Ames resident Steve Jones, the author of two children’s books: Football’s Fallen Hero: The Jack Trice Story, and The Red Tails–World War II’s Tuskegee Airmen, recently spoke to 54 Ames Golden K members and guests at Golden K’s weekly 9AM Thursday meeting, which continues to be held virtually.  Jones, who is a member of Ames Noon Kiwanis, is now retired after 21 years of service at Iowa State University. After noticing a photo of Jack Trice and thinking about how Trice had impacted the history of Iowa State athletics, Jones thought this might make a great children’s book and help preserve Trice’s legacy.

Jones shared many little-known details surrounding Trice’s recruitment from his home in Ohio to play football and track for whose athletic teams in the 1920’s were named “Ames”.  As there were no athletic scholarships at that time, Trice worked part time at Iowa State’s State Gym to pay for his tuition, and he and his wife, whom he eloped with in 1923, lived in an apartment in the downtown Ames building now known as the Octagon.

The football season in 1923 began with an Ames win over Simpson College. The next and final game for Trice was at Minnesota in Minneapolis, to which the team traveled from Nevada by Rock Island Train. Minneapolis hotels did not allow African Americans to dine in their dining rooms, so Trice was confined to his room, at which time he wrote a note dedicating the game to his Race, Family and Team. A plaque memorializing this note is on display in ISU’s State Gym.

Jones recounted the details of the injuries Jack Trice suffered during this hard-hitting football game with Minnesota, and which ISU lost 20-17. Trice was hospitalized in Minneapolis, released, returned to Ames with the team, then hospitalized again at the Campus health center where he died from his injuries on October 8, 1923. A statue of Trice is placed near Beardshear on the ISU Campus, and the Jack Trice story means much more today, with the ISU Stadium named for Trice.  Jones concluded his presentation by noting that Jack Trice Stadium is the only college football stadium named after an African American.