By Mike Pearson
FightingIllini.com

Black History Month Spotlight: Terry Hite David was Illinois volleyball's second-ever head coach, when hired in 1975, and the first African American to coach an NCAA Team at the University of Illinois.

The decades of the 1960s and '70s proved to be tumultuous times in the United States, with discussion about race and war dominating the news. An equally turbulent movement in America at the time involved women's rights. For Terry Hite David, all of those headlines surrounded her young life as a student at the University of Illinois. 

Born in Chicago, she moved with her mother to Los Angeles at the age of seven after her parents' divorce and remarriage.

After attending a city college for a year on the West Coast, she was initially attracted to attend the University of Illinois as part of the school's "Project 500" program in 1968. That plan was instituted by the university as a response to the assassination of the Reverend Martin Luther King. Prior to UI's effort to change its demographics, only 372 of the more than 30,000 students were black. David became one of the additional 565 African-American and Latino students who came to Champaign-Urbana in the Fall of '68.

"It was a good thing because it increased the number of black students who might not have had the opportunity to enter such a prestigious university,'' David told a Big Ten reporter in 2010. "The program did what it intended to do, but the university didn't do a very good job of preparing the community. The blacks mostly lived on the other side of the tracks on the north side of town while the whites were more affluent and had better jobs. I think the people in the area were a little scared to suddenly see so many more black people in town and the first couple of weeks were a little awkward.''

Major issues arose on campus as well when a black protest at the Illini Union saw nearly 250 individuals arrested by police.

"It was a very unfortunate situation," David said.

While pursuing her degree in physical education, David competed on the university's club volleyball team as a five-foot-six-and-a-half-inch center. Little did she know that when she graduated in 1972 that her dedication and similar perseverance from a multitude of fellow female student-athletes would eventually lead to varsity status for women's sports at the U of I.

"We had practice after classes and the coaches donated their time,'' she remembered. "It wasn't until my senior year when they held the first collegiate national tournament under the NAIAW. We advanced to the national tournament in Lawrence, Kan., but we didn't place.''

When Virgin Island representatives came to the U of I campus seeking teachers during David's senior year, she was eager to learn more.

"I went to the interview because I was adventurous and I had never been to the Caribbean area, which was a predominantly black population," she said. "They offered a two-year program and they paid your way down there and paid your way back when you wanted to return. I figured I couldn't lose.''

David continued to play volleyball in her new home country and eventually became a member of the Virgin Islands' national team.

"We established a league, the St. Thomas Volleyball Association, for recreation purposes, and got involved in the Olympic development," she said. "We also worked with some of the English-speaking Caribbean countries in establishing an English-speaking Caribbean Games."

Her notoriety eventually evolved into coaching opportunities with younger teams.

After two years in the Islands, David returned to Illinois in 1975 to pursue her master's degree in administration. That's when new Illini assistant athletic director Karol Kahrs—her former club sport coach—offered her a job as Illinois' second-ever volleyball coach, replacing Kathleen Haywood who had resigned after only one year as UI's varsity mentor. 

"That was the first year we were affiliated with the Big Ten in women's sports and we finished second,'' says David, who was 15-14 in her rookie season. "Things were starting to change quite a bit. No longer did the team have to play in their gym suits. We were given uniforms, sneakers, transportation and I had an assistant coach. And now the women were coming from other areas of study to play volleyball.''

Her second season as the Illini coach in 1976 resulted in 25-14 record and a fifth-place finish at the Big Ten Championships.

When David completed her master's degree with UI's College of Applied Health Sciences in 1975, she returned to the Virgin Islands. There she met her future husband, resumed her coaching career and began a career in elementary school administration. In 2000, she retired as a principal.

David's daughter, Michon, continued the family's love for the sport of volleyball. Michon was a member of the Islands' Junior National Team and also was a varsity member at Hampton University in Virginia. Terry is also the godmother of Megan Hodge, a former national player of the year at Penn State.

The fact that she had been the first black varsity head coach in University of Illinois history had totally escaped David until years later when she was told about the fact by one of her cousins.

"She read it in a story about black head coaches in the Big Ten,'' David says. "That's when it hit me. At the time I was at Illinois, we weren't part of the Athletic Association, so we never had any meetings with the other head coaches. I knew there were black assistants in football and basketball, but I had never thought I was breaking a barrier.''

During one of David's last visits to her alma mater in 2012, the Varsity I Association recognized her with its Merit Award.