ATHENS, Ga. – The current roster of the University of Georgia’s football team looks very different from how it did just a few decades ago.

That’s thanks to trailblazers like James “Jim” Hurley, the first Black player to put on the jersey and make the team’s roster.

“Football was very much part of my life,” Hurley told FOX 5’s Ron Gant.

In 1967, with the civil rights movement ramping up activities, Hurley, an Atlanta native and graduate of Harper High School, walked onto UGA’s freshman football team. 

He said that his experiences on campus weren’t as you’d expect.

“I never had this problem on campus in terms of somebody attacking me,” he said, “I was very blessed. In fact, I was well protected on campus.”

Hurley started as a defensive end, making history at a time when the university only recruited and offered athletic scholarships to white players. 

His excellence on the field was only surpassed by his prowess in the classroom.

“Mathematics carried me through. That was the first A’s I got in the Atlanta public school system,” Hurley said. “I had that standard of if I don’t make a 100 on the test, then I don’t know what I’m doing in mathematics.”

That year, Hurley received the Bill Monday Award for having the highest academic average on the freshman team.

Hurley spent two seasons at UGA before accepting a scholarship offer to Vanderbilt University, where he lettered in football.

This year, the UGA trailblazer was named the first recipient of the Uncommon Valor Award, presented by the Athens branch of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH).

Prominent member Fred Smith is the one who selected Hurley for the honor.

“This is not just a great story about an African American. This is just a great story about someone in the time of conflict who stepped forward and did what he did,” Smith said.

Hurley’s journey is one he says he shares with all the people who helped carry him across the goal line.

“It wasn’t about what I did. It’s what we did,” he said. “In my story, it’s about us. It’s about everybody who got me there – everybody who got me through it.”