Day 33 – I loved wrestling…part 2
I was the co-captain of the wrestling team that year in 1968. The other captain was Ronald Williams. Ronnie was, and I’m sure still is, a great guy. I forget what weight class he wrestled, but a whole lot lighter than me. This was 1968 and Ronnie was African American, which didn’t bother me in the least, but it was Greenville, NC and very southern.
Ronnie obviously had enough respect from the team to be voted co-captain with me however this was a VERY new thing for us at Rose High. Integration had only begun a few years earlier with maybe 3 or 4 of the brightest and the best black students coming into school. I don’t remember any major incidents, but I wasn’t one of the “new kids” coming from Epps High School the only all black school in town, so I don’t know all they went through. By the time Ronnie came to us, we were both seniors, there were 30 or 40 African American students by now and it was growing each year.
Anyway, Ronnie and I both had a great year wrestling and were selected to go to the State Tournament in either Greensboro or Winston-Salem, I can’t remember. We traveled up on a Thursday night, I believe, and the matches were Friday and Saturday, I think…
it’s been over 50 years ago, but I think that’s right.
We get to the hotel that night and we were checking in and I could see that Coach Bud was a little bit concerned. He probably didn’t have the money to rent Ronnie his own room, but he didn’t know how to house us.
I’ll explain in a minute, but to me it was simple. Ronnie and I were co-captains so we should room together and that’s what I told him. With a look of relief, he agreed, and it was done. I didn’t know Ronnie except through wrestling, but he was a great guy and I considered him a friend.
It’s been so many years ago, that most in this generation have no idea why there was such a struggle in my days. My advantage was that Mama had grown up in rural NC and she had worked in the tobacco fields with African Americans and played with the kids on the farm her whole life. She and several siblings were brought up by a Nanny they called Aunt Caroline, a black lady who lived in a house behind the main house in Red Oak, NC where Mama grew up.
Mama always spoke so affectionally of Aunt Caroline that I didn’t really know any difference. Once Mama said she was crying because she had too many freckles and kids made fun of her. Aunt Caroline, as the story goes, said, “Child, don’t you worry about that, each one of those freckles is ‘Angel Kisses’ so it’s alright.” How very sweet is that?
If you are not from North Carolina, or the south in general, you may not understand that as close as some people could be there were still “rules” unwritten rules about mixing, socializing and the such, so it could be conflicting. However, I NEVER heard my parents say any negative or critical thing about African Americans publicly or privately. So, Ronnie and I spent the weekend rooming together and I never thought anything of it.
At the State Tournament, there were a lot of matches going on. I don’t remember how Ronnie did right now, but I do remember one monumental match.
It seems like it was the 165 lbs. weight class and, to set the stage, it was a well built white guy against a “Greek-god” of a black guy. In the first period, the referee (a white guy) blew the whistle and said the Greek-god was stalling. Meaning he wasn’t actively trying to wrestle, which was total bullshit, but he was the referee, so it stood.
In the second period the referee, did the same…now the Greek-god had two warnings, one more and he would forfeit the match. He couldn’t protest and I can’t remember if his coach did or not, but what happened next was priceless.
The Geek-god was in the top position and the white guy was in the bottom position. I hope I can describe this because it was the coolest thing I have ever seen. The Greek-god sinched up the waist of his opponent and literally picked him up off of the mat. The kid was kicking and flailing his arms to get out. The Greek-god slid his arm around the kid’s neck in a half-nelson, bent him in half and set the kid’s shoulders down on the mat in a pinned position.
The referee had no option but to slap 1-2-3 and the kid was pinned. It was glorious! The best thing I had ever seen before or since. I’m not sure how he ended up but what a match. It was horrible that there was such prejudice going on at the time, but that was life in 1968, I’m just glad I had a different view and was not part of it.
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