The Eddie Macon  story

The 'Jackie Robinson' of the Bears Ex-Pacific Star A Target Of Abuse Courtesy of San Francisco Chronicle SAN FRANCISCO, CA.---George Halas, legendary owner and coach of the Chicago Bears, did not exactly mince words. Soon after Halas selected Eddie Macon, a fleet running back/defensive back from the College of the Pacific, in the second round of the 1952 NFL draft, he told Macon, "I want you to be my Jackie Robinson." Five years earlier, Robinson had shattered baseball's color barrier with a famous mix of courage and self-restraint. On a smaller scale,Macon would follow a similar path as the Bears' first African American player.

"Halas was sending me a message by saying that," Macon said. "He knew there was going to be a lot of bigotry. ... There were going to be a lot of things I'd have to endure, and I couldn't lash back." He was a pioneer throughout his long-ago football career, as the first African American player at Pacific and the first to play in the Sun Bowl. Along the way, he encountered many of the same racial obstacles as Robinson and other black athletes of that era. The African American Athletes Hall of Fame of Stockton is proud to have Mr. Eddie Macon as a pioneer and role model.