Henry McDonald (American football)
Encyclopedia
Henry C. McDonald was a professional American football
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...

 player for the Rochester Jeffersons
Rochester Jeffersons
The Rochester Jeffersons from Rochester, New York played in the National Football League from 1920 to 1925.Formed as an amateur outfit by a rag-tag group of Rochester-area teenagers after the turn of the century , the team became known as the Jeffersons in reference to the locale of their playing...

 from 1911 until 1917. He was one of the best known African-American pro players during the era prior to the formation of the National Football League
National Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...

 in 1920.

Early life

He was born in Port-au-Prince
Port-au-Prince
Port-au-Prince is the capital and largest city of the Caribbean nation of Haiti. The city's population was 704,776 as of the 2003 census, and was officially estimated to have reached 897,859 in 2009....

, Haiti
Haiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...

, however his biological parents agreed to allow him to be adopted by his father's employer, an American coconut
Coconut
The coconut palm, Cocos nucifera, is a member of the family Arecaceae . It is the only accepted species in the genus Cocos. The term coconut can refer to the entire coconut palm, the seed, or the fruit, which is not a botanical nut. The spelling cocoanut is an old-fashioned form of the word...

 and banana
Banana
Banana is the common name for herbaceous plants of the genus Musa and for the fruit they produce. Bananas come in a variety of sizes and colors when ripe, including yellow, purple, and red....

 importer. McDonald later recalled that his natural parents realized how of a great opportunity it was for him to grow up in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. He later saw his mother 55 years later, when he took his family back to Haiti for a visit. Henry spent his early childhood in Canandaigua, New York before his family later moved to Rochester
Rochester, New York
Rochester is a city in Monroe County, New York, south of Lake Ontario in the United States. Known as The World's Image Centre, it was also once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City...

. There he became the first African-American to graduate from Rochester’s East High School
East Rochester Junior-Senior High School
East Rochester Junior-Senior High School is a public high school serving 596 students in the seventh through twelfth grade in East Rochester, New York, USA and is part of the East Rochester Union Free School District.The student-teacher ratio is 12:1...

.

Pro football

McDonald began playing professional football career in 1911 playing for the Oxford Pros. In his first professional game, McDonald played halfback
Halfback (American football)
A halfback, sometimes referred to as a tailback, is an offensive position in American football, which lines up in the backfield and generally is responsible for carrying the ball on run plays. Historically, from the 1870s through the 1950s, the halfback position was both an offensive and defensive...

 for the Pros against the Rochester Jeffersons. The Jeffersons' owner and coach Leo Lyons
Leo Lyons (American football)
Leo V. Lyons was a co-founder of the National Football League. He was a player, manager,coach and owner of the Rochester Jeffersons from 1908 to 1925.-Early career:...

 promptly enticed him to play for the Jeffs, after being impressed with McDonald's speed. His ability to run fast earned him the nickname, "Motorcycle McDonald". According to McDonald, he could run a 100 yards in 10.2 seconds. The world record at the time for running 100 yards was 10 seconds flat.

In 1911, McDonald began his professional football career with the Rochester Jeffersons, who played in the New York Pro Football League
New York Pro Football League
The New York Pro Football League was a professional American football league active in the 1910s and based in upstate New York, primarily Western New York. Between 1920 and 1921, the league's best teams were absorbed into the National Football League, though none survive in that league today...

. Throughout his professional career, McDonald had a difficult time making ends meet by playing football. He recalled that in all the years he played, that he never once took home more than $15 for one day of football. McDonald added that he had to play two games to get that much. As a result, McDonald often played a morning game in Rochester for the Jeffersons, then took a trolley to Canandaigua and played for the town team in the afternoon. While he did play baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...

 in the summer to off-set his money made playing football, McDonald enjoyed playing halfback
Halfback (American football)
A halfback, sometimes referred to as a tailback, is an offensive position in American football, which lines up in the backfield and generally is responsible for carrying the ball on run plays. Historically, from the 1870s through the 1950s, the halfback position was both an offensive and defensive...

, since running backs were the star players and received the most money at the time. During the early 1900s the ball was soft and shaped like a watermelon
Watermelon
Watermelon is a vine-like flowering plant originally from southern Africa. Its fruit, which is also called watermelon, is a special kind referred to by botanists as a pepo, a berry which has a thick rind and fleshy center...

. Team would threw a couple of passes
Forward pass
In several forms of football a forward pass is when the ball is thrown in the direction that the offensive team is trying to move, towards the defensive team's goal line...

 every game, but usually as a last resort.

Incident with Greasy Neale

McDonald recalled only one negative racial incident during hios 7 seasons of playing professional football. In 1917, McDonald and the Jeffersons (playing under the guise of the "Syracuse 47th Infantry") traveled to Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...

 to play the Canton Bulldogs
Canton Bulldogs
The Canton Bulldogs were a professional American football team, based in Canton, Ohio. They played in the Ohio League from 1903 to 1906 and 1911 to 1919, and its successor, the National Football League, from 1920 to 1923 and again from 1925 to 1926. The Bulldogs would go on to win the 1917, 1918...

, led by Jim Thorpe
Jim Thorpe
Jacobus Franciscus "Jim" Thorpe * Gerasimo and Whiteley. pg. 28 * americaslibrary.gov, accessed April 23, 2007. was an American athlete of mixed ancestry...

. The trouble began when Canton’s Greasy Neale threw McDonald out of bounds and snapped, “Black is black and white is white where I come from and the two don’t mix.” However McDonald, who was also a boxer
Boxing
Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...

, stood ready to fight Neale. However Jim Thorpe unexpectedly intervened. Thorpe then stated to Neale “We’re here to play football". McDonald then recalled that he never had any trouble with Neale or any other Canton player afterwards.

Baseball

Henry also played seven years in baseball's
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...

 Negro Leagues
Negro league baseball
The Negro leagues were United States professional baseball leagues comprising teams predominantly made up of African Americans. The term may be used broadly to include professional black teams outside the leagues and it may be used narrowly for the seven relatively successful leagues beginning in...

 for the Cuban Giants and the Pittsburgh Colored Stars.

Legacy

In 1990 MacDonald was inducted in the inaugural class of the Geneva (New York)
Geneva, New York
Geneva is a city in Ontario and Seneca counties in the U.S. state of New York. The population was 13,617 at the 2000 census. Some claim it is named after the city and canton of Geneva in Switzerland. Others believe the name came from confusion over the letters in the word "Seneca" written in cursive...

 Sports Hall of Fame. He was also a charter member of the Black Athlete’s Hall of Fame, along with Willie Mays
Willie Mays
Willie Howard Mays, Jr. is a retired American professional baseball player who played the majority of his major league career with the New York and San Francisco Giants before finishing with the New York Mets. Nicknamed The Say Hey Kid, Mays was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1979, his...

, Jackie Robinson
Jackie Robinson
Jack Roosevelt "Jackie" Robinson was the first black Major League Baseball player of the modern era. Robinson broke the baseball color line when he debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947...

 and Jim Brown
Jim Brown
James Nathaniel "Jim" Brown is an American former professional football player who has also made his mark as an actor. He is best known for his exceptional and record-setting nine-year career as a running back for the NFL Cleveland Browns from 1957 to 1965. In 2002, he was named by Sporting News...

. In 1937 he was named the head football coach at DeSales High School, making him the first African-American to serve as a head high school football coach in New York State
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

. He was also one of the very first umpires, when Little League
Little League
Little League Baseball and Softball is a non-profit organization in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania, United States which organizes local youth baseball and softball leagues throughout the U.S...

was organized. Geneva’s Little League Park is named in his honor.
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