1902 James C. Johnson and his long-time connection to Princeton University and its athletic program came to an end with his 1902 passing. An escaped slave from Maryland, Johnson fled to Princeton, where he later purchased his own freedom. Known about campus as Jimmie, Johnson became a well known character on the campus, where he spent the rest of his life selling food from his wheelbarrow. As Princeton became a power in football in the late 1800s, Johnson was always present, as a peanut vendor and proud supporter of the Tigers. In his declining years, he was no longer able to do the work that he had long done and the some of the citizens took up the charge to make sure he was taken care of. None of that stopped Johnson from being a subscriber to the new gymnasium fund for the University. The construction was complete in 1903, but Johnson didn't live to see it. He passed away on July 22, 1902, in Princeton, at the age of 87. He was laid to rest at the Princeton Cemetary, where he was buried alongside a President, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and Civil War generals.

1944 Art Wilson, the first African-American athlete at Princeton, was a starter and key player on the Tigers' 1944-45 basketball team. Wilson, a native of Chicago, Ill., became the team captain the following season. He would become a U.S. Federal Marshal in the 1960s.

1963 Former Princeton basketball player John Doar, the No. 2 man at the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, walked between a crowd of angry black youths and riot-geared police and stopped a potential riot following Medgar Evers' funeral in Jackson, Miss. The previous year, Doar had escorted James Meredith to become the first black student at Ole Miss.

1967 Javier White had rheumatic heart disease, which left him exhausted from exertion. His condition caused doctors to tell him that he would die before he turned 18. That certainly may have scared him, but it did not stop him, even for a minute. In fact, in 1967 White earned first-team All-Ivy fencing honors for the Princeton Tigers. and won the Princeton Fencing Medal. Born in Costa Rica, he moved to the U.S. with his mother when he was 11 and attended DeWitt-Clinton High School in the Bronx. White became a successful businessman, husband and father before passing away after suffering a fatal heart attack in New York in 1987.

1970 Princeton named Larry Ellis as its head coach of track and field and cross country, becoming the first African-American head coach of any sport in the Ivy League. Ellis would lead his team to 19 Heptagonal titles in his 22 seasons. In 1984, his efforts earned him the right to coach the U.S. Olympic men's track and field team in Los Angeles, where running greats Carl Lewis and Edwin Moses took home gold. An accomplished collegiate miler in his own right at New York University, Ellis coached a long line of track stars that began with long-jumper Bob Beamon while Beamon was still in high school. In a letter from the longtime world record holder read at Ellis' funeral service in 1998, Beamon referred to his former coach as 'a father figure.'

1971 Brian Taylor became the first African-American to be named the Ivy League Men's Basketball Rookie of the Year.

1972 Robert L. Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment Television and the first African-American principal owner of a major professional sports franchise, graduated from Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs with a master's degree in public administration. Johnson, a native of Hickory, Miss., studied at the University of Illinois as an undergraduate and was not an Ivy League athlete, but he is included for making his mark of the sporting world as a distinguished alumnus of Princeton.

1977 Jill Pilgrim became the first women's track athlete to be a Heptagonal Games first-team performer and the first black woman in League history in any sport to become first team.

1988 Deborah St. Phard, a 1987 graduate, participated in the 1988 Olympic shot put competition as a member of the Haitian contingent. St. Phard won the Heptagonal Indoor Championship in the shot put four-straight years, 1984, 1985, 1986 and 1987. A member of the Ivy League Silver Anniversary Honor Roll, St. Phard would claim the outdoor Heps championship in the shot in 1984, 1985 and 1987, while also claiming the discus championship in 1984.

1990 Terdema Ussery II became the first African-American Commissioner of a U.S. professional sports league when he was named to head the Continental Basketball Association.

1991 Lori Dickerson became the first black softball player named first-team All-Ivy League.

1994 Ayesha Attoh became the first black volleyball player named first-team All-Ivy League.

1995 Ugwunna Ikpeowo became the only athlete, male or female, to win three jumping events at a single Heptagonal Championship when he claims the high jump, long jump and triple jump at the Outdoor Heps. After claiming two individual titles at the preceding Indoor Heps, he became one of only two men in the 70 years of the League to claim five individual titles in a single year, joining Harvard's Aggrey Awori (1963).

1997 Nicole Harrison had the best season ever in terms of individual championships at Heps as she claims six crowns (three indoor, three outdoor). That feat remains unmatched by a male or female in League annals. And it was clealy no fluke as Harrison wrapped up her career in 1998 with 15 individual career titles, tied for the most ever by a Heps athlete. Brown's Susan Smith and Harvard's Dora Gyorffy share that mark.

1999 The Ivy League celebrated its 25th year of women's championships during the 1998-99 academic year. In honor of the many women who have excelled in their sport, the League announced its Silver Anniversary Honor Roll. Twelve African-American women were named to the list. Track and Field standouts, Nicole Harrison '98 and Deborah St. Phard '87, were honored.

2000 Bill Bradley is likely the best-known Ivy League athlete of all-time. He averaged more than 30 points a game and was a consensus All-American in leading Princeton to the NCAA Final Four in 1965. Bradley also became a hero to many when he ran for President of the United States in 2000 following a 18-year career as a New Jersey senator. One of the reasons he left the Senate was to promote racial unity in the United States. In 1999, when asked on NBC's Meet the Press, "What do you think is the biggest problem confronting American society as we grow into the next century?" Bradley responded, "I've always believed that the racial divide in America was our fundamental and deepest challenge. Slavery was our our original sin; race remains our unresolved dilemma. And the need to be able to see beneath skin color or eye shape to the individual is tremendously important." ••• Princeton named John Thompson, a 1988 graduate, as its head men's basketball coach. With his hiring, all eight Ivy League schools have now had an African-American head coach of men's basketball. Thompson led his Tigers to the Ivy title and the NCAA Tournament in his initial season.

2001 Two Ivy League African-American football players - Princeton's Cameron Atkinson and Yale's Billy Brown - are named second-team Academic All-America by Verizon. With those selections, the number of times a black Ivy League footballer has been named Academic All-America has risen to ten ••• Ilvy Friebe, of Bonn, Germany, became the first African-American to be named the Ivy League Field Hockey Player of the Year as she amassed 37 points in seven League contests, nearly three times as many as anyone else! Friebe would win Player of the Year honors in 2002 as well and set the League record for points scored in a career (Ivy games only) with 83 (34 goals, 15 assists). Friebe also became just the second Ivy Leaguer to be named first-team All-America twice.

2002 High jumper Tora Harris was so good, he ended the year as the United States' top high jumper for 2002 according to the bible of the sport, Track & Field News. Harris, who won NCAA titles both indoor and outdoor, cleared an all-time League-best 7-foot-7 at the Outdoor Heps just two weeks after breaking the Penn Relays' record before a racuous crowd of 50,000 at Franklin Field.

2003 Princeton lacrosse standout Damien Davis, a unanimous All-Ivy selection, earned first-team All-America status for the first time. As a junior in 2002, Davis was a USILA Second-Team All-American as the Tigers wound up in the NCAA Lacrosse Championship. Davis captured a National Championship and four Ivy League titles while marking the opponent's best attackmen in every game of his career. The 12th pick of the Major League Lacrosse draft, Davis was a member of the Champion Baltimore Bayhawks in his initial pro season ••• Sports Illustrated named its 101 Most Influential Minorities in Sports and three of the selections had Princeton backgrounds, former Tiger basketball player Steve Mills of MSG, Robert Johnson of BET and the Charlotte Bobcats, and Terdema Ussery of the Dallas Mavericks. Later in the summer, Black Enterprise Magazine featured Mills and Ussery on the cover of its magazine and asked which would be the next commissioner of the NBA.

2004 The Willis twins -- Janine and Rochelle -- helped Princeton become the first Ivy school to advance to the NCAA Women's Soccer Final Four. Each had been an All-Ivy selection in their respective careers with Rochelle garnering first-team honors as a junior. In Princeton's march to the Final Four, the Tigers had posted one of the nation's stingiest defenses.

2005 Senior Will Venable, from San Rafael, Calif., and the son of a former major leaguer, made a smooth transition from basketball to baseball. A second-team All-Ivy performer on the hardwood, Venable earned first-team honors as an outfielder for the Tigers, and parlayed his success into a major league dream. Venable was the first Ivy Leaguer selected in the 2005 Major League Baseball Amateur Draft, going to the San Diego Padres in the seventh round ••• Cornerback and special teams ace Jay McCareins, of Naperville, Ill., was named as a consensus first-team All-American after a season in which he scored four touchdowns and a defensive PAT, and led the nation with nine interceptions ••• John Doar, a white graduate of Princeton who worked in the Justice Department in the 1960s and campaigned tirelessly for civil rights, was selected to receive the Inspiration Award from the NCAA in December. Doar is best known for helping avoid a bloody clash between police and black protesters following Medgar Evers’ assassination, as well as his prosecution of Ku Klux Klan members following the deaths of three civil rights workers in Philadelphia, Miss, in the 1960s. His work was memorialized in the 1988 fictional film, “Mississippi Burning.”