When Montana Grizzlies Faced Off Against Jackie Robinson and UCLA: The Untold Story That Shook College Football
The student body was under 1% African American and there wasn’t a black faculty member when Robinson arrived on the Westwood campus in 1939, but he helped UCLA become one of the more integrated teams in major college football with four black players on the roster. Robinson, Woody Strode and Kenny Washington formed a decorated backfield trio, and Ray Bartlett was a reserve.
FCS college football, the lower half of Division I since 1978, is known for having some of the nation’s more celebrated HBCU programs, but while Robinson and UCLA didn’t face any of them in his two seasons, they played the Montana Grizzlies – today one of the more storied programs in the FCS – in 1939.



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