 Groomes from 1947 Indiana University yearbook | |||||||||
| Personal information | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Born: | March 6, 1927 Trenton, New Jersey | ||||||||
| Died: | September 11, 1997 (aged 70) Greensboro, North Carolina | ||||||||
| Height: | 6 ft 0 in (1.83 m) | ||||||||
| Weight: | 178 lb (81 kg) | ||||||||
| Career information | |||||||||
| High school: | Trenton (NJ) Central | ||||||||
| College: | Indiana | ||||||||
| Position: | Halfback | ||||||||
| Undrafted: | 1948 | ||||||||
| Career history | |||||||||
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| Career NFL statistics | |||||||||
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Melvin Harold Groomes (March 6, 1927 – September 11, 1997) was an American football player and baseball coach. He played college football at Indiana University from 1944 to 1947 and helped lead the Indiana Hoosiers football team to the Big Ten Conference championship in 1945. In April 1948, he signed with the Detroit Lions, becoming the first African-American signed by the team. He played for the Lions during the 1948 and 1949 seasons and spent the next four years serving in the United States Air Force. He later spent more than 30 years, as a professor and head baseball coach, at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in Greensboro, North Carolina.