I graduated from Senn High School in 1980. Located on Chicago’s North Side, Senn is a fairly typical inner-city public high school, except for the fact that a lot of famous and semi-famous people graduated from there. Today let’s meet not one, but two people who will leave you in the dust: Olympic medalists Annette Rogers (class of 1931) and Fritz Pollard, Jr. (class of 1933).
Born to Irish immigrant parents in Chelsea, MA, Annette Rogers and her family moved to Chicago when she was a small child. She was a member of the track team at Senn. After graduation, she ran for Northwestern University. In the 1932 Olympics, she competed in the high jump, the individual 100 meters, and the 4×100 meters relay. In that last event, Olympic history was made as both the Canadian and the American teams broke the world record. The Americans prevailed and Annette went home with her first gold medal. Four years later she competed in the 1936 Olympics and once again won a gold medal in the relay. Annette went on to have a long career teaching high school PE and being active in amateur athletic associations. Annette passed away in 2006 at the age of 93.
Born and raised in Chicago, Frederick Douglass “Fritz” Pollard, Jr. was the son of (obviously) Fritz Pollard, who was a famed athlete in his own right and who became, in 1921, the first Black head coach in the NFL when he served as both running back and coach for the now defunct Akron Pros. When he was a senior at Senn, Fritz Jr. was the city, state and national interscholastic champion in the high and low hurdles. He went on to attend the University of North Dakota on a football scholarship and was the second Black graduate of that school. In the 1936 Olympics, Fritz was one of the Black athletes who competed in Berlin under the disapproving eyes of Adolf Hitler. Fritz won the bronze medal in the 110-meter high hurdles. According to Fritz’s son, the medal was later stolen. During WWII Fritz was a special services officer. He went on to teach PE for several years and worked for the US State Department in the 1960s. Fritz passed away in 2003, at the age of 87.
To get serious for a moment, doing the research for this one kind of made me angry. When I attended Senn it was a crappy school best known for having experienced a lot of violence inspired by racial tension. There was basically no school pride. I never knew these Olympic athlete alumni existed until years after I graduated. When I started at Senn we still had separate gyms for boys and girls. How much effort would it have taken to name the respective gyms after these athletes and place pictures and mini bios outside their doors? It might have inspired some of the female and Black students, and helped to generate a general sense that maybe Senn wasn’t a total dung heap. A sadly missed opportunity.