Feature Friday – Today we are looking at one of Temple’s finest players, even though he did not go to Temple High. No, Rufus Granderson went to Dunbar High School in the 1950s.
Prior to his pro career, Rufus not only starred at Dunbar but also at Prairie View A&M. In 1958, Granderson helped the Panthers go 10-0-1 (tying Jacksonville State early in the season). They won both the Orange Blossom Classic over Florida A&M and the Prairie View Bowl over Langston and were named the 1958 Black College National Champions.
One game of note in the 1958 season was against Fort Hood. They played at Fort Hood Stadium in Killeen and the Panthers won 53-0. In fact, they outscored their opponents 369-101 that season.
Granderson, as a junior, was named to the All-Southwestern Athletic Conference squad. As a senior in 1959, Granderson was named Second-team All-American as an offensive tackle. That year he also won the J.R.E. Lee Trophy (for team MVP of the Orange Blossom Bowl).
Rufus was the first black professional football player to come out of Temple. He was drafted by the Detroit Lions in the 1959 NFL Draft (19th Round, 221st Overall Pick). Interestingly, Granderson was drafted in January 1959, but went on to play the 1959 season at Prairie View and would not come to terms with Detroit until early 1960.
While Granderson never played for Detroit outside of training camp, he was released and signed on with the Dallas Texans of the AFL. There he would play parts of 6 games for the Texans in 1960. This was the first season for the Texans under future Hall of Fame coach Hank Stram and owner Lamar Hunt. Of course, after the 1962 season the team would move to Kansas City and rename itself the Chiefs.
Granderson would move on to the UFL in 1961 where he would play two seasons with the Grand Rapids Shamrocks/Blazers. After the 1961 season, Grand Rapids sold Granderson to the Buffalo Bills of the AFL. He never played with the Bills but did sign a contract in 1962 to play for the Montreal Alouettes in Canada. He was one of the last cuts in training camp. Later that year he would wind up back in Grand Rapids for his 2nd season.
While his professional career may not have panned out the way he wanted, Granderson was the first black professional football player to come out of Temple, about a decade before Joe Greene.
Honestly, I had never heard of Granderson before starting down this path of researching the history of Temple sports. Nothing was really said of Dunbar Panther’s sports legacy to us growing up in Temple. Most just knew Dunbar as an elementary school, but there is so much history here to be uncovered. In the future (basically when I can get back to the Temple Telegram archives in the library), I’d like to feature the championship teams from Dunbar.