Ernie Davis was the first African-American to win the Heisman Trophy Award, and was an exceptional college football player. He was a three-sport athlete in high school, but excelled at football above all. He was heavily recruited by many elite college football programs, but the NFL legend Jim Brown convinced Davis to attend Syracuse University as it would be a welcoming place for a young black athlete in 1959. Many college sports teams at that time were resisting full-fledged integration, and Davis liked that Syracuse head football coach, Ben Schwartzwalder, was so welcoming to African-American players.