The sport of football does not revel in the past.
When we talk of great coaches we mention Nick Saban, Pete Carroll but no mention of Knute Rockne. Reggie Bush and Barry Sanders come to mind as the greatest running backs, but a Google search is needed to learn about The Four Horesmen of Notre Dame.
Black history month school children learn of the great botanist George Washington Carver but Lewis Lattimer remains more of a trivia question than a topic of conversation. Entire DVDs, books, and lecture series have been devoted to displaying African-American’s hidden colors.
Prominent African-Americans and athletes have been lost to history.
I wanted to ensure that Ray Bellamy wouldn’t fall into either category.
Playing for the Hurricanes from 1967-1970, Bellamy was the first black football player to wear the Orange & Green, and the first black player to receive a scholarship at a southern college. He’s mentioned in passing under the Miami Hurricanes football Wikipedia page, but his name provides no hyperlink to his own page.
There were a few articles written about him online, of course his career at Miami, the car accident that nearly derailed his career, and his election as Miami’s first black student body president, but I wanted to learn more and who better to speak to than the man himself.
So with my breathing labored from nerves and my phone trickle charging at 10% on a busted charger, I called into Mr. Bellamy’s office at Florida A&M University at 8 am. “I’m an early riser” he told me the week before when we set up the interview time.
An early riser. The perfect descriptor for Mr. Bellamy’s life.
The Rise of Ray Bellamy
Ray Bellamy was born in Palmetto, Fl. to Charlie & Mary Bellamy, the sixth of nine children. Being the first seems to be apart of the Bellamy bloodline. His oldest brother Sylvester was one of the first black police officers in Manatee County.
“Since the time I was big enough I was working, even as a bitty boy at 5-6 years old. When we would get out of school, we went to work in the fields picking tomatoes, sorting fish. Then the next morning we would get up and walk from the farm to catch the bus. We were migrant farmers, so during the summer we would be working in Maryland through the summer until the end of October so we would miss the beginning of school and would have to do make up work in order to get promoted, and we did.”
“My family was poor and I’ve had to go to school before with no shoes. Jesus Christ and family have always been the front runners in my life and that’s the way we was raised. At a very young age, me and my friend Luther Clark would study and recite Bible verses when we were in about third or fourth grade.”
It’s that devotion to God that would guide Ray through one of the earliest challenges of his young life, an series of events that shaped him as he entered his teenage years.
“It was about fourth grade and my friend Alfred Brenson went with his family to the Skyway Bridge in St. Pete and he drowned. After that I would always looking for him, always looking for him but I could never find him. So one day, the teacher had to address this. She explained it saying ‘he died’ but I asked ‘what does died mean?’ ‘It means he’s not coming back.’ ‘What do you mean he’s not coming back?’ and then finally she said ‘he’s gone to be with the Lord, and it was then I understood.’ and then later that same year, my teacher died, so in one year I lost my best friend and my teacher.”
An early riser, it’s no surprise that Ray was able to get any life experiences early in his child hood.
“There was an incident where I got beat by the principal for no reason [laughs]! It was the sixth grade and Me and [my friend] Luther were trying to learn sign language. So on the bus one day there was this girl and someone touched her breast on the back of the bus. I told Luther ‘tell them I wasn’t back there!’ But later that day there was an announcement on the loud speaker and they called all the boys on the bus and my name was the first one they called! Luther was always quiet but I was assertive and because of my assertiveness they thought I was the ring leader! So the principal said she was going to beat us so I said ‘I’ll go first.’ But she said ‘No uh-uh, I’m going to save you for last!’ So she gave everybody a few licks and then she let them go, then she pulled my pants tight and beat me and I wasn’t going to cry so she said ‘I’m going to beat you until you cry!’ So I just started crying [laughs].”
“Years later I saw her at the store, I was back home and I went over to her and told her that she beat me for no reason. Then she stood there and looked as if she was thinking ‘Maybe I did beat him for no reason’ – I had never got in trouble before or since. Then she looked back at me and said ‘Well Mr. Bellamy, things like that happen in life.’ And you know what? She was right. You don’t have to be doing nothing wrong for something bad to happen to you. Looking back on it, that was an early lesson she gave me.”
The Rise of Bello
After completing junior high school, Bellamy went on to attend Lincoln Memorial High, an all black school during the time of segregation.
“Lincoln had a legacy of winning. We never lost a game during my entire high school career. We tied a school once and the next year beat them 89-0 – and they called back seven touchdowns. We were an all-black school, all black teachers, cheerleaders, played all black schools. But we were a poor school. After I made the football team the coaches didn’t have enough money to give the younger players any football shoes.”
Ray would start all four years of his high school career – starting off at defensive end before moving to wide receiver. But before he created his own legacy on the football field, Ray had another to follow at Lincoln.
“My brother LeRoy was the brother next to me. He was a tremendous athlete. He was my mentor and inspiration for getting into football. He was a wide receiver and I wanted to be one like him.” When I was younger I wanted to be in the band and learn the drums though they would tell me ‘you can’t play football! You just a little band punk’, but I would tell them ‘I can play football if I want to.”
The early riser’s start to his high school career wouldn’t come as early has he would have liked. However, he would make his presence felt early in the season.
“In ninth grade my coaches didn’t know how good I was. I remember there was an away game and they left me and I cried, thinking about the players they took that I knew I was better than. So I told them ‘Ya’ll hurry back, ’cause when y’all come back I’m going to kill somebody! Y’all are never going to leave me at home no more!‘”
“So at the next practice we had a drill where you kick the ball and one man would return while two attempted to cover. When they kicked the ball off I ran down the field, when the guy caught the ball I ran through him like ‘WHAP!’ – I told them I was going to kill somebody and they thought I was kidding! So my coaches couldn’t believe I did it, so they put me and Leo back up again. They kicked the ball off again and I ran back down the field and once again ‘WHAP!’ So the coaches call ‘Time-out!’ and go into a huddle, I don’t know what they’re talking about but I know it isn’t about me in a good way [laughs]. Now I’ve done gone two times in a row and they yell ‘Bellamy! Get back up there!’ I told them I was going to kill somebody and I almost knocked two guys out already! So Leo says to me ‘hell man, instead of just running through them how about you just hold him up and let me hit him?!’ I said ‘Listen Leo, they left me home they didn’t leave you home, I’m going to kill him!”
“So now they’re scheming on me now, so they put up the baddest man I’ve ever seen, Eugene Hodge up there. I’ve played against Chuck Foreman, O.J. Simpson, this guy was a better back than all of them. So now they’re really testing me and I made up my mind ‘I’m not letting him get away.’ So Eugene catches the ball and he shifts and did a move, but when he did the move I could just grab one leg, but I wasn’t going to turn his leg loose and I was rolling over holding on to his leg and the coaches blew the whistle in a hurry! [laughs] They didn’t want him hurt and I wasn’t going to let go of his leg! [laughs]”
After an injury in practice to a junior defensive end, Bellamy got the start three days before Lincoln’s next game.
“Coach tells me they want me on the defensive side of the ball now so I walk into the huddle and one of the players asks me ‘Bello, you know what you doing?’ I said ‘No, but I’m going to learn it’ [laughs]”
Bellamy would rotate at starter throughout his freshman year. He would earn the nickname “The Defensive Wiz” from a local paper, and Ray entered his sophomore year the focus of Lincoln’s opponents but he would soon garner the attention of college scouts as well.
“Scouts are coming out to see my brother, see our running back, but they’re not out to see me. But it just so happens the University of Miami was coming to visit and I was working at wide receiver in practice. On our field we used to work towards the canal, so I ran a pattern and when the quarterback threw the ball everyone thought it was going in the lake, but I reached out and caught it with one hand. Everyone was like ‘Wow, did you see that?! Who is that?!’ It was Coach George McIntyre and Ed Dixon. They were looking for everybody else but they found me.”
“My junior year we were playing at Vato – our conference always came down between the two of us. Its late in the game, 4th & 17. They have the lead and if we don’t convert we turn the ball over and lose the game. Our quarterback comes to the huddle – Shannon, our coach’s son who would go on to set every quarterback record at Lincoln, comes to the huddle and says ‘OK, we’re going to call 26 Buck pass.’ Now with this play we were trying to get it to that back I was telling you about in the flat but Vato knocked him down in the backfield. So I’m playing both ways, just got off the field at defensive end now I’m back out there at wide receiver and I run a post corner. I run my route and I have two defensive backs running step-for-step with me. I look up and see the ball coming to me. I reach up and catch it with one hand. I don’t know how I did it [laughs] I had to find it. That was one of my greatest gifts when I was playing the position was that I could always find the ball.”
“So we went on to win the game and during segregation, the host team would feed the visiting team. So we go to their cafeteria waiting to be served, and then all these guys that were on their team come over. They walked through the door, we’re thinking we’re about to fight, and then they ask ‘Where’s number 83?!’ I just sat there doing whatever it was I was doing and they said ‘We ain’t trying to start nothing man, we just want to meet him that was unbelievable what he did out there, that was one of the greatest plays we’ve seen in our life and we just want to meet him and shake his hand.’ So I stood up and they got in a line and shook my hand. After that, EVERYWHERE I went everyone wants to meet the guy who caught the pass.”
Now in his senior year, the skinny kid from Palmetto had the attention of some of the biggest programs in the country. But Miami’s scholarship offer early in high school career provided the perfect situation for the early riser.
“My two choices were between Southern Cal and Miami. But Miami offered me early on and never backed down on their commitment. A lot of people – Florida, Florida State – started jumping on the bandwagon late. The reason I chose Miami over Southern Cal was because my family couldn’t afford to travel and see me play.”
“George McIntrye was the head recruiter and he assured me that Miami was a good fit for me, that I would be treated fair and have lots of support there. They weren’t just saying it, they meant it. I remember coming home from school and Coach McIntyre and my dad would be sitting in the yard just laughing and talking, and my dad didn’t like anybody! [laughs] So I’m like ‘How did that happen?’ [laughs]”
“I never thought about being the first black athlete, that was not apart of it. I was just looking for the most comfortable fit. So I made the decision to attend the University of Miami and I’ve never regretted that decision.”
Rising Above
Ray enrolled in Miami in 1966. NCAA rules at the time had established a separate team for freshman football players. Though he felt comfortable at Miami, it would take time for some of his teammates to feel comfortable with him.
“My teammates when they first met me they didn’t know how to deal with me – some of them were kind, some of them weren’t, some were down right ugly. But playing my freshmen ball I met this guy, our starting quarterback Lew Pytel. We would work out during the summer and after practice. Then I met Dieter Matthews who was another wide receiver. When we started working against the varsity I met Ted Hendricks and John Acuff and we all became friends.”
After setting records in 1967 on the freshman team, Ray would get called up for the varsity squad where he caught a sophomore record 37 passes for 549 yards and two touchdowns. His best game came at Auburn, where he gathered in eight passes for 121 yards.
“In Auburn game was very ugly. Of course I was the only black player on the field. I remember standing on the sideline holding my helmet and someone threw a rock and hit me in the head so I had to play the game with a lump on my head. On the field the players would take cheap shots, try to grab my privates. So of course, I had to go off on them.”
Coming back from winter break to take his final exams, Ray was involved in a car accident that left him hospitalized for 13 1/2 weeks. His career cut short, it was during this time that university president Dr. Henry King Stanford would become a friend as well as a mentor for Ray.
“After my accident he moved me from Baptist Hospital to Doctor’s Hospital which was down from the campus so my friends could visit me, keep my morale up. It was nothing for him to come up and visit me. When I got out, he and the University was right there, putting me in a dorm and helping me get back into class and a job at the bookstore.”
From Player to Politician
Ray would make his impact felt not just in the Orange Bowl, but on campus as well.
In addition to being the first black football player at Miami, Ray would soon become the first black student body president of the University. Known for his assertiveness, Ray was hesitant to take on the position.
“In high school I was the captain of the football team and the student body president. After I had rehabbed from my accident I was approached by Joyce and George Knox. Joyce was an administrator at Miami and me and George were always close friends. George told me to meet him in the cafeteria and he sat me down and told me ‘We need you. They have never had a black student body president here, you got the grades, people skills, experience, they need that around here.’ He told me ‘this isn’t about black and white, this is about helping this university move forward.’ So I had to think about it and thought, ‘You know what, this guy is right.‘”
In a tight race, Bellamy would win the election, adding another notch to his belt of achievements. With the help of Dr. Stanford, Bellamy began groundbreaking work around campus, moving the date of final exams to before Christmas break, keeping the library opened 24 hours, and helping bringing Martin Luther King Jr., Muhammad Ali, and Dick Gregory to speak on campus.
An Ongoing Legacy
Ray Bellamy remains a source of inspiration and influence even to this day. In 2012, he was inducted into the University of Miami Ring of Honor and currently serves as a Student Success Advisor at Florida A&M.
As the early riser wanders into his twilight years, Mr. Bellamy looks back on his college career fondly, but emphasizes “It wasn’t about Ray Bellamy. It was about God and the right people doing the right thing.”
A trailblazer in his own right, Mr. Bellamy has shown a dedication to continue the legacy at Miami that he has helped build.
“I’ve talked to Mark Richt and told him I’d like to come back down there to help keep the student-athletes down there so we can win us another National Championship because the school deserves it. Like I’ve told Mark, it would like to help in anyway possible to see Miami win another National Championship while I am here.”
