First black athlete to graduate from AU returns

Contributed Auburn Villager

Thom Gossom Jr. says he found the inspiration for his first book, "Walk-On," at the 30th anniversary of the 1972 football team celebration in Auburn. When he received the invitation, Gossom said he didn't even want to go. He said it would bring up too many painful memories he had submerged.

After much convincing from his wife, son and friend James, Gossom decided to attend.

In 1975, Gossom became the first African-American athlete to graduate from Auburn University and the second black football to play as a Tiger. His friend James is James Owens, the first black football player on the Plains.

The Birmingham native's memoir describes his struggles both on and off the football field to be one of the first black athletes during a heavily racist era in the United States.

Gossom will be at J&M Bookstore, owned by friend and former teammate Trey Johnston, Sept. 20 from 1 to 3 p.m. for a book signing.

"I wrote it from a historical and cultural perspective," Gossom said. "It was a totally different time then as it is now. A different time in the country, the South and Alabama."

Not only does the book explain how difficult it was to overcome the stigma of being a black football player at a formerly all-white college, but the difficulty of being a "walk-on" in all areas of life. Gossom said that throughout life we always have to do things we thought we would not have to, and he hopes his book inspires people to see those challenges through to the end.

The struggles Gossom and Owen had to endure helped pave the way for future Auburn greats, including Bo Jackson, who started Auburn in the same decade Gossom graduated.

"When Bo Jackson got the Heisman, oh wow," Gossom said. "That meant we had successfully done our job and that society was accepting change."

Gossom recently attended a reception where 10 members of the Negro League honored him. He was presented with a signed ball and cap and was thanked by the members for what he did at Auburn. Although they were praising him, Gosson said it should have been the other way around.

"Without them, there would be no me," Gossom said.

He added that he is so proud he was able to hand the baton off to Auburn football players who have made names for themselves, players such as Jason Campbell, Ronnie Brown, Cadillac Williams and those who are playing today.

Gossom played wide receiver under the direction of famed head coach Ralph "Shug" Jordan.

"Coach was a great man," Gossom said. "I had so much respect for him them and still do today."

Jordan was of the World War II generation, and his players in the early 1970s were of the Vietnam generation. In terms of life, the first saw things in black and white, and the latter saw them in gray, Gossum said.

"Coach was more about 'do it this way because this is how it's always been done,'" Gossom said. "But we were more about asking 'why?'"

He added that it was Jordan who helped make the transition from an all-white team to an interracial one possible.

"There were no rules on how that was going to happen," Gossom said.

After Gossom's first year as a walk-on, he was granted an athletic scholarship and finished up his time at Auburn with a bachelor of arts degree in communications. He went on to earn a master's from the University Montevallo.

In his professional career, Gossom started a public relations firm in 1987 but then caught the acting bug at age 29 when he was in his first show.

"I had always loved acting and theater, but never had time to do that because of football," he said.

He went on to take roles in the televison show "In the Heat of the Night" and the film "Murder in Mississippi" in the early 1990s. He got his break in 1997 when he starred in the HBO drama "Miss Evers' Boys" alongside Laurence Fishburne and Alfre Woodard.

From there Gossom started his own production company, Best Gurl Entertainment, in 2004. The company is currently backing the theater show "Speak Of Me As I Am," in which Gossom stars. He also wrote a feature film, "The Christmas Present," which is set to begin filming in 2009.

A motion picture about the 1972 Auburn team, nicknamed "The Amazin's," is set to begin filming in the summer and fall of 2009.