Jerome H. Holland

Who was Jerome H. Holland?

Jerome Heartwood "Brud" Holland was an American university president and diplomat; he was the first African American to play football at Cornell University, in 1939, and the first to sit on the board of the New York Stock Exchange, in 1972. After graduating Cornell and teaching at Lincoln University, he attended the University of Pennsylvania, receiving his PhD in 1950. In 1953, he came president of Delaware State College, serving six years before transitioning to Hampton Institute, where he was president from 1960 to 1970. In that year, he became ambassador to Sweden under President Richard Nixon.

He became a member of the College Football Hall of Fame in 1965. In 1972, the NCAA awarded Holland its Theodore Roosevelt Award.