Sports complex named for renowned alumnus

The decision to rename the University of the District of Columbia’s (UDC) sports complex after one of its most significant alumni was an easy one. After all, the alumnus, Dr. Edwin Bancroft Henderson, also known as E.B. Henderson is hailed as the "Grandfather of Black Basketball,” for his creation and promotion of Black basketball teams during the early 1900s.

In a February 2022 naming ceremony consisting of over 100 attendees, including Henderson’s grandson, Edwin B. Henderson II. UDC’s president, Ronald Mason Jr. said “As the public institution of higher learning in and for the nation’s capital, it’s more than appropriate that we are the ones to honor him.”

Henderson was a 1904 graduate of UDC’s predecessor, Miner Normal School, a Black institution founded in 1851. Henderson continued his education at the Harvard Summer School of Physical Education, where he was introduced to basketball, eventually becoming a sports historian, athlete, referee, coach, and educator.

After leaving Harvard, he returned to Washington, D.C,  beginning his career in education in the Black public school system. He shared his passion for the sport to local Black youth beginning in 1907 when the sport was less than 20 years old. He would go on to create the first African-American athletic conference, the Interscholastic Athletic Association (ISAA).

Through the ISAA, Henderson created and promoted city-to-city play between Black basketball teams on the East coast. He also formed a basketball team for the Twelfth Street Colored YMCA, which had an undefeated season and won the 1909 - 1910 Black national title. 

His impact on basketball in the Black community earned him the title above.  He was also Director of the Department of Physical Education for D.C.’s segregated Black schools for more than two decades.

Those in the basketball field are glad to see Henderson celebrated. “It’s a good thing because UDC has decided to shine [a] light on him and his story, so those are all positive. Those are all good things,” said John Thompson III, vice president of Player Engagement for Monumental Sports and former head coach at Georgetown University. “It’s extremely important just to educate people about E.B. Henderson, someone that is so important to our sport.”

But Henderson’s legacy doesn’t just stop at sports; he was also, a writer,  publishing a book, “The Negro in Sports” to raise awareness of talented Black athletes. He also penned more than 3,000 letters to the Washington Post and other publications about civil rights,  launching a chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Falls Church, Va. in 1915.

The renaming ceremony was a part of the university's Equity Imperative Strategic Plan, a plan designed to restore UDC as a public higher education model of urban student success. Rodney Trapp, vice president of Advancement at UDC, believes that the newly named sports complex will enhance the university’s reputation and allow more underprivileged kids to attend summer camps, improve their basketball skills, and learn concepts from the ​​science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) field. 

“Our theme is ‘Pathways to Possible,’ and it talks about all of the possibilities in one’s career and life trajectory. That theme is very consistent with the life work of Dr. E.B. Henderson,” Trapp told local Black newspaper the Washington Informer. “[There’s that] connection in honoring Dr. Henderson in the current strategic plan. It’s really looking at and giving homage to a pioneer who has been an unsung hero and individual of importance within the community in the field of sports and basketball.”

The UDC Foundation has also created the Dr. E.B. Henderson Memorial Fund Campaign. Donations from this campaign will help create a scholarship endowment and establish a permanent memorial in his honor on campus. 

For more information, please visit https://www.udc.edu/foundation/2021/02/23/dr-e-b-henderson-memorial-fund-campaign/.