Civil Rights in Central Virginia: Football coach took responsibility 'to the future'

Civil Rights in Central Virginia (fifth in a series): With Barack Obama poised to become the nation’s first black President, The News & Advance looks at significant post-1950s civil rights moments in Lynchburg.

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Civil Rights in Central Virginia: The Series

Otis Tucker Jr. may have seen the movie “Remember the Titans,” but he didn’t live it.

In the film, two Alexandria high schools merged under a desegregation mandate, which also meant merging the football teams. Herman Boone, the coach of the black school (played by Denzell Washington) became the head coach, the white school’s coach, Bill Yoast (Will Patton) the top assistant.

In the case of Tucker and E.C. Glass in 1970, it was precisely the reverse. Tucker had been the head coach at Dunbar High School for four years, presiding over an 8-2 season in 1969. When Dunbar and Glass were combined, however, the longevity of Glass coach Vince Bradford made him a natural for the head job. Tucker agreed to a subordinate role.

“When you come right down to it, I didn’t have many options,” he said. “What happened at Glass was happening all over the state, and who knew if I could have gotten a head coaching job somewhere else.”

Perhaps more importantly, he didn’t want to desert “his” players at a very sensitive time. And he understood the significance that football season would play in the long-term status of race relations, not only at Glass, but the city as a whole.

“My responsibility was to the future,” Tucker said when he was voted into the Central Virginia Sports Hall of Fame in 2004. “I felt obligated to make things as smooth as they could be.”

For decades, Lynchburg football fans on both sides of the color line had debated what would happen if Dunbar and Glass were to play each other. It never came about. Instead, separate but equal (at least in this respect), they shared City Stadium on different nights.

“We found out in the spring that we were merging,” said Tucker, now retired after 13 years at Glass. “I talked to my players individually, but I never really got them together in a group. As far as I know, though, no one at either school decided not to play because of the racial thing.”

The 1970 Hilltoppers had six captains — Ed Keefer, Huff Jones and J.A. Stevens from Glass; Garnette Merriman, Albert Jennings (father of current Liberty University star Rashad Jennings) and Harry Dillard from Dunbar.

“That might have been overdoing it,” recalled Tucker, “but both teams had kids who were planning on becoming captains their senior year.”

With both Glass and Dunbar coming off strong seasons, there were high hopes for this “Lynchburg all-star team” in 1970. Instead, what transpired was a football disaster. Glass went 2-8 and was shut out four times.

“The problem wasn’t that the kids didn’t get along,” Tucker said. “I never heard any talking back and forth, never saw any fights. After practice and after games, they went their own way, but they respected each other on the field. The problem was that the two schools played such different systems.”

Bradford, in his final year of coaching, clung to the single wing, a formation virtually every other team in Virginia had dis-carded. It relied on a strong running game, operating behind a dependable offensive line. Brute force trumped deception.

At Dunbar, Tucker recalled, “we ran a T-formation and did a lot more things out of it. We threw the ball a lot more.”

Try as they might, the Dunbar and Glass players couldn’t adjust to the other’s system.

“Vince tried to put some of our plays into his offense, to try and make everybody happy,” Tucker said, “but it just didn’t work. It just made things worse.”

Glass opened the season with a 13-0 victory over Amherst, then lost to Halifax, William Fleming, Staunton Military and Grimsely of Greensboro in succession. After an upset of Jefferson High School of Roanoke, the Hilltoppers finished with losses to Patrick Henry, Martinsville and Garfield.

“The school supported the team at first,” Tucker said, “and then the crowds started to fall off as we got worse.”

Otis Tucker is a thoughtful and perceptive man, and he now knows that the won-loss record of that 1970 team was ultimately irrelevant. Far more important was how those Hilltoppers proved that black Lynchburgers and white Lynchburgers could join forces to work for a common goal, functioning in the process as equals.

Two victories and eight losses notwithstanding, that made the season a success.

Coming in The News & Advance:
INAUGURATING THE PRESIDENT
Monday, Jan. 19: Commemorative Barack Obama Inauguration Section
Tuesday, Jan. 20: Live coverage online, plus a look at where you can watch the inauguration in the area
Wednesday, Jan. 21: Special Barack Obama Inauguration Edition