Former USC football player C.R. Roberts died at the age of 87 on Tuesday due to natural causes, the school announced in a press release.
Roberts is best known for his stand against segregation during the 1956 season when USC was headed to Texas to play the Longhorns. Texas’s football program didn’t want Roberts and USC’s other Black players to compete in the game. Additionally, USC had difficulty finding a hotel in Texas that would allow Black customers.
In the game itself, Roberts enjoyed a memorable performance. Despite enduring racist epithets and obscenities from the crowd, Roberts rushed for 251 yards on 12 carries to help USC win 44–20. That mark set a USC single-game rushing record that would stand for 20 years. The Trojans pulled Roberts from the game early due to crowd concerns.
Roberts spoke about the game with USC’s official athletics website for Black History Month in 2015.
“I was upset that they didn’t want me down there,” Roberts admitted. “Damn right, I had something to prove to them.”
After his college career, Roberts played one season in the Canadian Football League before moving to the NFL to play for the 49ers for four seasons.
Roberts was inducted into the USC Athletics Hall of Fame in 2007.
