As a wrestler at the University of Iowa, Simon Roberts finished third in the Big Ten in 1956, and second in the Big Ten in 1957, before winning the 1957 NCAA championship. He returned for the 1958 season and won the Big Ten Championship. He finished his Iowa career with a record of 62-8-4. He was also a team captain in 1957. Photo courtesy of Iowa Strategic Communications
Jan/Feb 2025 (Volume 17, Issue 1)
By Don Doxsie
It was fitting that when he became a high school coach in 1966, Simon Roberts did it at a school whose nickname was the Pioneers.
Roberts was a pioneer pretty much his entire life. Whether it was as an athlete, or a coach, or a civic leader, he always seemed to be blazing a new path for others to follow.
The Davenport native became the first Black athlete to win an Iowa high school wrestling championship when he claimed the 133-pound state title in 1954. Three years later, as a junior at the University of Iowa, he became the first Black NCAA champion according to the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. He later became the first Black high school head coach in any sport in the Quad-Cities, then became the first Black elected official in the history of that area. He would be inducted into the Iowa Wrestling Hall of Fame in 1988, the Iowa Athletics Hall of Fame in 1994 and the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2007.
Roberts, now 88 and living in Kansas City, said he never set out to be a pioneer and he never really viewed himself that way. He was just a kid who played sports because that’s what he loved.
Simon Roberts laughs while addressing the audience during a question-and-answer session at the Davenport Public Library in 2009. Photo courtesy of Quad-City Times
“We played all sports,’’ he said. “I’d get to the park about the time the supervisor came to open it up in the morning and we’d stay until dark. Our parents would have to come and find us.’’
Roberts blazed all those trails with an aplomb and quiet grace that allowed him to gather new friends and admirers pretty much every step of the way.
“Any talk about the influence that Blacks have had on our sport has to begin with Simon Roberts,’’ former Iowa State wrestling coach Bobby Douglas said in a 2022 interview. “He was the first Black to win a state high school championship in Iowa and one of the first, if not the first, in the nation to accomplish that feat.”
But Douglas said Roberts’ success on the mat was only “the tip of the spear.”
“You will never find a more caring and gentle man than Simon Roberts,’’ he added. “He is what American wrestling is all about. He was not only a great wrestler, he is a great ambassador for the sport and because of his tireless work over the years he kept countless young people out of prison and out of the criminal justice system by giving them the opportunity to wrestle.”
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