Larry Little, NFL star from Bethune-Cookman University. Internet photo, although perhaps you saw him live at the game in Houston.
By Paul Goldfinger, Sports Editor at Blogfinger.net
This is a bit of a stretch, but if you were paying attention before the big game, there was a segment where Hall of Fame NFL players who also were African American and who graduated from historically black colleges were honored. One of them was Larry Little, a Floridian who graduated from a university in Daytona Beach called Bethune-Cookman University. Ater a successful NFL career, Little became the coach of his alma mater.
Cookman Institute was founded in 1871 in Jacksonville as a training college for freed black men. Rev. Alfred Cookman of Ocean Grove had raised money among the CMA faithful to help start that college, so they named it after him. Later the two year college became four year and affiliated with the Methodist Church, and some years after that the college merged with a school for black women. In the recent past its name was changed to Bethune-Cookman University, and its campus is now ensconced at Daytona Beach in northeast Fla.
Blogfinger researched the story of Larry Little’s alma mater because Rev. Cookman was an important figure in Ocean Grove history, and, as many of you know, we have a street named for him. Below is a link to our story about Bethune-Cookman U.