Big Pitt event the other night. Athletics at Pitt: The Forefront of a Century of Change.

Many former Panther greats were in attendance, including Tony Dorsett (Pitt’s only Heisman Trophy winner), Larry Fitzgerald (first sophomore to win the Walter Camp Award and a unanimous first team All American selection), and track star Trecia-Kaye Smith (15-time NCAA Champion).

Individuals such as Bobby Grier (first African-American ever to play in the Sugar Bowl) and Hugh Green (three-time All American; winner of the Maxwell Award) shared the red carpet walk from the dais to the main stage with more recent Panthers such as women’s basketball standouts Lorri Johnson (all-time leading scorer) and Jennifer Bruce Scott (second leading scorer in history).

Short films narrated by broadcast pioneer Jack Whitaker and CNN anchor Fredricka Whitfield – who was in attendance – and former Panther star Mark May brought to light the path of African-Americans in sport at Pitt. Costas conducted a question and answer with several former athletes, including all-time leading men’s basketball scorer and shot blocker Charles Smith and two-time Olympic gold medalist Roger Kingdom.

All former athletes in attendance were asked to sign a commemorative banner which will be placed on display in the Petersen Events Center.

The event culminated a dream for dinner chair Herb Douglas. The 89-year old, the oldest living former Panther athlete, had a vision of gathering as many generations together for one evening to celebrate the past 100 years and embrace the future. Douglas was the 1948 Olympic bronze medal winner in the long jump.

There’s a list of some of the former greats of Pitt athletics who attended the event. The collection of photographs could stand to have some captions, but I’m sure you can recognize plenty of people in the images.

Almost five years ago, the now late Bob Woodruff was honored at homecoming. A year later he had passed, and Pitt Chancellor Nordenberg issued a posthumous apology for a wrong committed by the school 70 years prior.

The year it surfaced was 1937, and the Pitt track team and newly crowned Olympic gold medalist Johnny Woodruff of Connellsville were scheduled to compete against the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.

A problem arose when someone remembered that black athletes were banned from using the academy’s facilities.

“Instead of the team standing with him, they left him home,” Roger Kingdom said, sadly.

The good thing is that after that, Pitt players and athletes seemed to get it.

Like, for instance, when Jimmy Joe Robinson, Pitt’s first African-American football recruit, talked at length about his first night out in Oakland with all of the other freshmen from the team.

“It was me and the rest of the players, all white, and we sat down to eat at a restaurant right here in Oakland,” Robinson said, “and the waitress kept passing us by, and we couldn’t figure it out. Finally, one of my teammates asked her what was up and she said ‘we can’t serve him’ and pointed to me.”

Robinson said his teammates all revolted, turned the tables upside down and left the place and he always had their support and the support of the university, even if the people around town weren’t ready for integration.

Pitt also refused to back down from attempts to keep Bobby Grier from playing with the team in the Sugar Bowl (even if the team was jobbed by the refs in the game). Pitt also made sure current players were on hand to meet the former players and hear the stories.

I actually had a chance to talk to some of Pitt’s current players about the evening (it was a really nice touch to have them working the event and serving as “escorts” for some of the honored guests. It was important for them to have an opportunity to talk to some of the trailblazers and hear about their struggles as it made them appreciate what they have as African-American student-athletes these days.

I think Cam Saddler said it best when he said listening to the stories from guys like Grier and Robinson gave him a deeper understanding of what African-Americans in this country had to go through to make it possible for athletes of this generation to do all the things they do these days.

“It is crazy what these guys went through,” Saddler said, “it almost seems like there is no way that stuff could have happened. But it all did and these guys lived it. I think that’s what makes an event like this so powerful for young black athletes like myself. I mean, I’m only 20 years old so I’ve never experienced anything like that, but I know that it happened and those guys who lived it paved the way for guys like me.”