Sam "Sammy" M. Bruce

Ubangi Blackhawks, West Seattle Yellowjackets, Italian Club Lions, Uptown AC

Quarterback

1934-1938

Born in 1915, Sammy Bruce was a popular athlete in Seattle as one of Leon Brigham's Garfield High School stars, graduating in 1933 in the midst of the school's gridiron dominance.  Tied at the hip with best friend and fellow Garfield star Brennan King, the two were the keystone athletes announced when the Puget Sound Athletic Club was formed by local sports enthusiasts including sports writer Bruce Rowell.  Rowell would go on to manage the Ubangi Blackhawks, a nearly all-black football team sponsored by the Ubangi Club in 1937.

Prior to joining the Blackhawks, Bruce was a member of the Italian Athletic Club Lions in 1935 and the Uptown Athletic Club of 1936.  Sammy was quietly the top scorer in the Community League before the inked pages exploded with his name.

Bruce broke out in the 1937 season, leading the Blackhawks to the Seattle Community League Championship in their first year.  Bruce and King were instrumental in holding their former coach Leon Brigham to a shocking tie in week two, as his Italian Club Lions were defending league champions from the 1936 season and expected to dominate once again.  Bruce was the league leading scorer and trigger man in the exciting wide-open offense the Blackhawks used to defeat the Washington National Guardsmen in the championship game.  Sam was second in voting behind Guardsman and Al Rosenburg Trophy winner Quentin Biddle for Outstanding Player of the Year. 

Hired to coach the legendary West Seattle Yellowjackets, Brigham again went after the two-headed highlight show and brought both players in for the 1938 season.  King would be captain, Sammy Bruce just scored touchdowns, including the first ever in the newly christened West Seattle Stadium, known later as Sick's Stadium.  Together, the Garfield crew led the Yellowjackets to the 1938 Northwest Championship, defeating the Enumclaw Silverbarons, defending Silver Bowl champions.  Sam was again, on top of the league scoring columns.

Bruce was also an accomplished boxer and together with King, played for the American Colored Giants baseball team.  As a star second baseman, the Giants won the Puget Sound League Championship of 1938.  Shortly after, the young men jumped on a train and headed for Los Angeles, California to try and catch on at a tryout for the Negro Leagues baseball scouts.

Sammy's life would forever be changed in 1939, when former Garfield teammate Homer Harris finished his outstanding career at the University of Iowa and was hired to be an assistant football and track coach at North Carolina A&T in Greensboro.  Harris immediately recruited King and Bruce who together, along with fellow Ubangi Blackhawk George "Switchey" Height, steamed east for college, where Bruce was chosen All-CIAA quarterback for 1939.  Injuries in 1940 limited him, but he was quickly back to form for the 1941 season.  He would meet his wife in North Carolina in the summer of 1940.

With war on the horizon, the federal government opened the Airmen program at the Tuskegee Institute in 1940 and Sam Bruce was one of the first to volunteer to enter Tuskegee Flight School.  Graduating as a 2nd lieutenant in September of 1943, Bruce was assigned to the 99th Fighter Squadron headed for North Africa.  The 99th Pursuit Squadron "Red Tails" was the first all-black unit that would become famous as the Tuskegee Airmen.  Bruce was last seen pursuing a German fighter when he went missing Jan 27, 1944 during the Battle of Anzio over Italy.  At 29-years old, Bruce was one of the first black pilots killed in action.  Initially buried in Italy, his mother had him returned to Seattle's Evergreen Washelli Veterans Memorial Cemetery.