From about 1920 until 1947 very few black basketball players were allowed to participate in major college programs, and in 1947, William Garrett integrated teams by breaking the "gentleman's agreement" that had barred black players from playing in the Big Ten Conferences.
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. 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. 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. Basketball was not the only activity that remained segregated in the late 1940s. However, by the late 1940s African Americans began "pressing for more substantial change." 
