Bellarmine College [now Bellarmine University] had the first African American basketball players at a predominately white school in Kentucky: 5'7" guard Theodore R. Wade, Jr. (1950-1951) and Franklin Freeman (1952-1953).

Wade may have been mistaken for white: his mother was Irish and his father was African American and Native American. He left school before graduating and joined the Air Force. He later became a computer programmer in New York.

For more see M. Story, "A barrier falls without a sound," Lexington Herald-Leader, 4/11/2004, Sports section, p. C2; and Jonathan Jackson, "The first Black basketball player at Bellartmine just a small part of Ted Wade's legacy," Louisville Courier-Journal, July 13, 2021.