Chester Pittman, First Black Oklahoma State Football Player Passes Away

STILLWATER – Oklahoma State football paused practice in preparation for the bowl game after a practice Tuesday afternoon and COVID-19 testing on Wednesday morning, but when the Cowboys get back together on Saturday to continue preparing for the Cheez-It Bowl with Miami, Fla. they will need to take a moment, all Cowboy football players and coaches to remember Chester Pittman. Pittman broke the color barrier in football at Oklahoma State when he joined three other black athletes in joining the Oklahoma State football team in the fall of 1957. The other three athletes didn’t make it academically and left campus. Pittman stayed and became a starter on the varsity in 1958. Back then freshmen were ineligible for varsity competition. Pittman became the first black athlete to letter at Oklahoma State in 1959. The pioneer, Pittman, passed away on Dec. 23 at the age of 83. 

In a 2009 story in The Oklahoman celebrating Pittman’s 50^th anniversary as a letterman in football for Oklahoma State he spoke of his breaking the racial barrier as a football player at OSU.

"If given the opportunity, I think you have to take advantage of it," Pittsman said of earning a football scholarship at OSU. "I had the opportunity to get into a situation I wouldn't have been able to otherwise."

okstate.com

The 1958 Oklahoma State Cowboys with Chester Pittman on the front row No. 23.

Pittman played for then Oklahoma State head coach Cliff Speegle. He was on the team that went to Louisville, Ky. for the 1958 Bluegrass Bowl. In 1958 the Cowboys went 8-3 and in 1959 they were 6-4 before going 4-6 in 1960.

The Oklahoman story describes Pittman as a barrier breaker in high school at Wewoka as he and his Wewoka Douglass High School teammates in 1956 joined Wewoka High School combining the black and white high schools in that community. Pittman would score 22 touchdowns his senior season. He committed to Oklahoma State and went on to join the Cowboys.

He graduated with a degree in education and went to work as a teacher in Kansas City, Kan. He coached many different sports, but his track teams at Sumner High School won back-to-back track state championships in the late 1960s. He later became an administrator in the school district.

The Oklahoman story and other accounts cite that Pittman endured criticism from the stands, once had to eat in the kitchen away from his team on a road trip in Houston because of racist attitudes, he slept in an empty dorm on a black college campus in Little Rock because he was not permitted to stay in the hotel with his teammates before a game with Arkansas. 

All of those ridiculous, unfair, cruel, and similar experiences in so many to Jackie Robinson and what he experienced in breaking the color/race barrier in the Major Leagues remind us that Pittman should be remembered for his bravery and willingness to lead the way.