Editing Eddie Tolan (section)

===Football===
Tolan was recruited by several major universities as a football player, but he chose the [[University of Michigan]].<ref name=Detnews>{{cite news|author=Patricia Zacharias and Vivian M. Baulch |title=Michigan Athletes have made Olympic history |newspaper=The Detroit News |date=February 2, 2002 |url=http://apps.detnews.com/apps/history/index.php?id=148 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120710013302/http://apps.detnews.com/apps/history/index.php?id=148 |archive-date=July 10, 2012 |df=mdy }}</ref> There are differing accounts as to why Tolan never played on the varsity football team at Michigan. According to a published account in The Detroit News in 2002, Tolan joined the freshman football team as a freshman in 1927.<ref name=Detnews/> At that time, no African-American had played on Michigan's varsity football team since [[George Jewett]] in the 1890s. Tolan was initially allowed to play, but on the third day of practice, the freshman football coach told him, "Some of the coaches are disagreeing on your chances. Some of them think that you shouldn't be allowed to play football. I'd be tickled to have you but I'm afraid I'm going to be outvoted."<ref name=Detnews/> ''[[The Detroit News]]'' noted, that the freshman coach was outvoted: "They took away Eddie Tolan's football uniform and handed him a track suit in exchange."<ref name=Detnews/>

Other accounts indicate, it was an injury that prevented Tolan from playing football at Michigan. An Associated Press story on Tolan in 1958 stated: "He would have been a football great as a quarterback, had a knee injury in his junior year in high school not forced him to channel all his energies to track."<ref name=Now/> In his obituary, the Associated Press reported that the coaches at Michigan "talked the pint-sized speedster into going out for track."<ref name=Dies/> Tolan was also quoted as saying, "The track team did a lot more traveling then, so I saw the opportunity to travel on a Pullman and see the country."<ref name=Dies/>