[ad_1]
“In the years that followed, I got to know Floyd as the man behind the number,” Mr. Biden stated. “He was full of character, decency and integrity.”
Floyd Douglas Little was born on July 4, 1942, in Waterbury, Conn. His father, Frederick Douglas, named for the abolitionist Frederick Douglass, died of most cancers when he was 6. His mom, Lula Douglas, labored a number of jobs to help Floyd and his 5 siblings. When he was in his early teenagers, the household moved to New Haven.
Little performed soccer for Hillhouse High School in New Haven for 2 seasons, then for one more two at Bordentown Military Institute in New Jersey, in search of to enhance his grades in order that he might be accepted to school. “The only thing I had was a dream,” the Broncos quoted Little as saying on a go to to New Haven in 1988. “I had no money, no promises and no guarantees.”
Little had thought of making use of to West Point, and Gen. Douglas MacArthur sought to recruit him whereas he was at Bordentown.
“General MacArthur shook my hand and talked to me about the value of education, about being a leader,” Little recalled in his memoir “Promises to Keep” (2012), written with Tom Mackie. “I was told that if I went to Army, I could become the first Black general.”
But in December 1962, whereas he was on winter break from Bordentown, Little was visited by Davis, who in 1961 had grew to become the primary African-American to win the Heisman Trophy as faculty soccer’s most excellent participant.
Little, who had near 50 scholarship gives, informed Davis he would go to Syracuse. But he nonetheless had ideas of attending West Point. When he heard that Davis died of leukemia in May 1963 after being chosen by the Cleveland Browns because the No. 1 decide within the 1962 N.F.L. draft, he determined to satisfy his promise to him.
[ad_2]
Source link
