Thinking Of Ronnie Hogue

Ronnie Hogue would have been an afterthought.

Hogue was just a skinny 18-year-old kid out of the Washington, D.C., area in 1969, but he possessed talents that would take him to far greater heights both individually and as a student-athlete of the University of Georgia.

Basketball was his calling, but Georgia appeared to be out of the question.

The University of Georgia still lagged behind in some areas of racial equality when Hogue graduated from high school. Although Charlayne Hunter-Gault broke the color barrier at the university in 1961 — and subsequently became the first black graduate of Georgia in 1963 — athletics were another issue entirely.

There were no black basketball players at Georgia.

There were no black student-athletes at Georgia.

Ronnie Hogue would change all of that.

“I didn’t look at it like I was black,” Hogue told The Red & Black back in 2006.

But the color of his skin would be the reason he would be looked to as such a monumental figure in the Athletic Association’s history, one that since Hogue’s career has welcomed numerous black student-athletes, coaches and even the Southeastern Conference’s first black athletic director. Hogue, enrolling at Georgia in 1969, became the first black athlete to compete in a major sport for the university.

Since that time, the complexion of Georgia athletics has changed.

“I have been attending Georgia games for as long as I can remember and it’s hard to think of those teams without guys like Garrison Hearst, Knowshon [Moreno], A.J. Green,” said senior Nathan Hall, a football season ticket holder. “Some of the best players to come through here are black, so to even think back to a time when they weren’t allowed to play is crazy. It’s sad, really. We’ve really come a long way, though.”

Georgia basketball in particular mirrored the drastic change that Hogue started 42 years ago.

When he came to the university, Hogue was the only black player on the team. Now, looking at the successful 2010-11 season for Georgia basketball, 10 of the 13 student-athletes on the roster were black.

It is a change that resonates to this day.

The opportunities Ronnie Hogue opened up for future athletes, both academically and athletically, will last long after his scoring numbers and on-the-court accomplishments fade from memory.

“We don’t have any kids here this year who were looked at by Georgia, but next year we might,” North Oconee linebackers coach Will Peters said. “I went to that basketball game [Hogue] was honored at this year, and it just goes to show how far things have come since his time.”

Peters attended the LSU basketball game in Stegeman Coliseum this season in which Hogue was honored at halftime for all of his efforts in the desegregation of the university. Many even believe that one day he will receive the highest athletic honor the Athletic Association has to offer by being accepted in the Ring of Honor.

Regardless, one thing has become a certainty over the last 42 years: Ronnie Hogue will never be an afterthought.