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Breaking Barriers, Moving Changes

March 11, 2011 College of Arts and Humanities | English

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UMD English Professor Michael Olmert immortalizes the story of Darryl Hill, the first black football player in the ACC, in his new play.

By Leah Villanueva, Diamondback

Darryl Hill has been called the Jackie Robinson of southern college football.

As a black man in the 1960s, he overcame the barriers of racism and segregation to play the sport he loved — all while wearing a Terrapin uniform.

His story is being brought back to life in a new play, Moving the Chains: The Darryl Hill Story, by Michael Olmert, an English professor at this university. The play's first stage reading will be March 21 at the Lincoln Theatre in Washington.

"He didn't want to be Jackie Robinson, he just wanted to be a player," Olmert said. "He realizes now it had to happen because it wasn't going to happen at Clemson or North Carolina or South Carolina. This had to happen at Maryland."

The play chronicles the life of Hill, who became the first black man to play in the ACC in 1963, and the university that paved the way for integration when no other Southern institution would.