Cheering spectators packed into Barbour Gymnasium, applauding every point as they watched U-M’s freshman and junior women battle for the class basketball championship.
Leading the freshman team to victory was Phyllis Wheatley Waters, the first known Black athlete to have played organized basketball at U-M. Her skillful passes helped carry her team’s win with a score of 14 to 7, according to the 1914 Michigan Daily.
Waters’ reputation as a stellar athlete began early. As a student at Ann Arbor High School in the 1910s, she excelled in basketball, enjoyed tennis and swimming, and had a brilliant academic record. After graduating from high school with honors, Waters enrolled at U-M.
“Undaunted by tradition, custom, or opposing counsel, Miss Waters [ . . . ] made her fight for the basketball team of the university, and was elected by an overwhelming majority,” The Freeman newspaper of Indianapolis reported in 1914. That same article described the class basketball championship as “the most sensational and daring game that had ever been seen in the Barbour Gymnasium.”
The Women’s Basketball Team of the Class of 1917, winners of the 1914 U-M women’s class basketball championship.
Waters had big shoes to fill. Her father, Philip Waters, attended U-M before her, and was a well-regarded athlete on the Law School’s class baseball team. He graduated and eventually became chief deputy clerk of the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, according to his archived alumni file.
As one of few Black women at U-M at the time, Waters faced “prejudices that exist in more or less virulent form among certain elements,” according to the 1914 article in The Freeman. The Michigan Daily reported in 1915 that Waters was recovering from a nervous breakdown in her second year, hinting at the struggles she faced.
Nevertheless, she excelled, becoming a star on the class basketball team, and the first known Black woman to earn a letter from the Women’s Athletic Association at U-M. She was elected the class basketball team captain and graduated from U-M in 1917 with both her bachelor’s degree and teachers’ diploma.
Waters went on to have a long career in Indianapolis as a teacher, local politician, and philanthropist. She also designed the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority crest, adding an artistic achievement to her list. She won an Outstanding Achievement Award from U-M in 1973, honoring her many triumphs.
