Harry Forrester

Infobox Writer
name = Harry Conway Forrester
birthdate = August 19, 1922
birthplace = Raymond, Illinois
deathdate = July 16, 2008
deathplace = Champaign, Illinois
occupation = Basketball and Baseball Coach
nationality = USA

Harry Conway Forrester (August 19, 1922 - July 16, 2008) was a visionary American basketball and baseball coach who led the way in integrating the sports teams of Quincy University in the racially-segregated 1950s. “He did more than coach,” Champaign-Urbana (IL) "News-Gazette", 6 October 2005, pp. 1 & C-1] Eighinger, Steven, Quincy (IL) "Herald-Whig", 17 April 2005, p. C-1.] O'Brien, Don, Quincy (IL) "Herald-Whig", 18 July 2008, http://www.whig.com/printerfriendly/7-18-08-Forrester.] http://www.legacy.com/Whig/Obituaries.asp?Page=LifeStory&PersonID=113633587.] Lange, Millie, Effingham (IL) "Daily News", 25 July 2008, http://www.effinghamdailynews.com/sports/local_story_207064108.html.] McNamara, J. Thomas, "Reflections on Coach Harry Forrester's life, career," Decatur (IL) Tribune, July 23, 2008, p.12.] He was inducted into the Illinois Basketball Coaches Hall of Fameand the Quincy University Hall of Famefor his contributions to sport. During the 1956-57 season, he was honored as Catholic College Coach of the Year.

Harry Forrester was born in Raymond, Illinois. He received the American Pacific Theater of War Ribbon and the American Theater of War Ribbon for his naval service during the Second World War. In 1949, he received his B.S. degree from Millikin University, and in 1959 he received his Master's Degree from Eastern Illinois University.

He began his coaching career in 1949-54 in Effingham, Illinois as St. Anthony High School's first full-time basketball coach, compiling a 21-7 record in his first year and an overall 95-43 record. His team won the school's first National Trail Conference Championship in 1952-53.

He was head basketball and baseball coach and athletic director at Quincy College (now Quincy University) from 1954-57. During his first year at Quincy, his basketball team earned a berth in the quarterfinals of the NAIA national tournament (now the NCAA tournament) in Kansas City, which was Quincy College's first athletic team to qualify for a national competition. That team's 17-9 season set the best record in the school's history at the time.

Forrester did something other colleges refused to do during the segregation era - play black players. To African-American guard Dick Thompson, Coach Harry Forrester was a visionary:

"He had the courage to look a little ahead of the curve," Thompson said of his Quincy College basketball coach. "He played guys who had the ability to get the job done. It didn't matter the color of your skin. That's a tribute to him as a person, that he looked far beyond the situation and had the courage to do what he did in playing guys of color."

African-American forward Edsel Bester said that Coach Forrester pre-dated the principles of Martin Luther King by refusing to judge a person by the color of his skin. "He judged each one of us by the content of our character. He let us know we were not only representing ourselves but our parents, our coach and our school and he didn't want you to forget that. I loved Coach Harry Forrester and I thank God every day in my life that I knew him."

In his ground-breaking work on behalf of racial equality in sport, Harry Forrester was a decade ahead of the integrated basketball teams at Loyola University Chicago and Texas Western, which gained greater fame in the 1960s.

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