Art Matsu Dedication

Sports Prodigy

By the age of 13, Art Matsu was recognized nationally as a sports prodigy. A 1917 Bismarck Tribune article compared Art Matsu to Jim Thorpe and Howard Berry, two other multi-sport legends. According to his daughter Nancy Matsu Hulse, Art Matsu saw that “being good at sports gave him respect,” a counter to the prejudice he likely faced in daily life.

Best Fancy Diver in the Country

East High School, Cleveland. In addition to being a football star, Art played basketball and baseball, and held several Cleveland junior records as a sprinter. In 1923, Art Matsu won the national high school championship in diving.

W&M Football Star

Art selected W&M over Princeton so that he could start at quarterback immediately. Art became the first Asian ancestry athlete, and the first athlete of color at W&M. In 1925, his teammates elected him team captain.

More Than an Athlete

Art came to W&M as a recruited athlete, but established himself as a student leader on campus. He was a member of the college leadership fraternity, Omicron Delta Kappa, as well as the business-orientated Alpha Kappa Psi. He also was a member of the the “13 Club,” served as the freshman class secretary, sat on the sophomore tribunal, and was a member of the senior council.

Life after Graduation

After becoming the first Japanese-American to play in the NFL for the Daytona Triangles, Art coached at Asheville High School (NC), and Benedictine High School (Richmond, VA), before joining the staff at Rutgers University as an assistant coach where we would coach for 20 years.

During Japanese Incarceration, Matsu, whose citizenship was not Japanese but Scottish, was restricted from leaving the state of New Jersey. In a letter to the president of Rutgers, he outlines how he had been denied to enlist into the military and citizenship due to exclusionary naturalization laws. 

His (Asian) American Story 

As a biracial person in Virginia when anti-miscegenation laws were still in place, Art Matsu's story provides us with a glimpse of what the racial and social climate was for Asian Americans during a time where our history classes showed as a starkly Black and White society. 

Art Matsu’s legacy at William & Mary was commemorated and honored with the naming of the Arthur A. Matsu Arcade at Zable Stadium, and the unveiling of a state historical marker during the Asian Centennial at W&M. This marker was made possible by Cumberland Middle School students, you can read more about that story here.