Black Fives Founder Claude Johnson To Guest Lecture
At University of Pittsburgh

Will Teach Rob Ruck's Acclaimed "History of Sports" Class, April 11, 2006!

Rob Ruck, respected scholar, historian, author, filmmaker, and a foremost authority on African American sports history, has invited Black Fives founder Claude Johnson to guest lecture in his "History of Sport" class at the University of Pittsburgh. Johnson will conduct the lecture on April 11, 2006.

Ruck, the author of "Sandlot Seasons: Black Sport in Pittsburgh" and "The Tropic of Baseball: Baseball in the Dominican Republic," is a senior lecturer in the History Department at Pitt and is currently working on a film documentary about baseball in the Dominican Republic. Ruck recently served on the 12-member Special Committee that recently elected 17 former Negro League baseball players and contributors to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown.

His class is popular with a wide variety of undergraduates, including student athletes, and Ruck's faculty ratings are consistently high. "I love Professor Ruck," one student claims, "because he is the only person that has been able to teach me anything about history where I could stay awake to listen to it." A tall order, indeed.

"Rob is a master, one of my earliest and dearest mentors, from the days when I didn't know a thing and first began to explore the history of African American participation in basketball," says Johnson. "His passion for history, his empathy, and the depth and quality of his work are Ruck's trademarks; I admired and modeled his approach until I was able to gain my own voice."

Let's see how well Johnson's voice holds up in class.

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