The Owl Field Club, an all-Black athletic association, was founded in Newark, New Jersey in 1908. The organization held track and field events at Morris Park in Newark and managed a heavyweight basketball team that played against top squads from the East Coast.
“The Owls played rings around their white opponents throughout the entire game,” said the New York Age, after one contest against the Columbia Strollers in 1911. “Smith of the Owls was the star of the game, bringing shots from all over the court.”
Also known as the Owls of Newark, they played home games at Pierson Hall, the Palace Lucille, and the Gordon Hippodrome in Newark. Their games were always followed by music and dancing.
The squad was “one of the fastest colored aggregations to be found in the State,” the Bridgewater Courier-News reported in 1917, adding that opponents “will have a big task on their hands to defeat the Newarkers.”
The Owl Field Club put Newark on the Black basketball map and helped inspire interest in the game in African American communities throughout New Jersey by continually expanding their competitive horizons beyond city and state lines.
A portion of net proceeds from the sales of our Black Fives assortment will benefit the The Black Fives Foundation, which works to inspire excellence by preserving, teaching, and honoring the pre-NBA history of African Americans in basketball.tball.
