and treated Cummings to a Harvard-Brown football game. Other teams took notice of his color, as well, but it was Cummings who made sure they paid attention to it. One of Cummings' grandparents was white, and, as a result, no one from the U.S. Naval Academy noticed his color when he ran against the Midshipmen in 1918. So Cummings went to the Philadelphia media and requested his name read "Willis Cummings, negro" -- not capitalizing "negro" for the purpose of showing that it was unimportant. The media accepted his proposition, and Navy backed out of the scheduled race in 1919. On the track, Cummings wasn't spectacular; he ran in three Penn Relays, never winning a race. But his accomplishments are spectacular considering he had run only on a club in his undergraduate years and put his studies at the Penn Dental School first. A testament to Cummings' academic work was another first. In 1919, Cummings was the first African American elected to Omicron Kappa Upsilon, a dental honor society. After retiring from dentistry in 1970, Cummings would appear on Franklin Field every once in a while to encourage Quakers runners or anyone recreationally jogging at the time. His battle with racism at Penn, however, did not end after leaving University. In 1927, a publication named The Pennsylvania Varsity Club listed Cummings, but when it went to press it was unfinished, as someone had to write in longhand: "Captain X-Country 1918." As late as 1980, the Donaldson Room in the south end of Weightman Hall housed every team photo in Penn history, with the exception of the 1918 cross country team. Before they were taken down, a photo of Willis Cummings, D.D.S., hung there instead.