II.McKenna, p. 131. In 1949 and 1950, Lillard played for El Águila de Veracruz of the Mexican League. Professional basketball Lillard spent several years on the Savoy Big Five basketball team as a guard. In 1934 he started his own club named the Chicago Hottentots, who mostly toured Wisconsin and Iowa. He joined the Harlem Globetrotters in 1937. Later life and legacy In the late 1930s, Lillard began writing a column on sports in the Independent News''. Later in his life, he moved to Astoria, Queens, working at an appliance store and for Vinn Sporting Goods. Lillard had a stroke on September 18, 1978, and was afflicted with agnosia as a result; he died in New York City's Bellevue Hospital Center. Lillard was the 12th black player in the history of the NFL. After five African-Americans appeared in NFL games during the 1926 season, the number of black players in the league had declined to between one and two each season until Lillard entered the league. He was the lone African-American playing in the NFL in 1932 and one of two in 1933; the other was Ray Kemp, a tackle with the Pirates. Following the 1933 season, an unofficial gentlemen's agreement was reached between the NFL's owners not to employ African-American players. Incoming segregationist Boston Redskins owner George Preston Marshall was thought to have been behind the agreement. After the introduction of an unofficial color line, no African-American played in the NFL until 1946, when Kenny Washington and Woody Strode joined the Los Angeles Rams. Author Charles Ross wrote that "NFL owners may have used Lillard's volatile personality as an excuse to ban other black athletes." See also Racial issues faced by black quarterbacks References Bibliography External links Database Football profile and Seamheads 1905 births 1978 deaths 20th-century African-American sportspeople African-American players of American football American football halfbacks American football quarterbacks Chicago American Giants players Chicago Cardinals players Cincinnati Tigers (baseball) players Indianapolis Clowns players Oregon Ducks football players Players of American football from Oklahoma Sportspeople from Tulsa, Oklahoma