His honorable discharge in November of 1944 coincided with the 761st being sent to Europe, where many members of the battalion suffered casualties.Ĩ. His former unit, the 761st Tank Battalion, was the first black tank unit to see combat in World War II, but Robinson’s court proceedings prevented him from being deployed overseas. Robinson eventually was acquitted of the charges and given an honorable discharge. This came a decade prior to the well-known incident in which Rosa Parks, an African-American female, refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Ala., in 1955. During his service at Camp Hood in Texas, Robinson refused to sit in the back of a segregated bus, and was subsequently arrested and court-martialed. 7, 1941.ħ. While serving in the Army from 1942-44, Robinson became a second lieutenant. As for the other three sports? Robinson was All Pac-10 in football, West Coast Conference MVP in hoops and set a long jump record in track.Ħ. Following college, Robinson played semi-professional football for the Honolulu Bears in Hawaii, which he left only two days before Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec. Adolf Hitler, who personally congratulated many of the track athletes who earned medals, did not do the same for either Owens or Robinson despite their medal-winning performances.ĥ. Jackie Robinson attended UCLA, where he became the first student to earn varsity letters in four sports: football (19), basketball (19), track (1940) and baseball (1940), which ironically was his worst sport at the time, as Robinson hit. Robinson ran the race in 21.1 seconds, while Owens set an Olympic record with a time of 20.7 seconds. And I did.ģ. After Jackie Robinson's father, Jerry, abandoned the family very early in Jackie's life, his mother Mallie moved Jackie and his four older siblings to Pasadena, California.Ĥ. Robinson's older brother Matthew (nicknamed “Mack”) competed in the 1936 Olympics and won a silver medal in the 200-meter dash, finishing second to fellow African-American Jesse Owens, who won four golds at those controversial Games held in Berlin at the height of Nazi Germany. I thought to myself, When I have a son, that's the name I'm going to give him. All the time on the radio I was hearing, Robinson this.Robinson that.Robinson, Robinson, Robinson. In the Dominican Republic when I was kid, not many people had a TV. Jose Cano told the story of his son's name to ESPN The Magazine's Buster Olney: 24-the reverse of Robinson’s retired 42-as a tribute. 31, 1919, in Cairo, Georgia.Ģ. Similarly, current New York Yankees star Robinson Cano is named after Jackie Robinson because his father, Jose, himself a former major leaguer-he pitched 23 innings with the Houston Astros in 1989-used to hear the name Jackie Robinson on the radio while listening to games growing up in his native Dominican Republic. In time for both the film's release and Jackie Robinson Day, here are, fittingly, 42 things you need to know about Jackie Robinson.ġ. Jackie Robinson was given the middle name Roosevelt in honor of former President Theodore Roosevelt, who died less than a month before Robinson was born on Jan. The movie, from Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros., stars Chadwick Boseman as Jackie Robinson, and Harrison Ford as Branch Rickey, the Brooklyn Dodgers general manager responsible for finding and convincing Robinson to stand up to the segregation of the times and integrate baseball and, to a larger extent, America.īleacher Report recently had the chance to sit down with Boseman and Ford to discuss Jackie Robinson and the movie.
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