Walter Jean, player and Assistant Coach with the Portsmouth Shoe-Steels

ID: 873 ~ Source: Green Bay Press Gazette (21 August 1926) in "Who was Packers' first African-American player?" at Packers.com. https://www.packers.com/news/who-was-packers-first-african-american-player-16759587 ~ Date: 1926

This file appears in: Jim Thorpe and the Shoe-Steels

Walter Jean, player and Assistant Coach with the Portsmouth Shoe-Steels

Walter Jean was recruited by Jack Creasy from the Green Bay Packers to play on the Portsmouth Shoe-Steels in 1927. Jean became the Assistant Coach to Jim Thorpe and in the final, postseason game of the season, against the Ashland Armcos, Jean served as Head Coach, in Thorpe's place. When the team was re-organized in 1928, Walter Jean became the first coach of the Portsmouth Spartans.

This file appears in: Jim Thorpe and the Shoe-Steels

Jim Thorpe and the Shoe-Steels

By Derrick C. Parker and Andrew Feight

At the end of the 1926 season, Jacques 'Jack' Creasy, at the age of 25, purchased the equipment of the Studebaker Presidents -- an amateur football team that had enjoyed moderate success and ignited the excitement of football fans in Portsmouth --…