Brock Strickler

GEORGE GILLIAM: [00:00:01] This is the interview of Brock Strickler.  Present is Mr. Strickler, Lorenzo Dickerson, Norman Woolworth, a volunteer like me, and me, George Gilliam.

[Extraneous material redacted.]  The date is November 14, 2022.  What is your date and place of birth?  

BROCK STRICKLER: [00:00:30] Charlottesville, December 29, 1945.  

GG: [00:00:41] And what are the names of your parents and siblings?

BS: [00:00:45] I have no siblings.  My parents, LeRoy and Betty Strickler.  

GG: [00:01:00] And what were their occupations?  

BS: [00:01:04] My father was the head person at Ix.  I can’t remember exactly what his title was.  And my mother really didn’t work.  I had a grandfather who owned W. L. Lacy Plumbing and Heating, and so she went in there and would work some, just doing book work or whatever and other things she’d do from time to time.  

GG: [00:01:37] From as far back as you remember, could you sort of walk me through where you have lived during your years?

BS: [00:01:45] Okay.  Some of this you probably -- when I was born, my father was working at the Newport News shipyard and had, again, some type of position [00:02:00] there.  And I say that because my mother had told me that he tried his best when World War II broke out to enlist, and he kept getting caught at it because his job was too important where he was, thank God.  But I lived on Rutledge Avenue in Charlottesville.  Grew up there.  Then went to university.  Then went in the army.  Got married.  Lived in town for a year or two, and then we lived at Garth Road Frog Rock Lane.  

GG: [00:02:49] So from Rutledge Avenue to UVA to -- in the city of Charlottesville or –

BS: [00:02:58] Yeah, and I’m trying to think of the name of it.  [00:03:00] Del Mar Drive for a number years.  I got married in 1978.  

GG: [00:03:11] And now the hard questions start.  First one is where did you go to elementary school or primary school?

BS: [00:03:22] Venable.

GG: [00:03:25] And what years would those be?

BS: [00:03:28] Well, I graduated in ’57, I think, ’57 or ’58.  I’m not sure.  I can’t even remember exactly, but it was -- I was in the seventh grade in ’58, so graduated the spring of ’58.  

GG: [00:03:57] And then where did you go for middle school?  [00:04:00]

BS: [00:04:02] There was no middle school.  

GG: [00:04:04] Okay.  What was your next stop?

BS: [00:04:07] Eighth grade at Lane.  The eighth grade at Lane.  

GG: [00:04:12] Oh, the eighth grade at Lane.

BS: [00:04:13] Yeah.  

GG: [00:04:23] Did you graduate there in ’62?

BS: [00:04:26] Graduated there in ’64.  

GG: [00:04:50] When you were in high school at Lane, what were some of your after-school activities?

BS: [00:05:00] The two biggest were simply track and football.  I would have tried to play basketball.  My father had been captain of the Virginia team in 1939.  But every time I tried to do something with a basketball at home or whatever, I had more intention of grabbing and running with it than I did trying to dribble, so I just…

GG: [00:05:34] Now, what can you tell me about your career on track?

BS: [00:05:41] I was a sprinter.  I could run 100-yard dash in about normally around 10 seconds, sometimes a little less, sometimes a little more (inaudible) 220.  Matt was the captain of the team in spring of ’64.  I could tell you some stories, but I won’t.  

GG: [00:06:18] And what about football?

BS: [00:06:20] Football all the way through -- I was the starting fullback in my junior year and my senior year.  And in ’63 -- I wrote this down.  Excuse me for looking at it, but in ’62, we had 10 games, and we lost the very first one by some -- it was so bizarre.  I can’t even explain what happened, but we won the last nine.  And I’ll give you the total.  So [00:07:00] it’s very difficult.  We really had some wonderful players that were teammates.  In ’62, we lost that one game.  We scored 208 points.  Opposing teams only got 77.  And then in ’63, when we were the state champions, we got 274 points, and opposition only got 38.  

GG: [00:07:39] Excuse me.  At any point during those years where you were junior and senior at Lane, were there any African American players on your team?  

BS: [00:07:55] Now, senior year, which the [00:08:00] football was in the fall of ’63, there were four: Paul Scott, the two Woodfolk brothers who were twins, and George King.  And every teammate, every coach, we -- it was wonderful because they came from Burley, who had good football and other -- when I lived on Rutledge as a kid, I’d ride down and watch on my bike, watch some of the Burley football games.  And it was enjoyable to have them there.  

GG: [00:08:52] Were there any Black kids on any of the teams you played against?

BS: [00:08:59] No, [00:09:00] which when we would leave Charlottesville and go to some other town, before either I or Gene Arnette, usually Gene, who was the quarterback, would take one of the four fellas and go out and walk around the football field looking and would make it quite clear to him that if all hell broke loose, that’s where we were going to get -- leave so that they knew that they weren’t -- no way were they going to be left or whatever.  

GG: [00:09:47] Were you afraid of all hell breaking loose?  

BS: [00:09:56] Not really, but it was just something that potentially, I guess, [00:10:00] we thought might happen.  And there were a couple of cases where it didn’t happen, but other things did that were very unpleasant.  

GG: [00:10:12] When the teams that you were playing on went to other schools, were there any racial incidents?  

BS: [00:10:23] No.  None.

GG: [00:10:30] Or were you aware of the serious problems at Danville?  

BS: [00:10:40] Maybe not.  I’m not sure.  When we would ride to play a team in another town, it was the three coaches and also Willie Barnett, the athletic director, and you could hear them talking.  There would be maybe slight things mentioned, but nobody was -- we were going to play as a team, football, and that was it.  We weren’t supposed to -- I never had any fear of going anywhere to do anything.  I don’t think anybody did.  

GG: [00:11:18] Did you experience any difficulty getting meals at stops along the way, either going to or coming back from --

BS: [00:11:26] Yes.

GG: [00:11:27] -- the games?  

BS: [00:11:28] Yes.  The only one was when we played Douglas Freeman, and we knew -- in Richmond at Parker Field.  And we knew whoever won that game -- we only had, I think, two games after that, and we knew we weren’t going to have a problem.  We won.  And we stopped on Broad Street when we left, which is rather late, but we stopped the bus to get dinner, if you will, at a Shoney’s.  [00:12:00] Somebody from Shoney’s came out to the bus and said, “Fine.  White boys come on in the restaurant.  We’ll bring the food out here to the Blacks.” And immediately Willie Barnett yelled, “Shut the door, start the engine, and let’s get out of here.” And that’s what the whole attitude everybody on that team had.  

GG: [00:12:28] Were there any other incidents during your years on the team?  

BS: [00:12:33] The only one that affected me one time was -- I think it was Hopewell.  I’m not even sure.  It might have been Hopewell or Danville.  I can’t remember.  We were out warming up before the game, and somebody in the stands threw a big rock.  Fortunately, being a fullback, I had not only a face guard that went sideways, it came down over my nose also, because that rock stuck right in my helmet right [00:13:00] here.  And it would have put my eye out if I hadn’t had that guard up there.  So this made me want to run over somebody even more so.  

GG: [00:13:14] I’ve heard that story a number of times, and I think it was Danville where the rock incident occurred.  

BS: [00:13:24] Mm-hmm.  We were teammates.  It did not matter -- we were glad to have those four with us because they were good.  They were nice.  They’re still friends.  It didn’t matter.  But we were there as a team, as a group for everybody’s interest and everybody’s protection if something were to happen.  

GG: [00:14:04] What was Nick Theodose like as coach.  We have interviewed him twice and --

BS: [00:14:11] You mean Nick or Tommy?  Tommy.

GG: [00:14:13] Tommy.  Tommy.

BS: [00:14:13] Tommy.  Yeah.  I knew Nick also.  He was wonderful.  He, Bingler, and Harrison were the three coaches.  All three of them, for [another term?], they were almost like a father.  He would ask you to do something by yourself sometimes to see if -- how you do it, and he would help you do it better.  In my opinion, there was never a first team, second team, third team.  It was a team, and you go into a game and the ones that were more able to teach the other team a few lessons [00:15:00] would go in, and kids would come in, and you’d go back over to and sit down.  Practices were tough.  

GG: [00:15:15] Now, what does that mean when you say, “Practices were tough”?  Can you give      an example     ?  

BS: [00:15:19] Well, first of all, you had no water.  Nobody.  And I think for whatever the rule was in the state or wherever, you were not given any water during practice.  When practices ended, particularly in the summertime, in August, we were all in cars, seeing who could get to the Monticello Dairy first to get into the (inaudible) buy stuff right in there, [milk?], a gallon to just drink it or whatever, but...  They were interested in the way [00:16:00] -- they were like fathers.  I think even to some degree, maybe Harrison and Bingler might have checked with some teachers to see how your grades were.  You were taught respect.  You were taught you’re not going to get any -- I don’t think we ever had any fouls called against us.  They were respected.  You did what you were told to do.  One example that I never forgot because I have a fella named Donald [Thacker?] who I grew up with, was on the team.  He was a tackle, and he -- I played against him when he went to VPI and we were running -- at the end of every practice, you would run ten 50-yard sprints.  Nobody ever sprinted, but I was running with him on one of them, and I think it was the seventh one we were doing, and Harrison was [00:17:00] down in the end zone, and Tommy was up at the 50-yard line.  And we got about halfway down, and he - Theodose yelled to him.  He said, “I’m kind of lost.  I don’t know how many they’ve done.  How many is it?” And Harrison yelled back, “Four.” Donald made a comment that -- I immediately moved away from Donald, (laughs) so...  But it was done.  He didn’t have any complaint necessarily about anything.  And nobody left.  The people who came out to play stayed out to play.

GG: [00:17:43] Did you get any honors?  Where you fullback of the year or anything like that?

BS: [00:17:52] I hate to say this.  I might have, but I really don’t know.  It was not important to me.  [00:18:00] Most of us in the senior end of it and a few in the junior still get together at least once a year.  As an old expression, that the people you grew up with know what you are, who you are, what you’ve done, and what you haven’t done.  And if they’re still putting up with you, they’re the best friend you’ll ever have, so...

GG: [00:18:25] You went to UVA.

BS: [00:18:27] Yes.

GG: [00:18:28] Were you recruited as an athlete?

BS: [00:18:30] Gene Arnette and I were on scholarships.  [00:19:00]

GG: [00:19:03] How many other scholarship players did that -- did your senior class at Lane produced?  You offhand?

BS: [00:19:12] I’m going to estimate there were maybe 11 seniors, 10 or 11, somewhere in that range, and majority of them did.  Different schools.  Again, I don’t remember most of it, but...  

GG: [00:19:37] Do you stay in touch with Tommy?

BS: [00:19:42] Haven’t in a while.  He’s so elderly at this point, and I’m not going to say unhealthy, but he has a lot of problems.  And when he was working at the Birdwood Golf Course, we’d stop by there every once in a while, maybe six months [00:20:00] just to say hello to him, but haven’t seen him in a long time.  Plus, I made the comment to other fellas, “I’m not too sure I want to go see him because he’d make me run a wind sprint.  (laughs) And Mr. Bingler, of course, is deceased, and so is Harrison, I believe.  Yeah.

GG: [00:20:24] Yes.

BS: [00:20:25] Yeah, so...

GG: [00:20:35] Did you get a lot of playing time?  

BS: [00:20:38] At Lane?  

GG: [00:20:40] Well, I know at Lane, but at UVA, did you...?

BS: [00:20:46] Yeah.  Yes.  UVA was totally different.  Andy Minton’s probably told you some of the same things.  The coaching was not nearly as good.  [00:21:00] And I played in Maryland one afternoon -- I think it was my first -- my second year because you couldn’t play with the varsity your first year.  I had taken -- carried the ball three different times.  The first time, I got my nose broken.  So I went off to the sidelines.  They stuck some things up my nose.  I got back in the huddle, and I was bleeding so bad I couldn’t breathe, so I took those out.  And second time I got -- carried the ball, and I was getting across the 50, but I got hit in the right kidney with a helmet, I guess, and it was horribly painful.  The next play I got down to about -- Maryland was 30, and I got tackled again, but this time I got hit in my right Achilles tendon [00:22:00] and tore it or did something terrible to it.  So now I could barely walk.  I managed to get over to the sidelines.  

GG: [00:22:11] Was that your sophomore year?

BS: [00:22:14] Yeah, yeah.  But I couldn’t play anymore after that, and honestly...  I’ll just leave it alone.  I don’t think they cared about whether you were hurt or not.  I do remember hearing one coach one time to another young man, made the comment when he was hurt, got off the field -- he said, “I have an injury.” And the coach asked him, “Are you bleeding?” And he said, “No.” And then he said, “Get the hell back out on the field.  That’s not an injury.” And I know I had a problem with both my [00:23:00] tendon and my kidney.  My nose okay, fine, but it was different.  

GG: [00:23:19] Well, let me ask this.  Once you left Lane and were at the university, did you stay in touch with your friends from Lane?  Did you stay in touch with coaches or other players?  

BS: [00:23:38] Not necessarily the coaches.  No.  Maybe other players.  I mentioned one, Donald Thacker at Tech.  You did, but you were more -- the fellows that were there then on that team were there for an education, so you were spending your time doing what you needed to do to get a good [00:24:00] education.  And I remember playing Tech one afternoon at Lane Field there and ran an off a tackle play, and I got tackled.  And as I was rolling a little bit to get up, I noticed that the helmet right next to me was Don Thacker, who was a wonderful tackle.  Just being nice -- I don’t know what I said, but I grew up with him, and I must have said something like, “Hey, Don.” And I’ll never forget.  He said to me in a grumpy voice, he said, “I just want you to know I could have killed you.” When I got back to the huddle -- and I don’t know if it was Arnette or not called the same play, and I started yelling, “No, you’re not.”  (laughter) Them and [George] Foussekis is on your list and stuff.  I still talk to a bunch of them.  [00:25:00]

GG: [00:25:01] Did you have any interactions at all with Eugene Williams or other NAACP personnel?  

BS: [00:25:10] No, none.  

GG: [00:25:17] So how did you experience desegregation?  Was this something that was on your mind?  

BS: [00:25:27] No.  I’m in seventh grade when things were closed down.  Okay.  We had a classroom in a basement and stuff.  Never.  When it came to it and I’m standing at the door at Lane, that been the eighth grade that day.  It had no effect at all.  I thought it was proper and good.  Let’s roll.  Let’s get to it.  

GG: [00:26:00] So today do you think that we’ve reached a state of full integration?  

BS: [00:26:11] Personally, I think we have, and I hope we have.  I know there’s maybe some folks out there that don’t think so.  I don’t know quite -- we all should be as we were on that football -- that football team was very important at the time when we were seniors, and it was the only integrated team in the state.  And one of the reasons we were so happy about that and worked so hard together was to [00:27:00] -- and ultimately I know that the mayor called for a parade or something after our last game because we knew that it would bring the community a little closer together.  And it did.  I had a note on it.  Yeah, November the 15th, ’63.  Mayor Bernard Haggerty declares Charlottesville Appreciation Day.  He commended the players, coaches, athletic director for the credit brought to Lane and the city.  And that’s one of the important things we were doing.  

GG: [00:27:53] Some people have said that one of the lasting legacies of massive [00:28:00] resistance was the really the loss of African American -- their social -- everything was disturbed, and white people didn’t pay the same price that Blacks did in terms of loss of their culture.  

BS: [00:28:29] And I agree.  And it was one of the things that I think also was on every person I knew at Lane, certainly the football team.  These four guys come to play football.  They’re all smart.  There’s no problem with that.  But all of a sudden, they’re in a new environment.  And to put it bluntly, if you’re in high school, how many girls are there that you can date?  How many fellas are there [00:29:00] that you can walk down the hallway and talk to?  We all felt that had something to do mentally with everybody who was on that team as a teammate worked harder to make it a team so those guys would have something that they were very proud of and glad they did.  

GG: [00:29:24] So what do you think the legacies of the massive resistance were, if anything?  

BS: [00:29:41] I don’t know.  I really don’t.  Integrated to me and others that I grew up with was not a big issue.  It was a nice thing.  It didn’t mean that, [00:30:00] okay, the athletes were the reason it was a great thing.  No.  It was nice.  But it was a proper thing and should have been done a long, long time ago.  So it wasn’t any day that I was worrying or sweating or thinking about it or whatever.  I still don’t.  It was a good experience for me personally.  I enjoyed it.  I didn’t think about enjoying it.  I just did for years.  I would go have a beer with them whenever.  Not in high school.  (laughs) 

GG: [00:30:42] Lorenzo, do you have questions?

LORENZO DICKERSON: [00:30:47] No, I don’t.  I don’t think I have any.

GG: [00:30:49] Okay.  Norman.

NORMAN WOOLWORTH: [00:30:50] Yeah, I actually have two questions.  One, at UVA, were there any Black players on the team then?  

BS: [00:31:00] I don’t think so.  (pause) I don’t think so.  And I’m hesitating because it was --

NW: [00:31:13] Or on teams you played.  Do you remember?  

BS: [00:31:15] No.  

NW: [00:31:16] Interesting.  

BS: [00:31:17] No.

NW: [00:31:19] My other question was -- you briefly mentioned some unpleasant things but never really talked about what those might have been.  And then when we were talking before the interview started, you had mentioned seeing some things when you were younger that you thought were not right.  So I’m just curious if you could provide some examples.  

BS: [00:31:42] First of all, I was raised by parents who it didn’t matter what religion you were, what color you were, where you were born.  The only thing I was basically not taught, but I recognized it growing up was [00:32:00] it doesn’t matter at all if -- but if a person, excuse me for the language, is an ass, then just turn around and walk away from them.  So it really was -- those four guys, in my mind, I had concerns for their being pleasant and liking where they were, and if they couldn’t while they were in class or school, whatever, but they could be on the football field.  The whole point was to make life nice and help them any way we could.  And we did.  We were all friends and still are all friends.  

GG: [00:32:43] Do you have additional things that you’d like to throw into the conversation?  

BS: [00:32:55] No, I don’t.  Everybody that I still see is -- [00:33:00] has the same feelings I did.  The Woodfolks are wonderful.  I have not seen Scott in a long time, years and years and years, and we used to go hiking and stuff with George King.  But not really.  It’s just --

GG: [00:33:32] I have one other question.  How did you earn a living after school?

BS: [00:33:40] Came out of the army.  My first night home, Hovey Dabney, president of National Bank, was a neighbor.  He came over to say hello to me, offered me a job in management at the bank, which I accepted, thinking that I don’t know if I want to do this, but at least I’ll have an income and [00:34:00] figure out what I want to do and then got into mortgage lending through Virginia Federal Savings and Loan.  And at that point, I had gotten married, and they paid a lot more than the bank was paying, so that was important to me.  And I had a neighbor when we were living on Del Mar Drive who was the economic developer for the city of Charlottesville.  I’m trying to think of his name.  My memory is so bad at 77 years old.  Well, he came over to me one afternoon and said that they were trying to find somebody to run the utility billing office, and I -- would I be interested?  He told me how much, which was even more than I was making.  And I also told him I’m not interested in dealing with politicians or politics at all.  And he said, “You won’t have to because the job can get so ugly they don’t want to be a part of it.”  [00:35:00] So I did that for about 16 years and retired.  And my mother had called me one day.  She had been cleaning out her closet and said she found an old UVA practice football that [I wanted?], and could she throw it out?  I said, “No, give it to me.  I’ll take it down to Tiger Fuel and give it to Gene Arnette.” So yacking with him.  He found out I was retired, so ended up -- I worked for them for about five or six years running their service.  And one of the things -- Gene and I were in the summer practice when we were freshmen with the varsity.  Okay.  We were asked to come up and do that.  And I think it was maybe the third day.  We got involved in a ridiculous -- I don’t even know how to explain it.  [00:36:00] Gene and I were taken to -- this was when you practiced up on Langley Field.  But there was partially marked field.  We were taken over there, and he was put in one part of the end zone, and I was put on the other side of the end zone.  And the 11 starting defensive players were on the 50-yard line, and the coach said, “I’m going to throw the football to one of these two, and they’re going to try to run for a touchdown.” Thank God he threw it to Gene.  But when I got to him, he was maybe three yards outside of where the field would have been, and one leg is bent all the way back up to -- I just thought, “What was this all about?” And he can tell you the same thing.  It just was like, “Oh, my God, this is not good coaching.” So --

GG: [00:36:58] You were spoiled.  [00:37:00]

BS: [00:37:03] Spoiled but also proud of what we had done.  And we had done it with parents being involved.  We had done it with the coaches being involved, and it was -- I don’t remember exactly how it happened, but the first day that these four kids were out on the field with us, practice field, I think it was Scott tackled somebody, one of the halfbacks or something.  And I remember Bingler saying something to him with a big smile on his face about something about, “I think you probably enjoyed doing that, didn’t you?” And it got everybody laughing, and it made us all work together.  It started instantly that we were a team, and we were teammates, and there was no segregation at all, period.  If you mess with anybody on that field, whatever, you were going to pay for it, so...  [00:38:00] I grew up with that.  I’m still that way.  I benefited from having a good life and good coaches, good parents, so forth.  

GG: [00:38:19] Well, thank you.  

BS: [00:38:20] Well, thank you.

 

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