The next day, I went to the bus and sat next to Tom and he told me more about himself. Tom was one year my senior. His father had died in a horrible car accident, and the white driver who hit him just got away without any roper justice. Today was the football tryouts and my father being the coach, I had to do my best because I knew he wouldn’t let me in the team from the love of his heart. During the tryouts many blacks came, knowing that the coach was black and the others who were white started cursing, didn’t want to tryout, and wanted to go home. Their old coach was friends with my father and he knew that all this was going to happen so as the they were leaving the white coach slammed the door shut and didn’t allow any of the whites to leave, and shouted out that if any of them would leave the team they would not graduate. After this disappointment they all agreed to tryout for the team. We preformed the tryouts and most of us got into the team. At home the white coach gave my father a visit and he told him how they used to train and told him to take good care of the team, because this year is the football college championship, and our team just had to win. The white coach offered to help my father during practices, and my father gladly accepted. My father had organized for our team to go to a football camp that summer so we could train.
School continued normally. For me school was mainly studying, hearing insults, training for the team, and sitting in the back of the bus. After a long wait, summer finally came, the school closed and everyone went outside to play in the sun. It was football camp so I packed my bags and went with my father. As I arrived I saw all of the football team, blacks and whites. I didn’t know that the whites were coming with us, but I couldn’t do anything about it. When we all gathered around my father and the other coach, most of the whites started complaining about playing on the same team with us. The second we got to our beds, a white boy made a stupid remark about us, and a fight broke out. As I was getting back from the fight everyone jumped in to help in the fight, with everyone on top of each other. They looked like flies on a sugar cube. Suddenly all the coaches came and broke up the bone-clashing fight. We all sat down around the dinner table, (we still hadn’t started practicing) and the coaches gave us a long lecture on how we were on the same team and we shouldn’t fight. My father gave us an assignment. The first step was to pick a partner of a different color and practice with them and get to know everything there was to know about them, and report everything to my father the coach the next day during practice.
I was stuck with a white boy called Ben, Ben Scott. Ben was also forced to be my roommate. Ben’s parents were divorced and he was living with his aunt. After a long conversation, I realized that white folks have problems just like us, and deep inside they are descent, the next day at practice, everyone reported to my father except on pair. Even though they were the best two players on our team, my father punished them by kicking them off the team, my father knew they would return, and so they were forced to learn about each other. As days passed we became friends with out partners and with the others as well. We started practicing together and sitting around the same table and chatting together – we became close friends with everyone. It as the last day and we had to leave back to school. We had really enjoyed ourselves and made friends with the whites. As we got on the bus we actually sat in the front wit hall the others and we were so happy that we sang all the way back to school.
Back in school was a different atmosphere – the others still hated us and as we were going to class another fight broke and for once in my life I was so excited that my heart was pounding during the fight. Then whites who were in our team actually stood up and defended the so-called ‘nigger’.
The football championship came, and we played our best and we played together with our fellow whites and we won the cup. Everyone was amazed at our achievements and how we all played so well that they actually started treating our team with respect, and treated us with respect and as if we were human beings. I really give credit to my father the coach for making all this possible. And for a long time our team “The Champions” was remembered and was looked upon as a significant moment in our school’s history. The cup we won stayed in the principal’s office with the teams picture next to it.
