Why TCU and Fort Worth star-turned-Harvard scholar Dr. James Cash didn’t want a statue
Dr. James Cash has been a Fort Worth hero for nearly 60 years, and he finally let us show it.
Cash, a 1960s TCU basketball star who went on to lead Harvard Business School, stood almost shyly as his old school unveiled a statue honoring the tough kid from Greenway Place.
When TCU signed him in 1965 and he became the first Black athlete in any sport in the entire Southwest Conference, the way the story goes, two university trustees resigned.
Now, Cash’s statue stands outside Schollmaier Arena, where he starred as the 6-foot-8 center for the 1968 conference champion Horned Frogs.
Cash, now 74, joined the TCU board of trustees in 1988 and has been a frequent university guest, but rarely the center of attention.
“I would not have accepted this opportunity,” he told a university audience Thursday, because “this university embedded in me the fact that it is more important to serve others than to be served.”
He had turned down offers for honors, he said, because “it’s about doing the work — not being recognized.”
The year 2020 changed his view, he said.
The killing of Texan George Floyd by a Minnesota police officer and the resulting awareness of civil-rights history made him see the value of historical symbolism and the need to “put markers in the ground to move forward.”
At Harvard, the university renamed the former Glass House business school building. It’s now Cash House.
In Fort Worth, where Cash came to TCU as a self-described “confused and angry” young man from segregated I.M. Terrell High School, the Horned Frogs wanted to honor a genuine hometown hero whose accomplishments extended far beyond basketball.
The same spring when Cash led the Frogs to the championship and into the NCAA tournament’s “Sweet Sixteen” round, Fort Worth was still struggling toward progress. The Star-Telegram hired the first Black reporter for any major Texas newspaper, Cecil Johnson.
That April, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis.
More than 2,000 people attended a city memorial service in the arena where Cash’s statue now stands.
In June, U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles.
“That year, for a young person that had just turned 20 years old, provided an opportunity,” Cash said.
It was his defining year, he said: “Having the teammates, having the backing, having my family to basically help me see through those events and the emotional challenge ... was a real blessing.”
That year gave Cash his “personal compass,” he said: the first verses of Romans.
3 And ... we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;
4 And patience, experience; and experience, hope.
Cash paraphrased the verse for the audience of fellow Terrell alumni and TCU students:
“Celebrate in tribulations,” he said. “If you have faith, you will persevere, and that perseverance will lead you on.”
One statue is not enough for Dr. James Cash.
This story was originally published November 11, 2022 at 12:24 PM.
