A pioneer in Tiger athletics, Stevenson broke the color barrier in football as the first African-American to receive a football scholarship at the University. He lettered from 1958-60 and played on Hall of Fame Coach Dan Devine’s teams that went a combined 22-9-1 and won the Big Eight Conference championship in 1960. That team, which went 10-1 on the field (11-0 after a later forfeit by Kansas) recognized by many as the best team in Tiger history and was ranked number-one in the nation late in the season before ending the year ranked fourth in the final polls. He was a bruising fullback in Devine’s offensive ground attack who was second on the team in rushing as a senior in 1960 with 687 yards and five touchdowns. He ended his career with 1,174 rushing yards and seven TDs and caught three TD passes in his career. He led Missouri to a 41-19 win at Oklahoma in 1960 that helped vault the Tigers to the top of the national polls for the first time in school history. In that game, he rushed for 169 yards and TDs of 77 and 60 yards in a historic game that saw MU become the first conference team to win in Norman, Oklahoma since 1942. Stevenson was drafted in the 11th round of the 1961 NFL Draft by the Dallas Cowboys and played in Canada for the Edmonton Eskimos and the British Columbia Lions. He competed at MU in track and field for MU Coach Tom Botts. He coached collegiate track and field at St. Louis Community College at Forest Park and SLCC at Florissant Valley for nearly 30 years. At Flo Valley, one of his athletes was Jeff Hartwig, who went on to set the American pole vault record. He was inducted into the Missouri Track and Field Association Hall of Fame in 1999 and the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2011. In 2001, Mizzou dedicated the “Norris Stevenson Plaza of Champions” on the west side of Memorial Stadium.
