Black Cyclone the Triumph & Tragedy of Charles Follis: America's First Black Football Player and Two Sport Superstar
October 1904. Clad in an all blue uniform without a helmet, leaping and spinning, the ball carrier breaks free of the line of defenders and takes off down field like a flash of lightning. The Shelby Ohio football faithful, a crowd of about 1,000 out of a local population of less than ten times that number, stand and wait in breathless expectation. The opposing defenders, stunned by the speed and quickness of the Shelby Blues running back turn and begin to give chase, but soon realizing the futility of their quest, the opposing players from Fremont Ohio, quickly give up and stand in awe as twenty-five year old Charles Follis runs for daylight. Follis runs eighty-four yards for a touchdown. His astounding seventh and final score of that game. The Shelby Blues have defeated the team from nearby Fremont, Ohio, by a score of 58 to 0. Charles Follis tosses the ball to the referee and is mobbed by his teammates in the endzone. The city of Shelby ha...