While Abner Haynes and Leon King played at North Texas two years earlier, neither were recruited.
Recruited by College Football Hall of Fame coach Gil Steinke in 1960, Blanks was the first African American to play in the Lone Star Conference.
He was also the first African American to receive a football scholarship at an integrated school in the state of Texas.
To honor a “hero, legend and trailblazer,” the city of Del Rio named a park after Blanks near San Felipe Creek in 2015.
[2] His granddaughter Riley Blanks was a four-star recruit for the University of Virginia tennis team and is the founder of Woke Beauty.