Nate Northington — Welcome to Greatness!

Breaking the Color Barrier Legend!

Growing up in Newburg

Nate Northington was born on October 16, 1947 in Louisville, Kentucky to William E. and Flossie Northington.

He had a love for baseball and played and excelled as a shortstop in the little league and in high school.

Northington was born in the western part of Louisville in the Parkland neighborhood, which was referred to as “Little Africa”.

He grew up with Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay) and he was one of his boyhood sports idols.

Northington said that Newburg was a rural community which had been founded by slaves. Land was given to the freed slaves and the community began to grow.

He did everything with Seays such as playing football, fishing, and even hunting. he also were friends with the Unseld family.

In the eighth and ninth grade Nate Northington was playing basketball for the junior high school team.

Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana was the first college that showed interest in Northington as a football prospect.

This college was a member of the Big Ten Conference and one of the best engineering schools in the country.

Recruitment

Nate Northington was asked to play on the Purdue football team with a football scholarship and the told them that he would make a decision after basketball season, but he never heard from the coaches again.

His first game he played in at University of Kentucky as a freshman was against the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tennessee.

The next game against Virginia Tech and the team had to fly there and this was the first experience Northington had flying in an airplane.

The running back were doing so poorly that the coach yelled at Northington empathetically “Get in there”. As the ball carrier he ran the ball for a 45 yard touchdown. The coach patted him on the back and shouted, “that’s how you do it” as he turned to the other players.

Nate Northington and Greg Page were the first African Americans offered a scholarship at Kentucky that he knew of in 1965 Northington broke the color barrier in the SEC in 1967.

Breaking the Barrier

As a junior in high school in 1964 Northington had an outstanding football season, leasing the Jefferson county schools in touchdowns and making the All-County and All-State teams. The players on the All-State team were invited to the governor’s mansion to be recognized with a dinner.

Kentucky Governor Edward T. Breathitt, along with the University of Kentucky President, Doctor John W. Oswald, were committed to integrating the University of Kentucky athletic program. Governor Breathitt’s interest in civil right was the instrumental factor in Nate becoming the African American football player in the SEC.

The Kentucky Kernel (UK student newspaper), the UK Athletics Board declared in May 1963 that it wanted all UK sports teams integrated “at the earliest possible time.” this did not take place until 1965.

On Saturday, September 30, 1967 was the day Nate Northington arrived for his first varsity game at the University of Kentucky and in the Southeastern Conference. This is the day that he broke the “color barrier”, the first African American to play in the SEC.

Shortly after this Nate’s shoulder was dislocated which ended his career in football.

He is an author of the book “Still Running”.

Now Nate Northington is “Elder Nate Northington”. He is the Assistant Pastor at the church he grew up in “Newburg Apostolic Church”.