Gone but not forgotten: Abner Haynes left permanent legacy at North Texas and beyond

Abner Haynes last donned a North Texas uniform in 1959, yet he’s ever-present in its football program. Mean Green players trot past the Unity Plaza before every practice, erected in November 2022 to commemorate Haynes and teammate Leon King, who broke Texas college football’s race barrier. 

“We’ve talked about him in the past, what it meant to this University, and then on a bigger scale, what it meant to college football overall,” head coach Eric Morris said. “We were almost ten years ahead of anybody in the Southwest Conference in breaking the racial barrier. Just a huge tribute to this place being ahead of its times.”