Morgan State University was founded and chartered in 1867 as the Centenary Biblical Institute. It was built on its present site, in northeast Baltimore, in 1890 and was known as Morgan College from 1890 to 1938. It became a public college in 1939, as Morgan State College. The late 1960s were turbulent years with regard to race relations in the
United States.
Riots had broken out in major cities across the country, with at least
three in Maryland. Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. had
been assassinated and formerly all white universities and colleges were opening their doors to African-Americans for the first time. But the major lacrosse powers like
Johns Hopkins,
Navy and
Maryland still fielded mostly white teams. The team was formed in 1970 when a former Baltimore high school lacrosse player and Morgan grad student,
Howard "Chip" Silverman, realized that many of black Baltimore's high school lacrosse players were at Morgan, but were not playing lacrosse. Silverman had never coached before, but, he put up flyers around campus, and 30 athletes showed up for a meeting. Two-thirds were football players. Some would later star in the NFL, such as Stan Cherry. Silverman started the lacrosse club and two years later petitioned the
NCAA for full membership as a college team. At that time, the NCAA had its best 40 teams in Division I and another 80 teams in Division II. It was Division II that Morgan would soon dominate. Ironically, by 1975 Morgan became noted for its lacrosse team because black high school lacrosse players from Maryland and New York still had trouble getting into the major white lacrosse colleges and universities. Morgan was the first (and until the turn of the 21st century) the only historically black university to field a lacrosse team. During the period from 1970 to 1975, the Bears were ranked in the nation's top 25 in four out of five years. They made the championship tournament twice, and in 1975 were involved in one of the great upsets in intercollegiate sports history, when Morgan defeated then #1 ranked
Washington and Lee University, a lacrosse team which would eventually reach the NCAA Division I semi-finals as the number seven seed. By 1981
Title IX funding priorities required university athletic funds be equally distributed among women's programs and the school dropped lacrosse in 1981. defeated
Notre Dame (13-12),
Villanova (16-9),
Michigan State and
Georgetown in the span of a five-day schedule during the middle of the season. and lost to Loyola in the
NCAA Division II Championship Semi-Finals to end an era.
21st-century comeback More than 20 years after the original team was shut down, Morgan State returned to lacrosse. In 2005 a lacrosse club team was formed on campus and is awaiting acceptance into the NCAA. The 2005 club was not a sanctioned team in NCAA competition, but they did play exhibition games against teams that were. • 1972 - Wayne Jackson • 1973 - Wayne Jackson • 1974 - Dave Raymond and Courtenay Servary • 1975 - Dave Raymond, Courtenay Servary and Tyrone Jones • 1976 - Joe Fowlkes • 1977 - Joe Fowlkes • 1978 - Joe Fowlkes
Morgan State University Representatives in the North/South Game As listed by the United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association: • 1971 - Miles Harrison • 1973 - Wayne Jackson • 1975 - Dave Raymond • 1978 - Joe Fowlkes • 1981 - Mike McBride ==Legacy==