Last Saturday, former Amherst and Harvard University center William Lewis was posthumously enshrined as one of the College Football Hall of Fame’s newest members. Lewis became the 62nd center to enter the Hall and joins illustrious company, including former centers Chuck Bednarik, Jim Ritcher and Dave Rimington.

Lewis was a trailblazer for as much time off the field as he was on it. As a player for the Harvard Crimson Tide, he became the first African-American to be named an All-American. During his time at Harvard, collegiate football was an unpolished product and very different from what we see today. In an effort to improve the game, he was the first to propose what we now know as the neutral zone.

When his playing days were over, Lewis forged a very successful career in law and politics. He was elected to the Massachusetts legislature in 1901 and named U.S. Attorney General for the city of Boston in 1903. But it was 1910 when President William Howard Taft appointed Lewis to become Assistant U.S. Attorney General that his notoriety catapulted onto the national stage. It was the highest-ranking government office ever held by an African-American.


Check out more on William Lewis from the links below.


"Spotlight: William Lewis" - College Football Hall of Fame


"William Henry Lewis" - Harvard Magazine


"Early African-American Lawyer Inducted into College Football Hall of Fame" – J. Gordon Hylton, Marquette University Law School

"Fighting Bill Lewis" – The History Channel


"William Lewis to be Enshrined Into College Football Hall of Fame" – Harvard Athletics