Crimson Red Sports

This was an Alabama high school football game in the early 70's between Jacksonville and Walter Welborn.  A black player died from a head injury he received on a dirty play.  It is a very sad story, but it gives a lot of insight into race relations during that time.

I played on a team in the mid 80's that had quite a few black players on it.  We played a couple of games on Sand Mountain and there were a lot of dirty plays against our black guys, along with name calling and spitting on them.  The coaches told us on the bus before we left for the game what to expect, and that they were just ignorant redneck country boys.  The best way to educate them would be for us to play together, have each other's backs, and whip their butts.  That's exactly what we did.  They were outmatched considerably though, so it wasn't hard to do.  We were 5A, they were 2A.

Any way, something that rings true to me from the article is how a football team with both blacks and whites can overlook skin color, have respect for each other, and even fight to protect one another, all the while in the midst of all the racism happening in the community outside of the football team.  Once you go through 2-a-days with somebody, they become your brother regardless of their skin color.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/longform/speedy/?sct=hp_t11_a2&eref=sihp

 #+, thank you for the post. This is well written and I do know exactly where this took place. Walter Wellborn back in our days of playing was always known for being a rough bunch. Playing dirty I don't know but I always heard that you better bring your hammer for sure. I know when Andra Franklin who played for Anniston, and who went own to play for Tom Osborne at Nebraska, I heard many times of people trying to hurt him. There was a problem though if you ever remember when this guy played he shoveled out more pain that anybody could give him. Thes old memories do hurt today. I played at Ranburne who never had any blacks on the team. We played teams like Woodland, Wedowee or Randolph County and Bowdon, Ga and others that had blacks and gosh we always shook hands and played hard nosed football. We hurt some people and at that time we did whatever we could to win the game. I do remember some of the teams we knew that played to hurt black kids but it was not our purpose. Of course most all of us was raised pulp wooding, and ploughing mules in crops and there we blacks in the field with us. RTR!

The sad part it still goes on in programs today.  However, it is more about the fans and their conduct.  One of the worse ones out here is Southlake Carroll where Cade and Greg played.  The high school I am at started as a high socio-economic school and now has changed since the opening of the other high school and the building of some low income apartments near out school.  Back to Southlake, they are a high salary area and when the fans are at games the students are known to yell things at the schools who have a high Hispanic population.  It is not uncommon to hear your dad does my yard and your mom washes my clothes.  There are other things that have been stated, but I won't go into great details.

we didn't have a lot of that going on down here
all the way up from park ball to middle school at
least half of the players on the teams I was on were black

I remember when I got to high school , it was different
we only had one black male in the whole school
Ollie Lee was him name , I remember the first time I laid
eyes on him

it was easy to see that Oille Lee was not a football player  

I'll start from the floor up

1) wingtip shoes , shinning like a new penny
2) dress slacks , Sunday school quality
3) white dress shirt , buttoned all the way to the top button
4) pocket protector containing every pen , pencil or
other item ever needed to write with ... ever ...

my first thought was this ...
Man , I have got to get some of my black team mates enrolled and fast !
these skinny azz white boys ain't gonna cut it ...


I think there is something to these traits being in the player too though
we had one around here that was that way ...
he would throw dirt in your face , kick you or step on your hand
after a play whatever he could ,  among other things !
he went on to play college ball then on to the pros
he even scored a TD last weekend in a game ...
being a dirty player has sure paid off for him , it's sad ...