Jim Green Invitational to Open 2019 UK Home Track and Field Season
LEXINGTON, Ky. – The Kentucky Track & Field program will honor one of its all-time greats by naming the 2019-opening home indoor track and field meet the Jim Green Invitational. The meet will recognize Green, the first African-American student-athlete at Kentucky and in the Southeastern Conference to win NCAA and SEC Championships.
The competition will be held Jan. 11-12 inside Nutter Field House, Kentucky Track and Cross Country Head Coach Lonnie Greene recently announced.
“Mr. Green is one of the all-time great Wildcats, and so we’re so proud to have this opportunity to distinguish Mr. Green starting this year,” Greene, who will be leading the Wildcats for the first time in the 2018-19 season, said. “What a phenomenal occasion it will be to send our young athletes out to compete at a meet bearing such a prestigious namesake. Mr. Green blazed a courageous path of opportunity for so many who followed him, including our current team. We look forward to putting on a great event befitting such a brave hero of sport at our University.”
Green was one of the SEC’s pioneers of integration and was a 2007 inductee into the University of Kentucky Athletics Hall of Fame. He’s in fact an inductee into six Halls of Fame.
Green was the first UK African-American to serve as co-captain on the track team and in December 1971 became the first African-American student-athlete to graduate from UK.
In spite of facing open hostility at many competitions, Green succeeded at the highest levels of collegiate sport. He was a three-time NCAA champion, winning the indoor 60-yard dash in 1968 and the 100-yard dash in both 1968 and 1971.
He earned All-America honors six times and won eight SEC individual events, including the indoor 60-yard dash (1968, 1971), outdoor 100-yard dash (1968, 1970, 1971), and outdoor 220-yard dash (1968, 1970, 1971).
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2019 Participating Teams
Akron
Alabama A&M
Arkansas State
Ball State
Bellarmine
Berea
Butler
Cincinnati
Cumberlands
EKU
Indiana
IUPUI
Lindsey Wilson
Miami (Ohio)
Ohio State
Southern Illinois
Southern Indiana
Tennessee Tech
Kentucky
Xavier (Ohio)
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