In 1956, running back Abner Haynes and his teammate Leon King became the first Black student-athletes to play for a predominantly white four-year Texas university at North Texas State College (NTSC), today known as the University of North Texas, in Denton.
Haynes sparked the freshman team to an undefeated 5-0 season. The next three seasons, he led the team in rushing, earning Time magazine All-American status his senior year. After a 5-5 sophomore year, he helped his squad to a 7-2-1 record and a Missouri Valley Conference championship his junior season. Behind his elusive rushing, North Texas during his senior year claimed a 9-1 regular season record, a No. 16 ranking in the AP Poll and a Sun Bowl berth. His final year he was ranked fifth nationally in scoring and seventh in rushing.
Born September 19, 1937, as one of eight siblings to Rev. Fred L. and Ola Mae Alexander Haynes, young Abner grew up in Denton through the seventh grade when his family moved to Dallas. At Lincoln High, Haynes met King, who became his teammate and best friend. They wanted to play college football together, but no out-of-state schools offered joint scholarships, so they considered all-Black Texas colleges until Haynes’ father suggested they look at NTSC because their enrollment might open doors for future Black athletes.
By the time Haynes had finished his eligibility, he had done just that, his success on the football field winning games and friends of all colors and opening the door for North Texas’s most famous football alumnus, Charles Edward “Mean Joe” Greene.
Haynes’s talent as a rusher, receiver, and returner got him drafted by the NFL’s Pittsburgh Steelers and the new American Football League. He signed, however, with the AFL’s Dallas Texans to stay close to home.
In the AFL’s 1960 inaugural season, Haynes led the league in rushing and earned both Player of the Year and Rookie of the Year honors. In 1962 he was the leading rusher on the Dallas Texans’ AFL Championship squad. The next year the team moved to Kansas City and became the Chiefs. Haynes stayed two more seasons with the franchise before being traded to Denver where he played for two years. His final year in 1967 was split between the Miami Dolphins and the New York Jets.
In eight professional seasons, Haynes ran for 4,630 yards and scored 68 touchdowns. He holds the AFL record for combined yards at 12,065. The Kansas City Chiefs installed him in their Hall of Fame in 1991 and retired his No. 28. Haynes was inducted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in 2011.
After his gridiron career ended, Haynes became a successful businessman, establishing the sports agency, Abner Haynes & Associates, which was licensed by the State of Texas and represented more than 90 NFL athletes. He also established the Abner Haynes Heroes of Football Foundation to help former pro players dealing with injury.
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John Eisenberg, Ten-Gallon War: The NFL’s Cowboys, the AFL’s Texans and the Feud for Dallas’s Pro Football Future, (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing); Robert D. Jacobus, Black Man in the Huddle: Stories from the Integration of Texas Football, (College Station: Texas A&M University Press); Jeff Miller, The Game Changers: Abner Haynes, Leon King, and the Fall of Major College Football’s Color Barrier in Texas, (New York: Sports Publishing).
