Trading Cards

My mother threw my old trading cards away when I went away for college. I can't blame her. They were sitting idly in the attic of our house, remnants of my boyhood obsessions, and I, suddenly a somber if not self-important student of philosophy in college, had expressed no recent interest in them. In fact, I was disdainful towards the athletic department at Vanderbilt, believing that tens of thousands of dollars to purchase state-of-the-art stadium lights for Dudley Field was money that could have been better spent on purchasing library books. In my philosophical rejection of the obscene amounts of money spent on athletics (and this was in the early 1980's!), I missed some SEC opportunities: Herschel Walker running the ball for the Georgia Bulldogs, or Charles Barkley, the "Round Mound of Rebound," playing basketball for the Auburn Tigers. I could go on with the list of phenomenal athletes who played against Vanderbilt in that era, but my point is this: I did not want to consider the possibility that college sports and a serious study of philosophy were not necessarily mutually exclusive pursuits. Or something like that. I at least try to reconcile the two things now, as difficult as that can be.

I was an angry young man, willfully pissed that umpteen thousand early-1980's dollars were going to enhance the lighting of the Hershel Walker highlight reels.






Check out his college highlights from back in the day. There are a lot of guys in gold helmets chasing Walker from behind, except for the guys in gold helmets that he had already bowled over.






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I digress. Here are the cards, which I found as links on a website of the Atlanta Falcons. I don't have them all, but most of them are here:



http://www.atlantafalcons.com/media_library/Photos/2008/03/Trading_Cards_031808/mitchell1971.aspx

http://www.atlantafalcons.com/media_library/Photos/2008/03/Trading_Cards_032508/mitchell1972.aspx

http://www.atlantafalcons.com/media_library/Photos/2008/04/Trading_Cards_040108/mitchell1973.aspx

http://www.atlantafalcons.com/media_library/Photos/2008/04/Trading_Cards_040808/mitchell1974.aspx




http://www.atlantafalcons.com/media_library/Photos/2008/05/Trading_Cards_050708/mitchell1975.aspx


http://www.atlantafalcons.com/media_library/Photos/2008/05/Trading_Cards_051308/mitchell1976.aspx


http://www.atlantafalcons.com/media_library/Photos/2008/05/Trading_Cards_052808/mitchell1977.aspx





http://www.atlantafalcons.com/media_library/Photos/2008/06/062408_Trading_Cards/mitchell1978.aspx



http://www.atlantafalcons.com/media_library/Photos/2009/02/Trading_Cards_020309/mitchell1979.aspx

I will likely re-read them, because with each reading I am reminded of how brilliant and enduring an athlete Jim Mitchell was. No wonder I idolized him in my youth, before my desire to wear the helmets of continental philosophy and deconstruction got the best of me.

Thursday Night Lights Out*

Ever since I began my BCTS research I've revisited some of my favorite sports films: Hoosiers, Hoop Dreams, and Remember the Titans immediately come to mind. A few months in I started searching for new stories, however, thinking that perhaps I had a new story, and it was then that I stumbled upon the NBC pilot for its television adaptation of Friday Night Lights.

I admit that my research on BCTS football-- the 82 game streak, the 52 consecutive shutouts, the firebrand of a coach who brought discipline and success to a high school program--has prompted fantasies about writing a screenplay for a feature film. These have remained largely fantasies, and will likely stay so.

However, after watching all three seasons of Friday Night Lights, after learning that the series has been renewed for two more seasons, and especially after discovering the final plot twist at the end of season three, my fantasies have been revived.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the story line, the third season of FNL ends with Coach Taylor being replaced as coach of the Dillon Panthers, the victim of small-town politics. He is reassigned to coach at East Dillon High, which is slated to reopen the next fall with its antiquated facilities after having been closed for many years.

The final shot of the season has Coach Taylor and his wife Tammy standing in the middle of the old football field at East Dillon, surrounded by substandard bleachers, lost in the uncertainty of it all. Amidst this dreary setting, though, there lurks the thought nurtured by any true believer in the virtues of the underdog: the promise that in its heydey this field was the setting for some very gifted athletes playing some very good football.

The field and stadium of East Dillon are remarkably similar to the field and stadium where Bedford County Training School used to play its brand of very good football. Texas, like Tennessee, had its own segregated interscholastic leagues before its native son Lyndon Johnson pushed for civil rights in our country. The similarities are compelling.

What if? What if the writers for Friday Night Lights were to incorporate a rich football tradition at East Dillon, very similar to that of Bedford County Training School, into its storyline? The list of phenomenal football players from Texas high schools who played in the segregated system and later played in the NFL is impressive. There are any number of Pork Chop Mitchell's for the writers to choose from.

What if? What if the writers were to incorporate the small-town racial tensions that were an inevitable part of that bygone era? What if Coach Taylor were to hire some of East Dillon's old football stars to coach their grandchildren, the ones who still live on the "wrong" side of the dividing line that sends certain kids to East Dillon, where there is neither a Jumbotron nor a disturbingly wealthy and influential booster club?

What if? What if some of East Dillon's legendary teachers came out of retirement to teach kids on the "wrong" side of the dividing line? What if they had to see history repeat itself as they fought for funding for AP programs while, on the other side of town, the Dillon Panther coaching staff was showered with yet another cutting edge computer system?

There are a lot of "What ifs?" for development. There are a lot of possibilties, and the racial and social issues in the 21st century of course ought to include Hispanics, a group that has been largely ignored during the first three seasons of the show. Fortunately, there are two seasons worth of stories left for the writers to construct, and they can still add several interesting curves to their narrative arcs.

I would love to correspond with these writers, because I think there is gold to be be found if they dug deeply enough in examining the many "What if's" that the BCTS storyline, properly appropriated, can generate for Friday Night Lights.

A treasure trove of social commentary is not that far from the surface.



*During the classic Thankgiving Day battles for the Cedar Bucket, the famous marching band from Tennessee State University (then called Tennessee A & I) often performed at halftime--in the dark. Apparently it was a tradition for the lights to go out so that the band could light up the place with its sharp music and even sharper choreography.

I am told that some people, indifferent to football, came strictly for the "Lights Out" show during the Cedar Bucket days.

I swear that there is gold for the taking here.

Racism

It has been too long since my last post, and I am afraid that my only reason is cowardice.
My football career ended when I was in 6th grade, when I put away the shoulder pads for good after three years of playing YMCA ball for Campus School in Memphis. By the time I was a 6th grader, I was a decent player, but what I mostly remember is the sheer terror I felt, as a rookie 4th grader, when we were forced to run "head-on" drills in practice.
The drill is simple: the players assemble in two single-file lines, with the ones who are first in their respective lines standing about ten yards apart. Once the whistle blows, the two at the front of their line are supposed to run head-on into each other, one-on-one and may the best man (or boy) win. This was what later became known to me as "smash-mouth" football. There is no evading your opponent; there is only full-speed contact. Brute force. Might did make right.
I remember standing in line and counting heads on the opposite line, hoping that I would not have to run a head-on with a giant 6th grader. There was one boy, the largest and the hardest-hitting of the older boys, whose name I still remember: Tommy Tilson. I would lie, cheat, or steal to avoid a head-on with that kid, and I'm certain that I did all I could to avoid him.
My point is this: racism is the Tommy Tilson of my BCTS narrative. I have avoided much mention of it so far, but today I bought a book that forced me to do a head-on with this subject. The book is The Children of the South, written by Margaret Anderson.
Anderson writes about her experience as a teacher in the public high school in Clinton, Tennessee. Clinton High was the first school in Tennessee to desegregate, a process that began peacefully but shortly became a nightmare of hatred and violence for an otherwise quiet town in East Tennessee in the 1950's.
One of the lowlights of the story occurs in the fall of 1959, when the school was destroyed: dynamite, courtesy of the lily-white "Citizens' Council," did its deadly work. No children were in the building at the time of the explosions, but the damage was nonetheless devastating for the community and the rest of the country.
My story of playground cooperation in Shelbyville is a thing of beauty, but not everything concerning race relations in Bedford County was always so beautiful. In fact, there was a firebombing in that story as well, a firebombing and subsequent burning of the Bedford County Courthouse by a mob of angry whites during the trial of a black man accused of raping a white girl. The burning of the courthouse occured in the 1930's, and the story of BCTS' victory streak begins in 1943. No matter how much I want to avoid it, I cannot: not everything about race relations in Bedford County was as beautiful as the story of blacks and whites playing sandlot football together. And 1943 is not very far removed from the burning of the courthouse.
The burning of the courthouse in Shelbyville made national news. It, like Tommy Tilson, was no small thing.
I suppose it is time for a head-on.

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Here is Time magazine's account of the courthouse burning and the events that preceded it: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,754475-1,00.html#

RADIO INTERVIEW AT WLIJ

Pictured, left to right: Henry Cooley, Samuel Whitmon, Cecil Whitmon, Will P. Martin, Henry B. Hamilton, Lendell Massengale, Samuel Abernathy.








Several years ago these gentlemen assembled for a radio interview, hosted by Will Overcast, on Shelbyville's WLIJ-AM. Henry has given me a copy of the broadcast, but it is on cassette tape and will have to be transferred to a different format for me to post it here.




For now, let me go left to right for some brief introductions:

1. Henry Cooley: the man who has worked hard to keep the BCTS story alive





2. Samuel Whitmon: played for BCTS during the golden era of 1943-50*





3. Cecil Whitmon: played for BCTS during the golden era of 1943-50





4. Will P. Martin: taught and coached at BCTS/Harris High School





5. Henry B. Hamilton: played for BCTS in the 1930's




6. Lendell Massengale: coached and taught at BCTS/Harris High School




7. Samuel Abernathy: played for BCTS during the golden era of 1943-50
   
   

Henry tells me that there are fewer than ten players from the 1943-50 era who are still living, and pictured above are a handful of that company. As I am introduced to them and their roles in the BCTS story, I have obviously been impressed by their successes on the football field. I've been even more impressed, however, by the contributions all of them made in their adult lives. Influenced by Professor E.C. Finley and their other teachers at BCTS, they have gone on to coach, teach, and lead in innumerable ways, giving back to others what they once received from their elders.

*For just one example of the influence that many BCTS players later had others, both on the playing field and in the classroom, see http://www.onnidan.com/02-03/news/august/tnst0814.htm for a review of Samuel Whitmon's career. One of the best quarterbacks ever to don the blue and gold at BCTS, he mentored thousands of young people at Fisk University and Tennessee State University.

RITES OF PASSAGE

My mother, my wife, the author, and my father at the University of Virginia in May 1992.

I want to do more with today's post than time will permit. What I want to do is talk about how, in the 1940's and 50's, an era of racial segregation, the game of football brought Shelbyville's whites and blacks together on a practice field adjacent to Central's official playing field.


Bedford County Training School played its home football games on Shelbyville Central's field. Central, which was the "white" school before desegregation, played its games on Friday nights.



The beauty of the story, however, comes from what the players chose to do on the weekends. They played football together, not as blacks or whites, but as young people pursuing their collective passion.







I have written many words on this phenomenonal story, but Shelbyville's sandlot story continues to amaze me. It has also forced me to think back to my own experiences on the playground. It has made me understand how seemingly meaningless contests, in retrospect, combined to provide a most meaningful rite of passage:







For many of us, the seriousness of a child at play was most intense on the playing fields of our youth. If we force ourselves to travel back to those playing fields, many of us can revisit the crucible where character was forged. I know that I learned to become a man on those playing fields, most of the time with no adult intervention, and I suspect that many of you know exactly what I am talking about. A remarkable phenomenon occurred on a regular basis: a society-unto-itself was created by willing adolescents. Whatever the game, we had to establish the rules of the game and we had to agree to play by the rules. There were no adult officials in striped shirts to keep us in line. We kept ourselves in line.
What better way was there to prepare ourselves for the challenges of our adult lives?

On the playground no outcome is predetermined, your family’s status or the color of your skin is irrelevant. What matters is how well you play the game. On the playground your parents’ way of keeping score disappears. Your talents are tested with no guarantees of success, and this is the way it has to be for real growth to take place. Despite the rough and tumble of often fierce competition, a potential Hobbesian war of all versus all usually becomes a workable and orderly realm; young people construct their own worlds within the boundaries of the playing field, accepting the social contract where playing by the rules is the mark of a good citizen. Those who do not play by the rules are the outliers, and they eventually either adapt to expectations or find other places to play. It is democracy in action.









How, you may ask, does all of this relate to the Fighting Tigers Bedford County Training School? In a very interesting way. I am told by many former players that skin color was of no real significance during the playground matches. Captains were agreed upon, and they picked their players. They picked the players who could play the game. They picked the players who could move the ball down the field. They picked the players who could prevent the other team from advancing downfield.







I recognize that there was no such thing as a color-blind, utopian meritocracy on Shelbyville's playing fields. But I do know that when I asked my father, an accomplished football player in the late 1950's at East High School in Memphis, if blacks and whites played sandlot games together back in the day, he insisted that this did not take place in Memphis until much later.







I have been told that when BCTS (then known as Harris High School) closed in the 1960's in order to fully integrate Shelbyville Central, the transition, while not an easy one, was eased because many of the blacks and whites knew each other well before desegregation took place.







That is a great story that is in stark contrast to my own experiences back in the early 1970's, when the process of school desegregation in Memphis was rife with conflict and turmoil.







Time is short this evening, and there is so much more that I want to say.







I'll save it for a later post.

PORK CHOP MITCHELL: A STARTER AND A STAR

Jim "Pork Chop" Mitchell started playing football for BCTS when he was in the 8th grade. And, as he was quick to point out to anyone who cared to know, he started on the varsity team as an 8th grader. He played on the offensive line initially, but eventually he was moved to tight end when coaches began to recognize his unique combination of size, speed, and soft hands.

As I mentioned in a previous post, the quest for good football equipment at BCTS was an ongoing one. Pork Chop was issued a pair of pants for his first game that were several sizes too large. Just happy to be in the game, however, he tightened his belt and played his best. "I must have done a pretty good job, because when I showed up for practice the next Monday there was a brand new pair of pants waiting for me."

Nothing succeeds like success. In five years of playing football for BCTS, four years of playing college ball at Prarie View A&M, and eleven years of playing for the NFL's Atlanta Falcons, Pork Chop Mitchell started every single game he ever suited up for. Altogether, he was a starter, and a star, for twenty consecutive years.

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Here is a Topp's trading card issued early in Mitchell's NFL career. His talent was apparent to all who saw him play:

http://www.atlantafalcons.com/media_library/Photos/2008/03/Trading_Cards_031808/mitchell1971.aspx

THE FISK CONNECTION

As organized sports go, fielding and outfitting a football team is extraordinarily expensive. Professor Sidney W. Harris, the longtime principal at Bedford County Training School, was famous for his ability to work wonders on a very small budget. The story of how the Fighting Tigers came to don the blue and gold colors for the first time certainly attests to his legendary abilities.

Harris, a graduate of Fisk, paid a visit to Nashville in 1937 with one goal in mind: he wanted to land the best football coach he could find for BCTS. According to Will P. Martin, a Fisk graduate who also coached football at BCTS, Harris approached Fisk's athletic director and made his needs emphatically and unequivocally clear, "I want an All-American."

Harris asked and he received. The athletic director pointed him towards Edward Finley, who had played center at Fisk for three years in the 1930's. After a brief conversation, Finley agreed to move to Shelbyville to begin a career in coaching. Wasting no time, Harris then asked Fisk's athletic director if he had any football equipment to spare.

Again, Harris asked and he received. A trip to the locker room yielded all the free second-hand equipment that Finley needed, and the Fisk blue and gold on the discarded jerseys immediately became BCTS' school colors and stayed so for years to come.

The Fisk connection was not restricted to athletics, however. Sidney Harris established an academic pipeline as well, and some of the best teachers at BCTS over the years were proud Fisk graduates.

Incidentally, Edward Finley was never called Coach Finley. He was known to players and students alike as Professor Finley, a teacher of young men and women. His training at Fisk clearly paid quick dividends, as it took him only two years to begin to field a highly competitive team at BCTS.