A "Gentleman's Agreement" had barred black players from playing in the Big Ten Conferences, but William Garrett broke the agreement in 1947 and integrated teams, which since 1920 rarely allowed black players to participate in major college programs..
Garrett was the first African American to play on the IU basketball team and also the first to regularly start on a Big Ten Conference team. Garrett began playing for head coach Branch McCracken at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, in 1947. The Big Ten has participated in basketball since 1904, and has led the nation in attendance every season since 1978. William Leon Garrett (April 4, 1929  August 7, 1974) was a basketball player, coach, educator, and a college administrator who is best known as the first African American to regularly play on a Big Ten Conference varsity basketball team. In addition, the Big Ten teams remained segregated into the late 1940s because all of the Big Ten coaches adhered to an unwritten "gentlemen's agreement" that barred black players from their teams. In 1944 Richard "Dick" Culbertson became the first African American to play in the Big Ten; however, he was a substitute player instead of a regular player on the University of Iowa team. Even though the states in which the Big Ten Conference teams were located had talented African American high school basketball players, Big Ten coaches did not recruit them. 
