1 Those of you who play baseball may have heard of him. Jack Roosevelt Robinson (Jackie) was born on January 31, 1919 in Cairo, Georgia, but grew up in Pasadena, California. As he grew, he worked hard and became very good at the sports he played. In fact, while attending the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), he became the first athlete in the school's history to letter in four sports – basketball, baseball, football, and track.
2 In 1942, Jackie joined the United States Army, and became a second lieutenant a year later. He then received a medical discharge in 1944 and began teaching physical education at Samuel Huston College in Austin, Texas.
3 The next year, he joined the Negro League and played for the Monarchs. During his year in this league, a man named Branch Rickey was diligently looking for black baseball players to play in the major leagues. See, at this time in our country's history, black people were not allowed in the same places as white people. Everyone thought that Rickey was going to start an all-Negro league, but secretly, he was looking for one player that was strong enough to break the color-barrier that had plagued baseball for 60 years. He found that player.
