BUFFALO, N.Y. — The University at Buffalo is recognizing a football star of its past who helped make a stand for civil rights at a difficult time.
The school on Friday unveiled a plaque renaming the Porter Quad on the North Campus as the Willie Evans Quad.
Willie Evans was a star running back on the 1958 team, which took a stand and declined an invitation to a bowl game because Evans and another Black player would not have been allowed to play.
His son was at the ceremony Friday and said he couldn't be more proud, even though his father rarely talked about that amazing story.
"He really lived in the present," Alan Evans said. "So it's pretty amazing that something that profound, that had a profound effect on him, he didn't let it define him. He was always moving forward, and obviously the lessons he learned from that he passed on to us, but he didn't live in the past. He was very much living in the present."
The renaming was part of UB's effort to remove the names of slaveholders from campus.
The quad had been named after Buffalo native and former U.S. Secretary of war Peter Porter, who owned five slaves.