Solomon Wellings “Sol” Butler (March 3, 1895 – December 1, 1954) was a multi-talented athlete who competed in American football and track and field.

Facing 300 of the best track stars of the Midwest in Chicago, he competed in the regional interscholastic meet held at Northwestern University.

Butler earned 12 varsity letters competing in football, basketball, baseball and track and field at the University of Dubuque from 1915 to 1919.

According to Arthur Ashe Jr.'s book Hard Road to Glory, A History of the African-American Athlete, Butler was the first African American to quarterback a team for all four years of college.

Entering military service as a soldier in World War I as he represented the U.S. Army in the Inter-Allied Games in Paris, where he won the long jump.

[2][5][6] He signed on with the NFL in 1923 with the Rock Island Independents, which local accounts raved about his first appearance in the victory over the Chicago Bears.

In 1926, the New York Giants refused to let its all-white team on the field in front of the largest crowd ever (40,000) to watch an NFL game until Canton withdraw Butler as starting quarterback.

Butler moved back to the Midwest and went on to work with the youth in the Negro districts as recreation director of Chicago's Washington Park.

He was active in the Chicago Blackhawk alternative professional football team and began becoming a well known personality after appearing in movies and press regularly.

He and his brother Ben, sold cars, self-published a book on track and field, shined shoes, and did anything they could to raise money.

Other 2018 inductees were Ted Meredith, Lee Barnes, Frank Wykoff, Betty Robinson, Cornelius Johnson, Jesse Owens, Helen Stephens, Eddie Morris, Alice Coachman, Bob Mathias, Milt Campbell, Willye White, Dallas Long, Gerry Lindgren, Jim Ryun, Steve Prefontaine, Lynn Bjorklund, Mary Decker, Kathy McMillan, Chandra Cheeseborough, Renaldo Nehemiah, Michael Carter, Kim Gallagher, Alan Webb, Allyson Felix, John Dye, Ed Grant, Joe Newton and Don Norford.