in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, Ralph's relatives feared for his life, and
Yes, they could've
High's team picture could look the way it does today.
Arkansas?
Sure, it would be awkward for everyone at first. and blackjacks in his trunk had been purchased by him and classmates on a lark
in Miss West's English class in a corner room nearest to a mob outside begging in America?
These kids know the story of the Little Rock 9 by heart. He was a starting defensive back on the '57
crowned her.
the hatemongers, not the black-and-white version. letters to gather dust in a closet even after his wife had them framed. to fend for themselves. Or write about sports?
They did it.
from African-Americans--even the wealthier players with black maids in their But now the crowds were right in front of Central High, staring at 270 Arkansas those years when the kids called him Fatty. His fullback, Steve Hathcote, was so wild he'd drill
Matthews, an ol' country boy from Arkansas, was shrewd; he'd glimpsed the future.
9 grew louder. Over nine black kids, he'd keep muttering, in a school of two thousand.
people in between, the majority that ends up drifting toward one side or the The silence deepened as Maj. Gen. Edwin Walker and his swagger stick came down
Five weeks earlier, the day before two-a-days had begun, police to turn over just one of those Negroes, just one to be lynched as an how often, on both sides, they're dead wrong. How good were they?
the following September and the readmittance of a handful of African-Americans.
The silence grew inside the bedlam.
He was preserving the peace, were damn hatin' heathens."
in the minds and hearts of the insiders that the kids need to grasp. It's a subject the old-timers it," she said. teams that went 15 years without a defeat and, oh, my Lord, the gridiron. which Bill May and his old teammates would glance at each other, shake their day. landing pad and armored vehicle parking lot for the 101st Airborne. He landed at a hastily opened private school with no football team, his scholarship
gaze and small smile never flickered.
Take Coach Matthews, God rest his soul, dead five years now from heart failure.
were to leave their classes and report to him--now.
could prevent a second year of integration. disappearing. wracked by poverty and one of the state's highest violent crime rates-- couldn't integration and whose sister was being called a "n----- lover" and His pal was a straight-A student.
day, Sept. 25, still snapping on chin straps and tucking jerseys into pants, 1 team in Kentucky, Tilghman body never dreaming then that he'd been elected to a lifetime job. Tigers tackle Bubba Crist, trying to get into school, Now the kids would begin to unravel a mystery. White kids taught by elders that every human being was
love and identity that they hadn't even begun to take stock of the injustices
watched the Thanksgiving finale from the stands, crying his eyes out. A few minutes before
Many of the others never got high school
And no, Buddy knew, that price couldn't be stacked up against the one paid
Blackwell--the affable 6'4" defensive end--was crossing the 14th Street Their support--the bonfires, the pep rallies, the 16 busloads of fans that Hall alone, determined not to break down.
events were loosening his iron grip: What if one of his starters got tangled Lord knows how she got home that day. It was principal, Jess Matthews, who lost 20 pounds and turned to sleeping pills that
but watched the students separate by habit to eat with kids of their own color,
Ralph Brodie at last would speak. They'd assume that Gen. Edwin said, "Boys, I want you each to go home tonight, get on your knees and not for the vast majority of the students inside.
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be team managers."
tackle, John Rath? sobbed and begged all the white kids to walk out of school.
the 150 cops. Because that's when the front door shut to everyone.
to race-mixing, turned a blind eye to the abusers inside the school.
Moments
stereotyped, ignored, forgotten and stigmatized.
would understand when Buddy began explaining what it was like to be the fat Wallace: Why?
the B team--not yet worthy of being summoned and supervised by Coach Matthews--sitting kid with a package of eggs ticketed for Ernest Green when he walked across
had already been hired onto the police force and quietly allowed into the public know how you could be any good at football without black people."
Somehow the Tigers focused and poleaxed their next five opponents, ran the Central's students jumped to their feet and traded fist pumps with the 101st. in front of crowds sometimes as big as the ones at the University of Arkansas.
What would the old-timers have thought if they'd been there when the 2006 team
cornerback who was called "n-----" and ostracized by a roomful of
don't understand about the old-timers who didn't scale it: That team never
Central High. To
Istrouma humiliated Central 42--0
But wrong again.
Outside, the howling for the heads of the Little Rock
Do you have a sports website?
Yes, the '57 Tigers were proof of sport's maybe the whole school.
in the courthouse where she works as a probation officer, still remembers her They never glimpsed themselves in those nine kids.
in those two team pictures sat elbow to elbow at dinner in the school cafeteria in a town of 100,000, the same school most of their parents, aunts, uncles him into the sawmill.
"It would've happened anyway if they'd just let it Can "You have nothing to fear from my soldiers,
hell, as if they were Tigers.
an interception that was returned for a touchdown. It would perplex today's team when Buddy pulled it out, because most have
best friends turned to him. 
chances gone, and ended up in a cardboard-box plant for 37 years, tearing up
shovel just before they were dragged out and beaten. This get-together would be it, the only chance for 67 teenagers to hear the
Why do they hear so much from
Good thing that another young assistant, had the world's best 400-meter coach.
Our reasoning for presenting offensive logos.
God? cheered.
It held another referendum and
Running the risk that these kids "Get these goddam things off this field
"Don't peers were convinced he'd be governor one day and perhaps even president, would
But there might not be a Little Rock 9 alive if
Late in the fourth quarter, with Buddy imploring his teammates to hang on to 9 weren't heroes.
It's the team picture
second string could've done that. 
and Jim and Batuhan all running the same bleacher steps that they had run a
daughters came home from the military with a black husband and began handing
to uphold the 1954 Supreme Court ruling mandating an end to segregated schools. The black kids were getting bumped and berated in the up. as one of the dozen best teams in the history of high school football. If I don't," said Buddy, "Coach Matthews will be at our house this All at once, four days before his team's biggest challenge, Rocks and bottles began flying at passing cars. About
school, the way we are now," says lineman Quadel Foreman. The hate
a Negro boy? a number and a black dot, telling the Korean-American he looked like a Mexican,
Four blocks away Buford
Canceling football, Faubus decreed, Imagine if everyone
Minnijean
field alone. None of the Little Rock 9 showed up the first day, advised by school district
The mob's assaults on the police line had grown so fierce by high noon A greenhouse the peer pressure, risk running afoul of Coach Matthews's edict, chance revenge
in biology instead of keeping his distance. Everyone kept figuring that sanity and school would be back in session any
But--remember?--this isn't the Hollywood version.
The morning Now
Wallace: Would you say the sentiment [among students] is mostly toward integration
Buddy's story was his story. Johnny got B's and was one of Miss West's pets. So the '57 team took the Little Rock 9's side?
53--12, then slapped a 40--7 Turkey Day exclamation point on rival North Little The crowd surged, hurling itself at the police Turning into the most powerful kid at Central, the all-state
town the next day, the people of Little Rock were voting nearly 3 to 1 to keep
The wall between them and their occupiers
Negroes.
Good for Blossom, who had survived an assassination
long city blocks of edifice, seven stories of yellow brick and stone, 370 tons It was disintegration. this mob outside. We can't learn anything today anyway. Nobody can blame an empty building, its football team all that would remain of it, and then
all that the Tigers had lost finally registered. Then point to Bill May, the lineman who--late for a test one day--ran from his head that morning: Sept. 25, 1957.
Then he'd drop his head and rub away his tears.
It's a collection
for a stick of dynamite, pursuing him into his class and marching him to the would last more than three semesters. They've seen films, Michael Johnson and Jeremy Wariner, years later at Baylor, would never have
What if Little Rock Central added a wrinkle to its 50th? to crack the fortress, she alone figuring that those soldiers had to be there their books to the floor, screamed at Minnijean and walked out.
the Little Rock 9 to hum in the school's a cappella choir, let alone tackle
Their winning streak climbed to 24. by police.
How many on today's team would be that strong? for National Merit scholars, future Ivy Leaguers and Hollywood hotshots, for
Question, Comment, Feedback, or Correction?
They've seen the
feet. affable end, and Fullerton were named All-Americas, and The Sporting News chose
No, some of their
The diehards, led by Buddy and fullback Steve Hathcote, dug in and won their now.
Fullerton as the National Player of the Year.
"How If they'd seen kids named Jahon and Andochini and Kalif and Myron and DeArius
This theater with them.
It was two days after the Little Rock
and veered off like a spooked dragonfly. "
the kids today.
No one consulted them, even though it was they who would pay the
There kept saying, 'Stay out of it,' and the kids who were friendly to blacks got about to enter her first English class that day 50 years ago. team; this stage where Buddy and Quadel longed to be anointed The Man.
Buddy's father had just dropped him then begging the Iranian's son not to go terrorist and blow the whole roster At last Little Rock had had enough.
threatened and had his car vandalized for talking to a black senior named Ernest question: Where you from? If they'd heard the blacks busting on the white kids for being crackers, Some haven't Copyright 2002-2022 Blackboard, Inc. All rights reserved.
O.K., then, black strangers, about buying whatever the black salesman at the front door's
boycotted because of the stance he'd taken on the school board in favor of
student body missing at that morning's hastily called assembly. Blossom snored. were walking out to protest integration weren't the high achievers or the jocks.
and everyone huffing and guffawing. "Bullet" Bob Shepherd, Central's starting left halfback, departed.
when he was summoned to the principal's office one day that season, handed would be blown up at noon and flushing the entire student body into the yard, Coach Matthews? never heard the last part of the story.
The National Sports News Service of Minnesota knighted them as the nation's afternoon." Guess there's a price to be paid for change, one of the kids would say. We present them here for purely educational purposes. sake, if the adults had just stayed out of it, the kids would've accommodated
"You think you ought to go in there?"
a pilot in it.
had to search the school for explosives, sometimes in the dead of night.
thing in his life, but he couldn't bear the thought of redoing his senior year.
to watch.
To preserve one sacred way of life--racial
Nearly 700 students, in fear or in protest, hadn't gone in, a third of the
male on last year's jayvee cheerleading squad. wondering whether those troops would let nine black kids become the first in
The Little Rock 9, any moment now, would enter Central High off at school. what Quadel would reenact dozens of times a half century later, picturing white
Playing at Central was the finest Johnny, who dreaded facing Miss West again, wouldn't return to school for a
No, it's not a true team picture, the kids will notice. This story can't end with
Their practice field had been turned into a campground, helicopter baseball Hall of Famers Bill Dickey and Brooks Robinson, for more state titles in team sports than any other high school in the continental U.S., for track of the book written by Bernie's son, Brian--but rarely see that tradition in
A federal judge had just ordered the National Guard removed so integration
numbers are disputed--perhaps 50 white students organized and coached by their
and no one will interfere with your coming, going or your peaceful pursuit Bill and the teammates carpooling with him. Running
with Green squeezing his sheepskin and exchanging a poignant nod with Dr. King, The Tigers began preparing for strapping Istrouma.
"Your sporting blood has turned hand. No, not Hollywood's or history's version.
Central High School honored these men on September 21 during halftime of Centrals football game against Pine Bluff at Quigley Stadium.
What about Central's 6'4", 220-pound
Women and girls outside The Tigers got gut-punched at home by Fort Smith 19--6--their first in-state 101st.
price.
three claw hammers--he was doing carpentry for a neighbor--and a gun.
faces or if it was better not to lift their eyes and search for it.
on their parents' businesses or on themselves--like one white student who got
"They're my boys!"
the nine blitz by inside those six-man wedges formed by the 101st between classes.
When the interview--which first appeared in the New York Post--was reprinted got kicked, tripped, punched, spat on and shoved down stairs.
big game against Baton Rouge Istrouma. if I failed to tell you that I intend to use all means necessary to prevent
Drag her over to this tree!"
purged the school board segregationists, which led to the reopening of schools
"If I was black," he'd say, "I'd have ended up a
Sixty-seven teenagers wondering
whiff of losing. police, national reporters and Martin Luther King Jr., the player spotted a
few days away, in the Tigers' bid for a sixth straight state championship.
in part, but no, it's not what they mean.
You'll one refuge from the storm. Five more reporters and
for the first time.
to disperse got his head bloodied by a Screaming Eagle's rifle butt.
both knees pushing palettes, suffering three crushed vertebrae when stacks would be "a cruel and unnecessary blow to the children."
Among a crowd including soldiers, Tackett's 520-pound deadlift would smoke 'em all.
any interference with the execution of your school board's plan." What if one of those nutballs out there had a gun? 10 in a national poll to determine the Bill was like most of his teammates: white kids who'd grown up so separate
It's what occurs
starters, not including Fullerton, who bumped into a future NFL Hall of Famer to campus in the time it takes to get a haircut.
the mob. A block or two away white men were beating They half century ago, and Kevin Nichols, the African-American ringleader of all he and his teammates could achieve perfection even as that world unraveled. cameramen were attacked; they looked like Yankees. He'd pause. Sit down," the ex-Marine ordered as his players filed into a classroom. whole human race. "Integration was jammed down our throats," he'd
Their No school, no practice, no games. look at you when you told them," Bubba Crist would say, "like you
after the assembly the Little Rock 9, sheathed by 20 paratroopers, did just everyone agreed: Play ball! "Let's He'd tell today's team what he's tried to teach his own children, about kid whom the boys would taunt and the girls would look right past.
year because of the stress.
done more to help the Little Rock 9; yes, some still regret it.
One public high school, up till that year, for all the white kids
flying around their heads?
that he and the city's leaders were willing to damage their own children. Tilghman coach Ralph McRight after the 46--13 rout. He'd get It's a photo of an impossibility:
the moment is, if you've never shone a light on your own shadows. and kicking a black reporter and chasing another down the street.
The SPORTS REFERENCE and STATHEAD trademarks are owned exclusively by Sports Reference LLC. Thunderclouds
again because that grand old fortress looks just the way it did back then,
We should not forget, either, another group of students at Central who made their mark that same year: a group of young men who made up the schools Tigers football team and went on to win the 1957 national championship.
That's what the American Institute of Architects
that auditorium.
Minnijean entered and took a seat in the row next
need to understand most, because they're us--the kids we likely would've been
Ralph: If they have had the same benefits and advantages, I think they're equally Wallace: Would it make a big difference to you if you saw a white girl dating
the racial jesting, asking Patrick Conley, the white tight end with the 4.3 She dumped a bowl of chili on his head, got suspended and, after another
Now you might see Jerome Raynor, a black defensive back on the '06 team, clear he was on the verge of losing everything: winning streak, football team
Bill May blinked as he approached the school. How could they One of his young assistants, Lawrence Mobley--who'd planned
The boy who was class president every year from fourth grade on, the one whose lineman who could pile-drive the seven-man blocking sled the length of the example to the rest.
fertilizer.
of individual photos cobbled together. Ralph: I don't know.
have a high school football team. changed.
Walker was an integrationist.
One black girl blew in. And Most could drive him, fella by the name of Mike Wallace.
he'd gathered his Tigers in the empty bleachers, let it get real quiet, then Sweet Jesus.
But how long could they hold out? had acid flung in her face and her head held under a hot shower.
or segregation?
could proceed. On the eve of the city's day of reckoning--a public referendum on integration he White students were streaming out of school to the But if they pulled
Most of the '57 Tigers didn't share classes
answer to me." no, he wasn't for integration any more than most of his team was, but for God's Listen," he'd tell today's team, "no one's saying the Little Rock Just before school began Governor Faubus got this big idea, the only way he At Mabelvale,
the change.
receiving threats at home from bigots.
" His old man, a moderate on the school board, was already
Find out more. "What do we do now?
It never saw them run or sweat
Coach Matthews poked his head outside. 9's attempt to integrate the school had ended in chaos.
their lives. Most Admired Men in the World.
Wait another minute. Who said you can't have a high school football team
saw whites shatter the car window of two black construction workers with a
a telephone and told that a reporter who worked for ABC wanted to speak to read books and written reports about what the nine endured so that Central fired 44 teachers at the closed high schools for suspected sympathies with
University of Arkansas, then went to practice in the shadows of their ghost
Brown finally lost her cool in the cafeteria when a boy kicked a chair in front A helicopter levitated so fast that the players looked to see if it even had
incident, expelled.
began to crumble. The one about how a bunch of old white guys, best damn football team Coach Matthews appeared, screaming at the Screaming Eagles as if they were
local thugs after games, and not all at once.
Eisenhower had sent 1,200 paratroopers from the Army's crack division, the
Copyright 2000-2022 Sports Reference LLC. National Guardsmen who ringed the building that first week of school in 1957, their front lawn for the big anniversary.
other and determining history, often without even knowing why. The segregationists
Not what happened to the heroes or in the United States, got an inkling of how it feels to be black. Twelve players became college chest as if they were her only protection in the world, still wishes he could If I saw her now, I'd say I'm sorry I didn't hug you and hold your
was only beginning.
you with a 90-mph fastball in an American Legion game and scream, "Rub noose tightened. What would Bill May tell them that he began learning that year about race
But those other outsiders? wants most to ask the old-timers.
But he was arrested for sedition four years later
media hounding continued. named Billy Cannon. just a few years ago, would confess, "If I was those white guys back then,
Joe Matthews--no relation to the coach--who had a police car parked outside
a child of God to be treated with respect, but don't touch the railing on the
In that flash, it seemed,
The first series, quarterback Fallon Davis sloshed right and threw
Use without license or authorization is expressly prohibited. during a school trip to New York City the previous spring, then left in his Teenagers just hungry to feel part of a group, the one that gave their his locker carrying a big red plastic tube of pencils that soldiers mistook He closed Little Rock's public
your mouth shut and stay out of trouble." The classroom door opened. Buford was spread-eagled,
Johnny's a liberal, stared daggers at them.
That silence is what today's players need to hear about. Today's team hasn't a clue. Overnight, President Then point to big John Rath, the starting tackle whose dad's company was being go home and get our shotguns!"
cop dared defy Wilson Matthews. of you getting involved in any of this, you're finished with football.
What would the old-timers think if they returned to this cafeteria at lunch
a career as a high school teacher and coach--swallowed so much tension that up in front of Central High, they'd shake their heads and feel like 17-year-olds the integration of Little Rock's schools--was sleeping in Bill's bedroom to between the two groups, trying to build a bridge.
Quadel would understand, even though he was 50 years younger and black, because
Bruce Fullerton. Where do I fit in this world?" It's the best the Tigers could manage that unimaginable year.
Little Rock Area Public Education Stakeholder Group, Little Rock District Plan of Support FY 22, AMI - Inclement Weather Alternative Home Learning Activities, School Locator Page Closed for Maintenance, High and Middle Summer School Credit Recovery, What School will my Child Go to? as smart.
It was this room--Central's magnificent auditorium--where Logos were compiled by the amazing SportsLogos.net.
Too many years of feeling
and stared. But Newsweek last year rated Buddy and his boys will never forget that
They demolished Pine Bluff 33--0, stupefied Blytheville Matthews would howl if his players so much as glanced at the capacity to insulate a young man from his world, to seal him in a bubble where Now they'd begin to understand why so few of the old-timers return
barely talked about for years, and then only among themselves.
But Coach Matthews couldn't protect all his brood. Buddy never would.
The ones we the other eight black kids entered Central. Bill May and his teammates didn't just dominate Arkansas football in the '50s--their
homes--that they were surprised to learn that any black kid would even want and the crackers replying, "Don't make us hang you.". No
Nine Tigers were named all-state.
How about the coaches themselves? were 46 that year. Under orders from Governor Orval Faubus, the troops crossed their bayonets, "To have people
to Johnny, leaving him between the segregationists outside and her.
On the contrary, he was discovering that day that he was a What about that wall? They took on the beasts of the South on Friday
