My auction pal Rebecca is on the lookout for a box of Wheaties with Gabrielle Douglas on the front. She’s been looking for it since the summer when she heard that the face of the African American Olympic gold medal winner would grace a box.
It’s been a fruitless search and will continue to be so, because Kellogg’s swooped in and got to her first – apparently soon after she won a gold medal. Gabby will not be on Wheaties but on Kellogg’s Corn Flakes boxes.
It’s an interesting turn of events because when you think of athletes’ faces on boxes, Kellogg’s does not come to mind. Wheaties does, because the brand has been doing it since the 1930s. In fact, it appears to have created the face-on-the-cereal-box craze. Kellogg’s is relatively new, having scored by signing swimmer Michael Phelps in 2008 after his spectacular run at the Beijing Olympics.
It seems to be pretty common now to see – or expect to see – the faces of African American and other athletes of color on Wheaties boxes. It’s my cereal of choice, and I’m used to having some athlete stare out at me every time I pick up the box and pour the flaky stuff in a bowl (mine has Bruce Jenner on it).
I got to thinking about Wheaties and black athletes when I came across a box of cereal at auction recently with Jackie Robinson on the front. It was a commemorative box from 1996 celebrating the 50 years since he broke into National League baseball.
Was he ever on a box during the early years when he was harassed on the field by white fans and ball players or when he could not eat in a white restaurant or stay at a white hotel with his team?
I learned that Jackson had endorsed the product in the 1950s, but it would be decades later before he got his face on that iconic box.
The box at auction was a celebration of his April 15, 1947, foray into America’s pastime as a player for Branch Rickey’s Brooklyn Dodgers. He would go on to break records: winning the first Rookie of the Year award, making the All-Star team each year from 1949 to 1954 and being elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962.
Relatively young in age, he was not a newcomer to baseball: He had been playing with the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Leagues, which boasted some of the best ball players in the sport, including his teammate pitcher Satchel Paige.
The cover of the 1996 box was a photo of Jackson in a throw. The back showed photos of him and his family, along with background information about him.
In a 1997 New York Daily News article, a reporter asked Robinson’s daughter Sharon if he ever ate the cereal:
“My father ate grits every morning of his life,” she said. “Grits and eggs and bacon. … He loved cold cereal and milk. Wheaties was his snack. He had Wheaties every night.”
Wheaties first got into sports by sponsoring minor-league radio broadcasts of baseball games, putting up a sign in 1933 on the field of a Minneapolis team, according to its website. The sign announced the brand’s new slogan: “Wheaties – The Breakfast of Champions.” It was so successful that nearly three-fourths of the players in the 1939 Major League All Star Game endorsed the product.
At the beginning, athletes were featured on the back of the box. The first was Lou Gehrig in 1934. The same year, pilot Elinor Smith became the first female, and a year later, golfer Babe Didrikson was the first female athlete to appear. Track and field star Jesse Owens was the first black athlete, in 1938 – two years after he won four gold medals at the Summer Olympics in Germany. He would also appear on a box again in 2003. Catcher Roy Campanella showed up in 1952.
Athletes began appearing on the front of the boxes in 1958.
Over the years, Wheaties has chosen six athletes as its spokesperson, including two African Americans: Walter Payton, the first football player on the front of a box, in 1986, and basketball icon Michael Jordan, who has appeared more than any other athlete (18 times), according to the Wheaties website.
Jackie Robinson’s face was on the cover of three different kinds of Wheaties cereals: Wheaties, Honey Frosted Wheaties and Crispy Wheaties ‘n Raisins – a first. All had different photos on the front and five photos on the back.
I found plenty of Jackie Robinson boxes selling on the web, including what was described as a mini box, and the prices were all over the place. The one at auction sold for $4 along with some photos of basketball players in plastic.
The box itself was nothing compared to the accomplishments and nod to such a great athlete and person.
