Despite playing in 54 consecutive football games for Western Reserve University without a loss, Frank “Doc” Kelker’s football career went no further than the university level because the NFL effectively banned Black players from the league from 1933 to 1946. Kelker earned nine varsity letters during his time at Western Reserve: three in football, three in basketball and three in track and field.
Black teens looked to Kelker for mentorship, and he guided young people in his community at the Cedar Avenue Branch of the Cleveland YMCA, where he was a youth secretary. Two of his mentees were former Cleveland mayor Carl Stokes and his brother Louis (HON ’91), a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Harold McRae (ADL ’67) established the Frank “Doc” Kelker scholarship in 1997 in his honor.
