One of the defining moments of my life occurred on a football field.
In 1965 Alexander
City, Alabama had two school systems, separate but unequal. There was a high
school, junior high school, and elementary school for the white kids. There was
one school for the Black kids. The Black school was for grades 1 thru 12. The
city decided to integrate the high school in 1967 using a system they called “freedom
of choice”. For various reasons, few of the Black students ventured across town
to the white high school. As for me, although I was only 14 years old, I was
well aware of what was happening in the civil rights movement. I read the
Birmingham News every day, and watched the national news every night. I could
not understand how so many people could be protesting, marching, and dying for
civil rights and integration, and when the time came to integrate, nobody integrated! It did not
take very long for me to decide to go. My parents did not have any influence on
my decision. In fact, they would have talked me out of it if they could have,
but I was determined to go.
To tell the truth, there was another reason I wanted to go
to the big high school across town. Benjamin Russell High School had a big time
sports program. The football team was the heartbeat of the city. Every game was
broadcast on the city’s only radio station, and featured each week in the city’s
weekly newspaper. The really big games were often reported in the Birmingham
News. Their home games were played to full houses in the stadium downtown. I
wanted to be a part of that. I wanted to play football, and basketball, and be
on the radio and in the newspaper. So, my two best friends and I integrated the
high school.
All freshmen played on the school’s junior varsity, and all
three of us became starters on what would be the first undefeated freshman team
the school had ever had. Our integrated team was a hot topic of conversation on
both sides of town, and for the first time, black people and white people were
attending the same social event, (that’s what a football game in Alabama is)
sitting side by side with a common cause.
Integration in our city was never contentious,
controversial, or violent. I think that our freshman football team had a lot to
do with bringing both sides of our city together and convincing everyone that
maybe we could be one city.
During my junior year in high school the city announced that
full integration would take place the following year. The Black high school
would be converted to an elementary school. All high school students would
attend Benjamin Russell High. This would take place in the aftermath of 1968,
one of the most traumatic years in the history of our country. Martin Luther
King had been killed. Robert Kennedy had been killed. The inner cities had
exploded with riots in the aftermath of Dr. King’s death, The Democratic
convention in Chicago tore the city apart. John Carlos and Tommie Smith had
galvanized the Black community with black gloved salutes on the Olympic medal
stand in Mexico City, and the war in Viet Nam suddenly went sideways with the
Tet Offensive, forcing LBJ to decline to run again for the Presidency.
No one knew what would happen when our schools were totally
integrated in the aftermath of all of this domestic turmoil. I did know that
many of the Black students that were coming to the school that I had attended
for three years feared the unknown. I knew that most of them were not
academically prepared for what would be expected of them. I knew that many of
them would fail.
For our school, the football season started before the first
day of class. Our team was now fully integrated, and the influx of athletes
from Laurel turned a really good team into a great one. We won our first game easily,
electrifying the town. We won again, and again, and again, and again. We
defeated the defending state champions, shocking the entire state. Everyone was
convinced that we would go undefeated and untied, and go on to win the state
championship. The football team was the talk of the town. With all of this
going on, the fact that we were fully integrated for the first time was an
afterthought.
The last team on our schedule with any chance to beat us was
Valley High School, a school located just east of Auburn on the Alabama/Georgia
border. It turned out to be a really good game. Each team had opportunities to
score but neither did until the fourth quarter when Valley scored. They missed
the extra point so the score was 6 – 0. Our team responded immediately and
drove the entire field until we found ourselves with a fourth down on the Valley
two yard line. We had a play that we ran that no one had stopped all year. We
had used the same play to score against the defending state champions earlier
in the year, and none of us were surprised when our coach told us to run it
again. I had a very important role on that play. My responsibility was to block
the defensive end, allowing our quarterback to run around the left side of the
line. This time, for the first time all year, I missed the block.
We lost the game, 6 – 0. Valley went on to win the state championship. At the time, it seemed everything
else in life that was important had been lost. We had a goal of perfection,
immortality. We had worked so hard, so long, laughing together, praying
together, eating together, and even showering together. We had endured pain and exhaustion, practice
after practice. We had let the whole city down, our parents, friends, and
girlfriends. We cried. All of us. Our band members and our cheerleaders cried.
I felt responsible. If I had only made that block….
I never
forgot that play. I never will.
I have a plaque that has hung on the wall of my office for
more than thirty years. It is a quote from the great Green Bay Packers coach
Vince Lombardi. It says;
“Winning is not a SOMETIME thing,
It’s an ALL THE TIME thing.You don’t WIN some of the time.
You don’t do things right SOME OF THE TIME.
You do them right ALL THE TIME.
There is no room for second place.
There is only one place, and that’s first place.
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