• #OVCExtra Diversity Series Feature | MSU Oral History Series
A trailblazer and a legend in Morehead State and Ohio Valley Conference history will be missed.
Dr. Marshall Banks, the first African-American to receive athletic financial aid at Morehead State and first to play in the OVC, passed away this week at the age of 80.
After attending Booker T. Washington High School in Ashland, Ky., Banks enrolled at Morehead State in 1958. He was a member of the Eagle basketball team, earning financial aid from the school as the first black athlete to ever be awarded financial aid. Soon after, Morehead State and the rest of the OVC began offering aid to more African-American athletes, essentially owing the changes in policies to Banks' admittance.
He participated in basketball for a year and a half and then was approached by MSU track coach Earl Bentley. Banks joined the track and field program even though he had never run track before, but he became an all-conference performer.
Banks graduated with his bachelor's degree from Morehead State in 1962 and made history again in 1966. He returned to his alma mater to be the head coach of the track and field program, thus becoming the first African-American in any sport to be a head coach in the OVC. He was a member of the school's Dean's List all four years.
Banks earned his Master's Degree from the University of Illinois in 1963, where he also served as an assistant track and field coach while working on his Doctorate. He earned that PhD in 1973.
Banks went on to serve as Associate Professor in the Recreation Education Department at SUNY (N.Y)-Cortland in 1973 and 1974 and then was an associate professor in the Department of Physical Education and Recreation at the University of Colorado from 1974-78.
At Howard University in Washington, DC, he was a tenured position and Chairman of the Department of Health, Physical Education and Recreation for two terms, 1978-89 and 1993-99. After 34 years of service, he retired from Howard in 2012 as a Professor Emeritus.
Banks was inducted into the Morehead State Athletics Hall of Fame in 1987 and received the University's Founder's Day Award in 2008.