Garwin DeBerry

[Extraneous material redacted.]

GEORGE GILLIAM: [00:04:28] Full Name?

GARWIN DeBERRY: [00:04:30] Garwin L., Lorenzo, DeBerry, Senior.

LORENZO DICKERSON: [00:04:37] I didn’t know that was your middle name.

GD: [00:04:38] Yeah, Lorenzo.

GG: [00:04:41] Is your son a junior?

GD: [00:04:42] He’s a junior. People email him and think it’s me all the time. He go, like, no, no, no. That’s my dad. That’s not me. I go, well, you know?

GG: [00:04:53] Date of birth, May 11th --

GD: [00:04:55] May 11th, ’47.

GG: [00:04:56] -- ’47?

GD: [00:04:57] Uh-huh.

GG: [00:04:58] Were you born here?

GD: [00:04:59] In Charlottesville, mm-hmm, [00:05:00] native, not too many natives around anymore.

GG: [00:05:06] One sibling?

GD: [00:05:07] Two. I have a brother who’s deceased and a sister who’s still here. 

GG: [00:05:14] So Adolphus is?

GD: [00:05:15] Adolphus is a cousin. Adolphus Paige. Yeah.

GG: [00:05:22] And where are your two siblings? Well, one is deceased.

GD: [00:05:25] One is deceased. Zelda Mitchell, she’s here in town. She lives on Preston Avenue. Yeah, she’s retired, of course. She was the brains of the litter. [laughter]

GG: [00:05:44] What did your parents do?

GD: Oh, my father passed in a car accident when I was six months old. So, I, actually, never even knew my dad. My mother was a domestic -- she stayed at home and we lived with the grandparents down on Page Street. [00:06:00] She kind of kept everybody together with that. She took care of them, grandfather and grandmother. And she eventually ended up working as a maid up at UVA, her latter years, after everybody left the house, and we went to college. She wanted something to do. She did that for about, I guess, maybe 10, 12 years. That was her working -- they took clothes in for students. They did laundry for students and all that. It was crazy. But, I mean, they’d come to the door to get it, and they’d have shirts -- you know, everybody wore a coat and ties at UVA at that time. And they would have shirts lined up in the kitchen. They’d throw up blinds in the kitchen. And they would wash and starch those shirts, iron them, and those kids would come and get those clothes weekly. [00:07:00] They even had a couple of white families they did that for. And the Hedges? You ever hear of the Hedges? Dr. Hedge?

GG: [00:07:09] I don’t remember.

GD: [00:07:10] Yeah, that’s way back. And the Clarks. The Hedges, he had a -- the Clarks were offspring of the Hedges, they’re the Hedge kids. So they kind of have to keep everything in the families, you know what I mean? The Lightfoots would do my mother -- well, they were Lightfoots, they’ll do your laundry for you if you, so it was that. But that’s what they did. Yeah, they didn’t do --

GG: [00:07:32] And her name was Hattie?

GD: [00:07:34] Hattie.

GG: [00:07:35] Lightfoot?

GD: [00:07:36] Lightfoot DeBerry.

GG: [00:07:37] And did you say that she was originally from Suffolk?

GD: [00:07:42] No. She’s from Charlottesville. Yeah, my wife’s from Suffolk.

GG: [00:07:49] Getting the whole family tree here.

GD: [00:07:51] I hear you. That’s good. I haven’t thought about it in forever. So you’re bringing back some good memories here. Yeah. 

GG: [00:08:00] What neighborhood were you brought up in? Where’d you live with your mother?

GD: [00:08:05] We lived down on Page Street, 10th and Page, 8th and Page, right there in the middle. In fact, we just sold the house. My aunt was the last one to live there, Josephine Whitsett. And my mother is one of seven girls. 

GG: [00:08:21] Really?

GD: [00:08:22] One of seven girls and that was the home place. 805 Page, that was -- anybody got in trouble, or got kicked out of wherever they were, or divorced, or whatever, they came to 805, and we all stayed there. We had a bunch of people living there sometimes, but it’s amazing that my grandmother and grandfather who raised me have a place for everybody to be. Yeah, 8th and Page right down on the corner. We had North Store was a white store, little confectionery, [00:09:00] right there on the corner. We live in the next house. It’s amazing, but we lived in that little neighborhood.

GG: [00:09:09] So you didn’t have a man at home?

GD: [00:09:14] Didn’t have a man at home, other than my grandfather, who was sick from the time I knew him. He had Parkinson’s. And he was like a stucco guy. They called him, “Stucco Joe.” He did stucco houses. And then, he got to a point where he -- like I said, when I was born, he was already really heavy into just sitting and shaking, you know what I mean? 

GG: [00:09:41] So sad. 

GD: [00:09:42] Yeah, but he gave us what he could as far as knowledge and being there, so there was no other man. My brother, me, we were the two men in the house.

GG: [00:09:56] So athletic coaches became significant figures?

GD: [00:09:58] Yes, they did. [00:10:00] And athletic coaches did become very significant for me, but, also, we had a very close-knit family. I told you my mother’s one of seven. And, fortunately, all the girls went to college, except the older ones, of course. My mother stayed home and helped send the others. We had Aunt Evelyn. She stayed. She didn’t go. She said she was not that bright, so she didn’t want to go to college. But she ended up marrying a mortician, so she ended up doing pretty well. And all the rest of them went to college, so my mother kind of helped send them to college. And so I got a lot of input, and guidance, mentoring from uncles. A.C. Paige was a big contractor. Benny, Adolphus’s father, was a contractor. [00:11:00] He built googobs of homes in this area. And they all were Hamptonians. He went to Hampton and all of that. That’s why Benny and all of them are -- Dickie started at UVA, ended up at Hampton, but I had an uncle, aunt, that lived in New Jersey. In fact, he got my first job for me in New Jersey. He was a director of music. He was a music guy. And my first job was teaching Phys Ed and coaching football in Passaic, New Jersey where they lived. And, again, that was a real important part of my life as far as getting started professionally. And I give him and her, my aunt and him, a lot of credit for that. Had an uncle down in South Carolina, aunt down in South Carolina, whose husband [00:12:00] owned a gas station, unheard of in Rockhill, South Carolina during those times. And I used to always wonder -- they would always come Christmas morning. They’d load all the kids -- he had seven girls. He’d load all of them in the car. He had a Hudson, you know, sleek back Hudson? And they’d roll up in the morning, early Christmas morning. And they’d all pile out with their pajamas on because they didn’t change and come in the house. And they would only stay like for a day and a half. And I couldn’t understand, they drove this far to just stay a day and a half, two days? And I never could understand that until I got older. And I would go down, and he would go, you know, if I don’t open this gas station, we don’t make any money. I’m broke if I don’t -- I said, oh, that’s what that was about. I go, I can’t go anywhere for vacation. I got to be here. This is my station. I don’t trust anybody [00:13:00] else to run it, so I got to have it open. I said, okay, I understand, but that’s just a few. Anyway, the Whitsett’s, their father was like a colonel in the Army. He was a dentist and blah, blah, blah, so it’s a lot of educational stuff going on in our family that was really pretty neat. 

GG: [00:13:24] Well, sort of coming forward, was your mother or other family members involved with the NAACP?

GD: [00:13:35] Oh, yeah, for sure. That’s big-time stuff for us. But as far as being leaders in that group, no, they were members and took part. But, like I said, the NACP [sic], for me, my greatest involvement with them was when Eugene Williams came -- well, he was a member of our church as well, [00:14:00] Ebenezer Baptist. And he came over one day, sat in the living room with my mom, and they called me in. And I didn’t know what they were talking about and said, we’d like for you to go to Lane next year. And I go like, go to -- I hadn’t even thought about anything like that. I’m coming out of the seventh grade at Jefferson. And he says, we’re going to get three or four kids in this neighborhood to go. And, of course, most of them were my relatives or Adolphus’. I had a cousin, in fact, that lived with us named Val, across the street was Diane Gardner, myself. Us four trotted down to Lane. We’d walk up to Preston Avenue where the Coca Cola -- there was a Coca-Cola plant back then, where there’s a lot of restaurants in that building. [00:15:00] And we’d go right down to Lane. They’d go left, the rest of our friends would go left to Burley. And it’s like, wait a minute, what’s wrong with this picture? We should be going that way with them. Yeah, that was my recollection of being involved with NACP [sic]. They were trying to involve kids in integration and that was a big deal. 

GG: [00:15:29] So what years were you at Jefferson?

GD: [00:15:31] At Jefferson? All right. What year was I at Jefferson? ’60 was the first year I went to Lane, so that was -- so I guess it would take ’52 to -

GG: [00:15:52] To ’60?

GD: [00:15:53] ’60. Yeah.

GG: [00:15:55] And then Lane from ’60 to ’62?

GD: [00:15:58] To ’62. [00:16:00] I stayed two years, eighth and ninth grade year.

GG: [00:16:03] And then Burley was --

GD: [00:16:04] ’63 to ’65.

GG: [00:16:07] Well, Fall of ’62.

GD: [00:16:08] Yes, Fall of ’62 to Spring of ’65

GG: [00:16:18] Those letters from your mother and Adolphus are very poignant. 

GD: [00:16:33] Very poignant, yeah.

GG: [00:16:37] Every time I look at them, I suppress a tear.

GD: [00:16:40] Well, you know, I never knew that existed until I came back from New Jersey to work back here. And someone said, there’s some records over in the building over at Dairy Road, your mother wrote some letters. I go like, I don’t even remember that. What do you mean she wrote -- [00:17:00] I just knew I decided that I wanted to transfer. And she said, “Well, if that’s what you want to do, we’ll see if we can get it done.” Yeah, that’s amazing.

GG: [00:17:12] So did you initiate the transfer or did Eugene?

GD: [00:17:17] No, I did. Yeah. They wanted me to stay, of course. “No, don’t leave. You need to stay.” And I said, “No, I’ve done all this preparation.” We all were in the band from the second grade all the way up. And we were able to go and practice in the band in class, but we could never perform. Concerts, the parades, the halftime of the football games, you couldn’t be a part of that. So that was one of the big things too that bothered me. And then, of course, you tried to play sports, and they would go and -- which is, again, I come back, [00:18:00] and it’s the same coaches that told me I couldn’t play that I’m working with. So I go, like, this is ironic, man. This has come full circle. And then I become the head coach. And they go, oh, man, this is weird. I go, this is very weird. But, yeah, I initiated that. I kind of knew I wanted to be a coach. I didn’t have any -- I did have -- of course, everyone wants to think they can play pro football, or pro basketball, or whatever sport they’re -- but I knew, and I said, well, if I can’t -- I’m shooting for the stars. If I fall here, I’ll be okay. I want to coach, help kids, and be a part of that situation. And so, I really knew -- most kids didn’t know at the time really what they wanted to do, but I’d kind of -- my mom always said, you know, like, for your profession, pick something that you’re good at. [00:19:00] I said, I’m a good student, but I’m not a mathematician or a scientist or anything like that. So I said, I’m a real good athlete. She said, well, that’s what you need to think about, turning your athletic ability into something that you can make a career out of, and that’s coaching. Of course, we had no other role models other than, like you said, coaches and people like that at school. And Coach Jones, at the time, was my high school coach, and he was a perfect guy. I’d say, oh, man, I want to be like this guy. This is who I want to be like, so that’s what made me want to do that. 

GG: [00:19:40] I’d like to bear down on Lane and some of your experiences there because what impresses me so much is that you took control of your life much earlier than most kids do. And I’m interested in [00:20:00] sort of what the pressures were on you?

GD: [00:20:02] Well, there were great pressures at Lane, believe me. A lot of people say, well, didn’t you feel uncomfortable, insecure? And I did. I was actually frightened to go into a class with all white kids, I’m the only Black kid, white teacher, never been exposed to any of this, no one sat you down and said this is -- we’re going to give you a prep course on how to deal with this. We were just thrown in there, and you were supposed to be able to handle that. 

GG: [00:20:39] When you made the decision to go to Lane, did you know explicitly really that you were walking away from a support system that was in in place at Burley?

GD: [00:20:55] I didn’t know that. I had no clue to that. I just knew -- [00:21:00] when you’re 13 years old, and you’ve been told, it’s time for us to integrate schools. We want to be like the white kids. You don’t have as much at Burley as you would have at Lane and blah, blah, blah. So it was one of those things where I had no clue. We were just going to go to school and do -- and we were decent -- again, they tell us kids to do that who were pretty good students. And my little group that went with me, they all were probably smarter than me. In fact, Diane Gardner ended up being valedictorian of our class at Burley. Of course, Adolphus was smart as -- he stayed at Lane, smart man, I mean, real smart, mathematician, really. And Val, my cousin, she was bright. Everybody was bright. And we got to Lane, it was like no one helped you. They didn’t call on you in class. [00:22:00] They gave you the assignments, you did the assignments, and you end up with a C or a B, and never an A, if it ought to be. So it was like, you go from being an A, B student, just to being a B, C student. And you go like, well, what’s going on here? My friends over there, they’re still making A’s and poking their chest out, and I’m down here making B’s and C’s. This is not what I want to do. This is not right. But, yeah, no one prepared us for that. 

GG: [00:22:38] Did you think that Lane offered better opportunities, better resources?

GD: [00:22:43] Well, quite naturally. It wouldn’t take Einstein to figure that out that this is a white school, and they got all the good books, all the new books. We got the hand me downs. We even got the hand me down bus for travel [00:23:00] for athletics at Albemarle County. When they decided they didn’t want to use the bus anymore, they gave it to us. So we got everything secondhand. But the Burley Varsity Club had just gotten -- there’s a book out on Burley High School. And I was just reading it the other day. My wife and I were sitting there reading. We have nothing else to do right now, but we were reading the book. And she said, “My God, you have some great teachers in this school.” I said, “Yeah, that was a high point” -- being in Charlottesville, living in Charlottesville as a Black person was really almost prestigious because you got the best -- you still got UVA here, and people wanted to be -- this is an educational center. And they wanted to be a part of that. And we got some fantastic teachers. We didn’t have it in books. They gave it to us [00:24:00] in knowledge and experiences that they had had. And it was just a great, great experience to have those kinds of teachers prepare you for what was coming next. Even when I went to college, it was like teachers would recognize the professors, but you might be a little bit ahead of some of these other kids that came from Surry County or Buckroe Beach. You’re from where? Charlottesville? Oh, okay, Charlottesville. And then they knew about UVA and all of that, but it was interesting. It was very interesting.

GG: [00:24:35] Well, did any of the Black students who stuck it out at Lane, did they get even begrudging respect from the white kids?

GD: [00:24:47] I guess they did. I would say by sticking it out -- of course, it got better. After they became used to Black kids being around, it got better and better. [00:25:00] But I just think like Adolphus Paige, he stayed. He was my cousin. Well, he wasn’t an athlete. He was not an athlete. He was a band guy, so he stayed. And, eventually, he was able to play in the band and perform. I guess, his junior, senior year, he was able to do that. I don’t know. It’s just strange that things would go that way, but, yeah.

GG: [00:25:35] Who was it at Lane that said, you cannot play football?

GD: [00:25:42] Interesting there. When I first decided -- of course, I wanted to play football. I went to try out for the team. And Tommy Theodose was the coach. And he said, “I’m sorry, son, we can’t allow you to play.” And I go, like, [00:26:00] “Why can’t I play?” He goes, “Well, you’re a Black kid. And we’re afraid that we’re going to have problems with the other schools if we allow you -- ” Charlottesville was way ahead of its time as far as integration was concerned. And it was, “We can’t allow you to play. We’re going to have problems with the other schools.” Meantime, the uncle from New Jersey and aunt from New Jersey were here in that summer before I started. And he goes, like, we’re going to go to see the superintendent, who was Ellis at the time. So we found his home address, went, didn’t call, knocked on the door, explained who we were, and he offered us in. We went in. And then, he said, basically, the same thing, “We’re not ready. We’re okay with Black kids being in the school, but we can’t allow them to do extracurricular activities, including sports, right now because we have to travel. We have other schools [00:27:00] we were competing with. They will not play us if we allow you guys to play. So as of now, we’re not allowing you to play.” So I go, “That doesn’t seem like it’s right.” So after two years of not being able to do anything and standing there looking -- during that time, Lane had one of the best programs going because they had so many kids. I’d look out and they had those orange helmets. I know it was damn near 150 kids out there with orange helmets on. You had the eighth-grade team. You had the ninth-grade team. You had the JV. You had the varsity. So I’m going, like, “I can’t be one of those people out there doing that. This is not right.” So it’s amazing how that worked. But we did that, went into (inaudible), and it didn’t work well. The year after I got to Burley, my 10th grade year, [00:28:00] after finishing my 10th grade year going into my 11th grade, they made the announcement that Black kids would be able to play sports.

GG: [00:28:09] And when did they do that?

GD: [00:28:12] That was my 11th grade year. What was that, ’64?

GG: [00:28:17] Yes.

GD: [00:28:18] ’63-’64. At that time, the Woodfolk [Roland and Ronald] twins, George King, they were all at Burley. And the Woodfolk twins had gone to Venable. They were some of the first people to integrate. But after they did the Venable thing, they then didn’t go to Lane. They came over to Burley. And when they said that -- and, of course, they didn’t play ball at Burley, the twins. George King played. George was -- he and I were linebackers together. And I said, “George, don’t go over there.” He said, “I got to. My parents are saying I need to go.” I said, “Okay. Go on and go.” [00:29:00] But he got down there, and he was kind of a real star with us. He went down, and they put him in the line, made him a guard. He was great at it, but no recognition. He was just a trenches man. But, yeah, they went down and played. And it was interesting to see that happen. 

 

Another guy who was always interesting to me down at Lane was Johnny Martin. And the Martin boys -- Donald was younger than Johnny. Johnny was like two, three years older than me, but Johnny was a hellion. I mean, he was a great athlete, but just praises -- he didn’t take anything off of anybody. But he never played either. And the situation with him I think it was a Halloween, and he went out and guys riding by [00:30:00] throwing water balloons on, white guys in their cars. We didn’t have any cars, of course. But somebody saw him out, some of the white guys. Then they confronted us in the lunch area at school. And we were always standing in one spot, just me, him, and two or three other Black kids, by ourselves, of course. And they surrounded us. The guys from -- you remember the Benny brothers? They were called the Benny brothers. There was a gang of them. Of course, we never went across Belmont Bridge. Belmont is where all those guys lived. And they all surrounded, I mean, a huge crowd. And they were saying, “We saw you out” -- telling Johnny this -- “You were with those guys. And we want blah, blah, blah.” I go, “Oh, man, Johnny.” He’s like, “They’re not going to do nothing. They’re not going to do anything. We’ll fight right here.” I got, “Johnny, look at all these people, man. We’re not go -- you’re crazy.” But it was funny that that happened. I think he ended up leaving Lane, [00:31:00] and I think he went to Richmond school down there, just to get out of Charlottesville.

GG: [00:31:06] So was it a written rule that Black kids couldn’t play? Was it a league rule, or was it just coaches talking to each other? 

GD: [00:31:16] I don’t think it was any rule. I just think it was, like you said, the white community, or the administration at the schools said, well, we’re not ready for that yet. Let’s just wait on that and see how it works. But I’m sure they were told, you’re not bringing those Black kids here to play any football. We’re not doing that here, or basketball, or baseball, or whatever it is. But I think that was just what they -- and then eventually as more schools in the area, the Richmond area, they started integrating a little bit, they started allowing them to play. Yeah, it was interesting. But, hey, I have no regrets about leaving. [00:32:00] Tommy was the coach when I -- like I said, I -- he always said, “Garwin, Garwin.” You know Tommy was great guy, seriously, not a racist bone in his body. He just --

GG: [00:32:14] He wanted winners. 

GD: [00:32:15] He wanted winners. That’s all he wanted. It wasn’t my decision not to allow you to play and blah, blah, blah. I said, “Tommy, we don’t worry about that right now. That’s water under the bridge,” when I came back to coach, and I was lucky to get that job. It was one of those things where I was in New Jersey teaching and coaching, having a great time and loving it. My wife didn’t like Jersey. So she said, “We got to get the hell out of here.” I’d go, “Come on now, I like it here.” “I don’t like it here.” So Coach Jones, my old high school coach, says, “Look, there’s a job for -- [sidenote:] my wife was a Phys Ed instructor as well -- job for a husband and a wife [00:33:00] at Fluvanna.” Mr. McQuaid was going to be coming -- they were moving him into the administration, and his wife was going to do something else. So they had two jobs. If you come down and interview, you probably can get that job. So we pack up, come down for the interview, and do an interview. And after going through the school there, I go like, “I can’t do this. This is too country. I’m used to New Jersey (laughs) and all the different ethnic groups and all the big rah rah football.” And it was huge. I go, “I can’t do this down here.” So I told him, “No, I didn’t think we wanted to take that job.” 

 

In the meantime, Father Mitchell, whose Episcopal Church over here, he was a fraternity brother, and he and Brian and I -- he’s like a little league, sandlot coach. [00:34:00] He would come out on Saturday mornings with us when we were 10, 11, 12, and we’d all play football. And he was the adult that was there to help us and make sure no one got crazy. But he was a school board chairman. He called. He said, I hear you’re in town looking for a job. I said, I am. What do you think? He said, well, “Percy–” what is Percy’s last name? Anyway, he was assistant coach at Lane. He was going into private business. He did his own -- so he said, “The word is that Percy is going to leave, and they’ll be a spot on the varsity if you wanted to proceed with that.” I said, “Let’s see what we can do.” He says, “No Black coaches now. You’ll be the first guy.” So I said, “Okay, as always.” And the funny thing about it was, I always thought New Jersey was so liberal. I’d go to New Jersey. I was always the only Black [00:35:00] coach, always. I’m going, “All these Black, Hispanic, and Puerto Rican kids playing, and you got no people of color in positions of authority. What was going on?” So I stayed, interviewed, and got the job. My wife got the job over at Beaufort. And my wife was not a Phys. Ed teacher, believe me. So she did about two years, and she goes, “Not doing that. I’m quitting.” I go, “Don’t quit, please.” So she ended up getting a job at UVA in the financial aid department, which worked out really, really well for her. But, yeah, it was different people helping at different times.

GG: [00:35:50] In that earlier period, the period where you were at Lane, as a student, was there any violence?

GD: There was never [00:36:00] any outward violence. Of course, we used to hate when it snowed because at Lane, on the bottom floor, the windows would raise, and you could stick your hand out and get a big snowball. So they’d wait for us. And we’d walk down the hall, and here go the (sound effects for throwing snowballs). You’d turn around, everybody’s, you know, like, what’s wrong? Then we’d go into cafeteria. Of course, three or four of us would sit together. Nobody else is -- we sat, and everybody else is the white sea all around us. And all of the sudden an apple would fly over and hit the middle of the table, banana, all that kind of stuff, but nothing really --

GG: [00:36:47] Could they hit any from three point range though? (laughs)

GD: [00:36:49] Yeah. It’s crazy, but no outwardly violence. No one really approached you (inaudible). 

GG: [00:36:57] But I understand beginning in ’67 [00:37:00] when Blacks were not at Lane by choice --

GD: [00:37:05] Right. Oh, it got rough from what I understand.

GG: [00:37:08] It got rough.

GD: [00:37:09] Well, you know, when I went --

GG: [00:37:11] What do you think caused the difference? Is that because in that first wave, it was only a half a dozen or a dozen, and then ’67, it was a couple of hundred? 

GD: [00:37:22] It was full blast in ’67 from what I understand now. You had a lot of guys who played on the sports teams at Burley. Again, they already had their teams at Lane. They had kids coming up through the ranks that they were looking at. And our kids were just leftovers, but they were stars at our school. And they went down, and they were not letting them -- putting them in positions they weren’t used to playing and not wanting to give them the glory spots. And Ronnie Green and Roland Buford, they worked with me [00:38:00] coaching for a while. Ronnie always said, “Garwin,” he said, “We were the best backs that they had. We were better than Copeland and Sloan.” He said, “But, hell, they made us play in the line.” He said, “Shit, we’d be running a sweep or something, we’d beat those guys, be waiting for them, to come on down here. Because we were faster, bigger, stronger, but we were going to play on the line, and those guys were going to get the glory spots.” I’m sure if you talked to -- I love both of those guys, Copeland and Sloan. Sloan, in particular, I see him more than I see Copeland, but Sloan would tell you, he’d say, “Garwin, those guys, they all came to -- we wouldn’t have played had it not been for coaches letting us play because those guys were better than we were.” And they ended up going to UVA and all that. Life changes when you do all that stuff. It’s amazing. [00:39:00] I think a lot of those guys -- because even Sloan now, we do stuff together as far as talking and getting together on racial stuff and Copeland was the head -- my son went over to Covenant for a couple of years, real good with kids, and we always had a good relationship.

GG: [00:39:19] Yeah, David has been working closely with us on this.

GD: [00:39:21] Has he? He was a great person, really, seriously. I think a lot of him. My relationship with him also extended to doing lacrosse. He and I did -- we were lacrosse officials together, and we used to ride -- after the games, we’d come by and get a six pack, and we’d ride. Are we going to finish this before we get -- we’d go to Lynchburg and places and do the small college game. “You buying the beer?” I’d go, “Yeah, I’ll buy the beer this time. You got the car. You drive. I’ll drink.” (laughs) But, yeah, interesting man. But as far as violence is concerned, I never had -- [00:40:00] I was always uptight and leery, but no one ever approached me in a very aggressive manner as far as wanting to fight or anything.

GG: [00:40:10] Well, nobody’s that dumb.

GD: [00:40:11] No, I tell you. Incredible, man. Just something to -- but, yeah, I always tell people that that experience for me made my life. That’s part of -- everybody has their life stories, but that’s my life story. And I think I’m a much better person for having been involved in that situation at Lane and coming through that.

GG: [00:40:41] So you were at Burley for two long years?

GD: [00:40:45] Mm-hmm.

GG: [00:40:48] During the time leading up to ’65, was Burley doing anything to prepare the students for the inevitability [00:41:00] of desegregation?

GD: [00:41:02] No, nothing. I’m going to be honest with you after I got over to Burley, Lane totally left my mindset. And everything we did at Burley was about preparing you to go to college, and the kids who weren’t going to college could get a job when you finish high school. Nothing about integration as far as eventually all of us are going to be going to Lane. None of that ever -- I just think they thought that Burley was going to be there and Lane was going to be there. And you had a choice. You go wherever you want to go, but it didn’t happen that way, of course. But, like I said, two years after I left, I’m a sophomore in college. And they’re saying, well, they’re going to just do away with Burley. I go, like, “What? What are you talking about?” [00:42:00] “Everybody’s got to go to Lane.” I go, “You’re kidding?” Yeah. But no one, I don’t think, prepared anybody for that. It’s just like --

GG: [00:42:10] I don’t know if it was the Lane administrators or who it was, but somebody selected a white girl and a white boy to go up to New Jersey to a high school that was integrated and see how it worked. And so those two students were up for I think a week. And I just wondered if ever you had gotten the benefit of anything like that?

GD: [00:42:40] Nothing like that. Never heard of anything like that. I never knew any of that happened. Like I said, it all happened so quickly. I just thought, again, Burley was going to be there forever. I remember coming back in -- in fact, it was ’67, Raymond Carey [00:43:00] was playing football. And my college coach at Virginia State knew about him. He said, “I want you to ride up with me to talk to Raymond Carey. We’re going to try and recruit him to Virginia State.” And we came up and talked to him. And the school seemed to be the same. This is ’67. I didn’t hear anything about, well, you know, next year, there won’t be a Burley. There won’t be a team here. So I’m going like all of the sudden that spring, I guess, they decided that we were dissolving Burley. And everybody’s going to go down to Lane. 

 

Now, I was reading in the book. They had people writing excerpts of what their experiences were at Burley. And I was really taken back [00:44:00] by this one girl who wrote a passage about having to go to Lane, didn’t want to go to Lane, ’67, and realizing that people didn’t want her there. She didn’t want to be there. What was she going to do? And just a terrible experience in her life. And I was kind of like, ugh, this kid --

GG: [00:44:25] And is that in the yearbook?

GD: [00:44:26] It’s not in the yearbook. This is a book -- I’ll let you see it.

LD: [00:44:30] It’s Lucille Smith’s-- it’s her new book.

GD: [00:44:33] New book, Lucille Smith. She wrote it, but it’s interesting, man. I go, like, “What?” You just never think of that happening. I went because I wanted to go, and I left. This girl, this was the end for her. She was hoping to finish at Burley and go on about her business. She had to go to Lane, and she didn’t want to do that. And like she said, “I got there…” [00:45:00] I guess she knew that she wasn’t wanted there. Again, that same teacher thing. Nobody took care of him. Nobody nurtured him. No one welcomed him. It was, like, “We’re just here.” “Now, you make the best of the situation. You guys, you were sent here to integrate this, whatever you do it’s on you.”

GG: [00:45:27] When you decided to go to from Lane to Burley, did Eugene Williams or any of that crowd get on you?

GD: [00:45:37] No. They didn’t get on me, but I heard the whispers. If I hadn’t a couple --

GG: [00:45:46] How about Henry Mitchell, was he upset?

GD: [00:45:50] No, not at all. In fact, Father Mitchell sent Brian to private schools in Massachusetts to get him out of the situation. He was a year ahead of me. [00:46:00] Again, we all played sandlot football and blah, blah, blah, little parties and stuff together. And when it came time for him to go to high school, he packed him up. We didn’t think anything of it because he was a smart guy, and they had the resources. And I think they were from that area anyway up in Massachusetts in the area, but he went to a private school up there. And I remember he gave me all his equipment to keep. “Garwin, you keep this, somebody might need it.” So one night, he comes and knocks on the -- Father Mitchell knocks on the door, “Do you still have Brian’s equipment?” I go, “Yeah, I’ve got it all. Everybody uses it when they need it. I take it to the field. And if somebody needs a helmet or shoulder pads or whatever, we’d divvy it out, but I keep it all here.” “He needs that equipment.” I go, “What do you mean? He’s in school in – ” “Their equipment’s not that good.” [00:47:00] I go, like, what? To myself, you paid all that money for him to go to school up there, and you got to get this second-hand equipment, it’s better than what you got. But he ended up going to Rutgers and being all everything in Rutgers. He had it good. It was a good experience for him. And it worked out well for him. But Father Mitchell was a God to us, man. When you got adults who help you out without any kind of wanting anything from you, just want to do the good thing for you, he was one of those type people. And I liked him. I always liked -- had a lot of respect for him. Yeah.

GG: [00:47:48] I got to know him through Bill and Mary Ann Elwood.

GD: [00:47:54] Elwoods, yeah, mm-hmm. They Elwoods were good. I didn’t have any direct contact with them, [00:48:00] but people always are saying white people this, white people -- I said, yeah, but had it not been for some white people that were really, really fair and wanting to do good things for folks and help us out --

GG: [00:48:15] Yeah, they took difficult positions (inaudible).

GD: [00:48:18] Difficult positions, always, but they were always for the right. Yeah, it was pretty interesting. Yeah, for sure. But I always say Charlottesville is a very liberal place. And I think that because of UVA. You can say what you want. People came here from all over the country to work and to be educators. If not, they had to go to school. And a lot of them ended up staying, of course, because they liked what they saw here, but Charlottesville has always been progressive and liberal. 

GG: [00:48:53] Shift gears, music. Tell me about your interest in music.

GD: [00:49:00] Oh, yeah. Well, again, I had an uncle who was a music -- he was a band director first, and then he became the Director of Music in the whole city of Passaic, New Jersey. But he made sure -- I know it was 10 of us, his nephews and nieces -- everybody could play an instrument. He would get it like on wholesale. He could get instruments. I played. Three or four of us played trumpets. My sister played the clarinet. My cousin played the flute. Everybody had an instrument. And he always said, “Look, you’re not a well-rounded individual if you don’t have music in your life.” I didn’t see that at the time. But, yeah, he was exactly right. And I’m amazed -- well, kids are amazed when I would do Driver’s Ed with them and a lot of them were band kids, [00:50:00] and they would think, oh, this is the coach. It’s going to be boring in the car and blah, blah, blah. So you start talking to them, and you find that they are in the band or in the orchestra. And you start talking, and you know something about what they’re interested in. And it’s like, you were in the band? I go, “Yeah, I played trumpet, French horn.” “You did?” So all of the sudden, it opens a whole different world up for you and them. Your relationship totally changes because you know something about what they’re interested in. You’re not just the football coach anymore. You’re Mr. DeBerry, you played in the band, you know how to play the trumpet. It’s like, yeah, so I think music -- and, right now, in fact, my daughter just sent -- my two granddaughters play flute. My daughter played flute. [00:51:00] And she sent a video my oldest one, who’s 14, is in performing arts school where she lives. And the younger one is in the fourth grade, just starting to play -- they both play the flute. She’s just playing the flute. And I say, “Well” -- talking to her the other day, “I want you to send me” -- the last time I was up there was, like, a month ago. “You were trying to play the Christmas songs.” She said, “Yeah, I can play them now.” I go, “Well, I want to hear them” She goes, “Well, mom did a video, there on virtual that had to be sent to my band director. I’ll let her send that to you.” So she sent it and I go like -- the eldest one is like gifted, almost like soon she picked it up, it was like (pretending to play the flute). I go, like, “Oh, my, this girl, she can play this already. This kid’s been playing for six months.” And we listened to the video, and she’s playing Jingle Bells and bah, bah, bah, and no mistakes. [00:52:00] I’m going like, this girl, she’s not as talented as the older one, but she works harder because she tries to follow everything she does, even athletically. She’s a real good gymnast. The oldest one is a pretty good track performer, and they all do karate and all that stuff. And it’s crazy. I’m going, like, “Man,” but exposure. I always say exposure is the key. You got to give kids -- if you’re exposed to something, it’s going to enlighten your world, it’s going to change your whole concept of everything. It’s like my football players when I would ask, “Do you want to go to college? College? I don’t want to go to college.” “Look, if you don’t do anything but go to college -- and you don’t stay, if you go for two years, it will change your whole outlook on life.” I’ve had several of them tell me, “Coach, I remember you told me go to college. And I didn’t think about going to no college, but I went. [00:53:00] And the best thing ever happened to me in my life is going and changing my whole outlook. I got out of Charlottesville.” It’s a mode Black people in Charlottesville have where they think this is it. And there’s way more out here to life than Charlottesville and different adventures and different things you can do, opportunities, everything. It’s there. Interesting.

GG: [00:53:29] Any other artistic things that you were interested in?

GD: [00:53:34] Not really, no. 

GG: [00:53:37] Theater or art?

GD: [00:53:39] I didn’t do any of that. Other than, I did in elementary school. I didn’t do any in high school. I didn’t really have time in high school because we were practicing everything after school and all the time they were doing that plays and all, we were doing football, and basketball, and baseball. And every sport there was, [00:54:00] they wanted you to do that. But Zelda’s son, Larry Mitchell, ended up being a real good baseball player. He played pro baseball for a little while, but I remember he was a real good singer and actor. He was at Charlottesville High. I coached him and taught him and all that. But they always wanted him to do plays and stuff like that, but it was always a conflict being able to practice the sport and being in the stuff. The director of the plays would come in conflict with the coaches because they wanted him to be out on the field practicing, and she wanted him on the stage performing. But no other artistic stuff for me, other than that.

GG: [00:54:57] Which were the colleges that recruited you [00:55:00] for football, besides Virginia State?

GD: A&T was one. But back during that time, there wasn’t a whole lot of recruiting going on. What was going on then was someone recommends you to a school or your coach, a person in the community, and they would follow up if you wanted to go, I think. It took me a long time -- I tell my wife all the time, I said, “I didn’t realize -- I thought I was on a football scholarship in college, but it was not a football scholarship. It was a grant in aid where you got money according to need.” And I can remember, my grade point average, I had a state scholarship -- there’s like three different scholarships you got to make up your package. And one scholarship (inaudible) -- [00:56:00] it costs surprisingly like $990 something a year to go to Virginia State at the time when I was there, but that was a lot of money. In 1965, that was a lot of money.

GG: [00:56:14] I was starting law school that year and it was $2,100.

GD: [00:56:17] Yeah, so it was a little less than $1,000. So I never knew that until I went over -- my grade point dropped for this one particular scholarship, so they had me come over. And they were explaining, now, Mr. DeBerry, you know that if your grade point drops below, you lose your $300. It’s, like, “Wait a minute, I’m on a football scholarship.” They go, like, “Football scholarship? There are no football scholarships here. You’re on financial aid for need. So you got like three different things here you get. This one is going to be in jeopardy if you don’t bring that grade point average up.” I go, oh. I said, “Well, what is that? It’s like $300. [00:57:00] I said, $300? Where am I going to get $300 if I don’t make this grade?” “It costs like $990 something for you to go to school here.” I said, “You’ve got to be kidding.” What? I didn’t think any more about that until my daughter went to school. She’s first one of my two kids go to school. She went to JMU. It was only like $12,000. I’m like, “$12,000. I paid $1,000 to go to college.” (laughs) That’s crazy. What is this?

GG: [00:57:31] Times changes.

GD: [00:57:31] Times change. Boy, it’s incredible.

GG: [00:57:36] Can you give me a quick waltz through your New Jersey and then back to Charlottesville experience?

GD: [00:57:45] Well, New Jersey was probably another one of the best experiences I had in my life. Of course, it was my first job, had gone to college with a lot of kids that came from [00:58:00] New Jersey down to Virginia to go to college and was always impressed with them. And, again, I always thought it was the grass is greener on the other side, if you know what I mean. Again, my uncle got me a job there. I had flown to Pontiac, Michigan, and Richmond. In fact, I had signed to teach in Richmond. I signed to play with the Richmond Road Runners. There was a semipro football team there. And I had signed to play with them under the stipulation that they would get me a teaching job. Playing semipro football, they give you 100 bucks a game and that’s about it. So they were in process of trying to get me a teaching job. And it got to be close to time to go to September. So I was like, “If you can’t get me a job, I know where I got a job. I’m going to Jersey.” And that never came through. So I did take the job in New Jersey [00:59:00] and got to New Jersey and worked with a guy. The guy’s name was Dave Brower. He was the head coach, who was very liberal. He liked to gamble. So he was one guy -- he’d go in to make his calls, and, of course, “Coach, what are we going to do?” “You’re my designee. You got the practice, organize the practice, get -- so I’m right out of college. What do you mean, man? Give me some direction here. You can do it. I know you can do it.” So it’s me. And at the time, all the guys that I worked with were young guys, like my age, just out of college. There’s about four or five of us. And I guess I was the more aggressive one of the group, “Tell us what to do. We’ll do it. [01:00:00] We don’t worry about Dave.” So really for four years, I was really like the associate head coach, which made it -- my mind was -- I thought I was God’s gift to the coaching world. When I came back here, which was needed, which was necessary, I had so much confidence that it didn’t matter who I coached with. Tom and them, they had won state championships. I was like, “These guys, you know, they don’t know what the hell they’re doing,” but I really, truly gained my knowledge basically from there, and my experience from there, and got back here with Tommy and them. And he gave me -- again, he realized I knew what I was doing and gave me some leeway to do my job. I came back as the offensive line coach, didn’t know the first thing about being a line coach, but I had dabbled with the kids in Jersey. [01:01:00] But I’m going to be the line coach. And, of course, everybody’s now, “DeBerry’s back, he’s down at Lane coaching. They made him the line coach. What the hell - ” I was a back. Everybody remembers me as being a running back. And what does he know about being a line coach? Coming back home was not easy. Everybody, even your friends, sometime, they seem like they want you to do well, but deep down inside, there’s’ a little jealousy there. So it’s like, God, I got to deal with all this stuff. Luckily, I was able to deal with it. And, like I said, Tommy and I got along extremely well. It was a good experience with them. It came time for him to be -- he became the athletic director, and -- not Joe Bingler, but Willie Barnett was the athletic director. [01:02:00] He retired and Tommy took his place. And they were, at the time, who’s going to be the head football coach, 1980? So, of course, me, Tommy Pace, four, five, I think even Eddie Dean had gone to Lane and was up in Madison, and he was -- they were talking about getting him to come back and be the coach here and all that kind of stuff. I’m like, what are you going to do? So I interviewed with Eleanor. Dr. Eleanor was there superintendent. And what a guy, he --

GG: [01:02:35] He was a strange card.

GD: [01:02:36] Strange guy. So one night, in the process, I get a phone call. “Garwin, this is Dr. Bill Eleanor. Can you come over to my house? I’d like to speak with you.” I said, “Oh, gosh, the main man of the -- God has summoned me,” so I go over. And he’s playing pool and drink -- he did a lot [01:03:00] of drinking and got up really early in the morning. He did a lot of writing. And we were sitting there playing pool. And he goes, “I understand that you want to be the next football coach.” I said, “Well, I really think I’m prepared to do that. And I’d like to do that.” And he said, “Well, what makes you better than anybody else?” I go, “Well, for one thing, I know the kids, and I think I’ve been here long enough to at least earn a spot at trying to do this.” He goes, “Well, we’ll see. We’ll see.” So he ended up letting -- he actually -- normally, the athletic director or whoever, he goes, like, “We’re going to try to give you a shot. And you know you’re going to be under a lot of scrutiny. A lot of people don’t want this here.” This is 1980. They don’t think we need a Black football coach here. I go, “Well, whatever,” [01:04:00] but we did that. 

 

But in the meantime, before that, they needed a lacrosse coach. This is like when I first came back here. It was a club sport, varsity lacrosse. And all the guys’ parents and all were hammering for them to be on varsity sports. It was a club. So they needed a coach. Of course, who the hell knew anything about lacrosse? They had got this guy from -- guy’s name was Dick Prout. He was a UVA alumni, guy was like a hippie. And he stayed around here, and he would go out with the kids, beard, long hair, and twirling that stick. A great guy, another great guy. I met some great -- I’ve dealt with some great people. And, anyway, he goes like, “Look, man, [01:05:00], we need the guy from the school to say he’s the head coach, could you do that?” I say, “If you coach them, I can be out here with you.” (laughs) And they let me do that. It was more or less a sponsor the team, but I did that for like eight years. And it’s amazing how you learn as you go. And I did that for eight years. And when I became the head football coach, I stopped doing it, but then I became an official. They needed officials. And I was good enough. I had learned -- again, John Titus, you remember John Titus? He was a younger guy at Albemarle. He was the guidance counselor, but he was like in charge of the officials. Another great guy. And we started doing the lacrosse officiating. And [01:06:00] it was good because lacrosse was on one side with all the kids and the teams and on the far side, they never allowed anybody to be on the far side of the field. So they’d always put -- “Garwin, you on the far side,” away from the crowd. “And I’ll take this side.” And you end up not getting yourself in any trouble because no one could holler at you, scream at you, but it end up being a great experience. I learned that pretty well. And I did basketball officiating forever and lacrosse officiating. And it’s been a good career for me. I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve done.

GG: [01:06:42] Do you know David Wyant?

GD: [01:06:43] Oh, sure, David, yeah, man, Mule.

GG: [01:06:46] There’s a guy who’s been around.

GD: [01:06:48] Been around, been to the pros, and everywhere. Again, he’s a guy I admire. 

GG: [01:06:55] He just stopped NFL, what two years ago, three years ago?

GD: [01:06:59] Sure. [01:07:00] And he went a long way up the ladder on that, too. And he was just a high school official that I used to give hell to every night on the football field. (laughs) But he was always tolerable. He would listen to you. And you would always say, well, this guy is not like -- some of them were just, “Shut up the fuck up, Coach. Get your ass over there. I’m going to put you out of the game.” He was always, “Let me explain to you what happened, this is blah, blah.” And I always respected that. And when he said, “You know what, I’m going to try out for the NFL.” I said, “Dave, you’d do well.” I didn’t have an idea that he was going to actually go through that. And he’s one of the top guys. They gave him all kinds of honors when he retired. It was just incredible guy. It’s like, “Dave, that’s pretty good, man.” A great guy, great guy, seriously. I think a lot of him.

GG: [01:07:56] Racial climate today, compared with the 60s.

GD: [01:08:00] Oh, gosh, I was just saying --

GG: [01:08:04] I saved the best for last.

GD: [01:08:06] That’s tough because you thought by now you would have -- or, I guess, culture or everything would have gotten much better as far as race relationships are concerned. The ‘60s was bad. Black people stayed in their place. White people ran everything. And we knew where we stood. And we tried not to cross the line. And now, we’ve integrated. We’ve changed all those policies. And there’s a lot of things you can do that you couldn’t do before. When I was a kid, you couldn’t go into a restaurant, and sit down, and eat, go to a movie and sit with everybody else. You go anywhere you want to go, do anything you want to do, [01:09:00] if you got the money. But, now, it seems as though we’re going backwards. A lot of the rights we had are being thrown to the side and changed, voting rights, Roe versus Wade, all those human rights, women’s rights. You thought that all that was in the past and that had been resolved. I just never could understand why when you make a rule, and it’s a good rule, that someone could come up and say, “Well, we don’t want that rule anymore. We’re going to change back to the way it was.” I don’t understand that --

GG: [01:09:42] Our constitution is still the same piece of paper.

GD: [01:09:45] The constitution is still the same, but we’re getting that now. And I think we’ve allowed racism to come back into the picture. I don’t guess it ever died for some folks. [01:10:00] I don’t know. I always tell my wife, I said, I think having Obama as our president for eight years set a precedent, but it also made a lot of folks uneasy, unhappy, and want to put you back -- you think you’ve gained something; I’m going to put you back where you belong. You belong in the fields, and you’re our slaves. And this one situation with Obama was just an admiration. It’s not even a real thing. It’s done. Now, you’re back under our thumb, and we’re going to make sure you know that. Race relations are --

GG: [01:10:48] There’s been sort of a rhythm.

GD: [01:10:50] It has.

GG: [01:10:51] The rhythm is the Blacks are starting to get successful, starting to make some money. 

GD: [01:10:56] That’s right. That too. That’s for sure. We don’t want that. [01:11:00] Let’s keep them down.

GG: [01:11:02] So then the repression comes in?

GD: [01:11:03] Yes. The repression comes in, that’s for sure. But time goes on. And I got to say education I think is the key. And when I hear some of these athletes speak on TV now, I tell my wife, I said, “I never heard kids be able to speak as intelligently as they do now when they interview them on TV.” I remember hearing guys, “Uh, duh, uh, no, I, uh, don’t, uh.” These kids can talk, Black kids that are athletes. They might have the hair all over their head and everything, but, man, are they intelligent. I’m going like, man, you look at that guy, you wouldn’t think he knew boo, but he is intelligent as can be. And the girls are the same way. They’re as smart as can be. And that’s why I admire people like Lebron James. Guys who are doing things for the community [01:12:00] or for the kids. He has built that school and how those kids going through there. He wasn’t a college graduate. He was a high school graduate. And he sees the importance of kids being educated, so I just think that --

GG: [01:12:18] Yeah, the ones who are educated are the ones who are going to make it over the long haul.

GD: [01:12:23] They are. But my point is too that LeBron was from a very dysfunctional, one parent family, but he made it, I guess, because of his talent, too. So he still sees the value. Kobe Bryant’s from an affluent family, didn’t go to college, speaks four or five -- well, spoke four or five different languages, but always saw the importance of education and [01:13:00] doing different things and showing people your worth, all of that, to me -- times are changing. Even in the political realm, you got Black politicians who see what’s needed. And they go about it in the right way and try to get their point across and make things on an even keel, on an even level for everybody. No. We don’t want everything. I don’t think Black people want everything, but you want it to be fair. We have built this country. And I always tell my wife, I said -- I always use as an example the movie where he had the Gangs of New York. You ever seen that movie? 

GG: [01:13:52] Yeah.

GD: [01:13:53] I said, “These were immigrants coming from other countries to this country.” [01:14:00] And the brutality, and the gangs, and the -- I said, “These are the offspring of those people that are now saying, ‘We’ll, shoot you in a minute. We want guns, gun rights people.’” And it’s just amazing to me that all this is still perpetuating itself. It’s got to end somewhere. I don’t know. (phone ringing) That’s my phone. My wife will -- (phone ringing) hope she gets it.

GG: [01:14:32] Do you need to get that?

GD: [01:14:34] It’s my sister. She calls every day about this time. She got it.

GG: [01:14:39] Lorenzo always has the best question. 

GD: [01:14:42] Oh, Lorenzo, you got -- (laughter)

GG: [01:14:46] He’s sitting back there just listening and --

GD: [01:14:47] Just listening and taking it all in.

GG: [01:14:48] -- saying “I can’t wait till it’s my turn.”

GD: [01:14:50] All right, man. What you got??

LD: [01:14:53] I do have a few. It’s interesting that you mentioned that your sister is calling. When you mentioned the name, I never knew that Zelda was your sister.

GD: [01:15:00] Oh, yeah.

LD: Yeah. Okay.

GD: [01:15:02] Yeah, Zelda’s my sister.

LD: [01:15:05] Speaking of that family connection, I think you mentioned the Whitsetts?

GD: [01:15:10] Yeah.

LD: [01:15:11] So would that be Bernard and Bernadette Whitsett?

GD: [01:15:13] Uh-huh.

LD: [01:15:14] So are you cousins?

GD: [01:15:15] First cousins. All of us are first cousins.

LD: [01:15:18] And Paige, is that Dr. Paige?

GD: [01:15:20] Dr. Paige, first cousin.

LD: [01:15:22] Did you coach his son?

GD: [01:15:23] B.J.?

LD: [01:15:24] Yeah. 

GD: [01:15:25] Oh, yeah. Well, B.J. left Albemarle to come to Charlottesville because he didn’t think he was getting a good deal playing basketball. In other words, they had their guys. So he came over to -- he said he had gone to camp one summer and people were asking him where’d he go to school. And he said Albemarle. And they said, well, where is Albemarle? He said, well, it was in Charlottesville. They go, well, we know kids that are good at Charlottesville, but we never knew anybody that was good at Albemarle. So he said that kind of stayed in his mind, but he played football. I wanted to make him a tight -- you see how big he is? 

LD: [01:15:59] Yeah.

GD: [01:16:00] I thought, well, “You’re a tight end.” His temperament was not that of a tight end. So next two years he played for me, he played wide receiver and was good. Big guy, go get the balls. And, of course, he was a great basketball player. And then Bernadette Whitsett -- you know Bernadette? 

LD: [01:16:18] Yeah. 

GD: [01:16:19] Bri, her son, went to Woodbury and he was the prep player of the year his senior year out at Woodberry, Collegiate, all the schools. We got a strong family. Like I tell my wife, “There’s some crazy people too, you know what I mean?” (laughs) But, yeah, education was big. The aunts were “Everybody’s going to college, everybody’s going to college.” Oh, man, you didn’t even think about it. You just knew that’s what you were doing, so incredible. Yeah, they’re all my family. 

LD: [01:16:57] I know that experience well of playing here locally [01:17:00] because I went to Western. 

GD: [01:17:04] Yeah, you know the deal. What year were you at Western?

LD: [01:17:06] I graduated in ’99.

GD: [01:17:07] Oh, ’99, okay.

LD: So B.J. was a year ahead of me.

GD: [01:17:11] Ahead of you, yeah. Mm-hmm. I hear you.

LD: [01:17:17] You mentioned growing up on 10th and Page and walking to Lane. So the way I picture it, at least, a few of you are walking down Preston to Lane, the majority of the kids are going left to Burley.

GD: [01:17:33] Yes.

LD: [01:17:34] What was that like for you?

GD: [01:17:35] Oh, man, it was tough. Again, not preparing kids and kids not really knowing what’s going on, my Black friends all thought we were trying to be white. “You guys are trying to be white, blah, blah, blah, blah.” That kind of stuff. And I’d go, like, “We’re trying to help everybody. Why would you think we’re trying to be white? [01:18:00] We got no white friends down there.” But it was tough. We would meet back up when we’d leave school at the corner up there and walk back down. And, of course, you supposedly girlfriends, and “I’ll meet you at, blah, blah, blah.” “Oh, I hear you’re talking to so and so at school. Now, meet me here after school.” It was just all that, you know what I mean? It was a situation where we were kind of divided as far as being Black kids. Some kids didn’t like it. You go to a party. They go, you think you’re better than everybody else. I don’t think that. I’m just trying to -- I was asked to do this. Come on, man. But then you’d go back to Burley and some of the teachers even would respond, “Oh, you’re back here? You couldn’t make it at Lane, so you came back to Burley?” I’d go, “No, ma’am. That’s not why I’m back here. I’m here to better myself. I want to be an athlete, [01:19:00] and I want to be a good student. I want to play in the band. I want to do all the things that I couldn’t do when I was down at Lane for a couple years.” But it’s amazing. 

 

And then when you come back to be a professional, and some of those same people that down talked to you, “I can’t believe you can speak that well or you’re that kind of leader.” “Ma’am, I was only in high school. I was 15, 16 years old. Everybody evolves. You grow. You evolve. You go to school you.” “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” It’s amazing. Again, coming again back home, when I was in New Jersey, I was just like anybody else. I was just another guy doing the job. Come back here, I’m Garwin DeBerry because I’m from here [01:20:00] and went to school here and all that, so it’s a lot of pressure. And I never let the pressure get to me though. I was just one of those kinds of people. I don’t care if they don’t like me. I always tell my kids, I say, “They don’t have to like you. They don’t have to love you, but they got to respect you.” So I’ve lived my life that way. If I don’t agree with you, I don’t agree with you. It’s not I don’t like you. I just don’t agree with you. But don’t be mad at me because I don’t agree with you. That kind of thing.

LD: [01:20:37] Often we hear about a lot about the Charlottesville 12 and all these different stories of the first students. So it’s rare that we hear of someone going to Lane and coming back. Growing up in your neighborhood, did you have others other students that lived in your neighborhood? Were you hearing about things that are going on at Burley on a regular basis when you were at home?

GD: [01:21:00] Oh, yeah, all the time. Like I said, we were in elementary school together to the seventh grade. And, of course, your pecking order had already been established, you know who was this, that, and the other, and who could do this, who could do that, and that just goes with you to high school. So we had to cut short because we went to a different school. So all the time we’re at the other school, people were like, “Blah, blah, blah is better than you, blah, blah, blah. He’s going with your girlfriend now, and blah, blah, blah.” Oh, man. So it’s crazy. But then you go back and everything changed back again. You’re back where you’re supposed to be. You’re the man. You’re the blah, blah, blah. But it’s amazing. It was quite an experience. And like, I always tell my wife, I say, “You talk to people, everybody has a story to tell, everybody has an experience.” And like you said, the Charlottesville 12, [01:22:00] they had their thing. And our little group of kids when we went to Lane, we were the first group to go to Lane actually in classes. It was moving from door to door in the school. The Charlottesville 12, they did that stuff at Venable, and they were in offices, that kind of thing. But they were not in the open school environment and walking around like we were, so that was the first experience with that. So I can’t say we were the ones that did that and started, but Donald Martin and Johnny Martin, all those kids, they were like -- you’d see two kids walking up the steps with the mother, those two guys, they were actually the pioneers. They were the guys who did all that stuff. And they had to go to class here, and go to class there, and all that, but interesting. 

LD: [01:23:00] I think the last thing that I had is actually from both of you. I’m curious because we’ve been watching these movies with both of my sons, Glory Road, and then we just watched Remember The Titans with them the other day. So now I’m researching right because I don’t remember the Titans story. And the guy Gerry Bertier in the film, the white guy that’s one of the captains of the team, he gets in a car accident in the film and is paralyzed. So I’m researching him, and I realized 10 years later, he died in a car accident on Route 20 going to Charlottesville for a business trip. And he died at UVA Hospital. So I was curious if you remember. This was 1981 when this happened.

GD: [01:23:51] Don’t remember that at all, but that’s amazing. Small world, huh?

LD: [01:23:56] Definitely.

GD: [01:23:57] You know what else I’ve found interesting is my [01:24:00] across the street neighbor who is a geologist, worked through UVA and did a lot of field stuff, was an instructor Virginia State when I was at Virginia State. And I never knew him when he was there. But he goes, “You know I was at Virginia State when you were there.” We play golf together. I go, “What?” He goes, “Yeah, I had just got out of college and that was my first job teaching geology at Virginia State University.” I go like, “Gosh.” He knew some kids from here that had come down and you know -- yeah. The kids who had gone to Burley. We got like God, that’s crazy, man. Incredible. Small world, isn’t it?

GG: [01:24:43] Yeah.

GD: [01:24:45] Small world. Here it is 50 years later, 60 years later, incredible. Unreal.

GG: [01:24:55] What have we missed?

[Extraneous material redacted.]

GD: [01:27:00] Like I said, I’d go places as a coach with my team. And oh, it used to be bad. I mean, that was in the 80s and 90s. It was bad. They were like calling you the n word. I had to tell the kids don’t say anything, just let it go. Beat them on field. We got to go out there. But it’s just so ridiculous. It is totally ridiculous. I think that’s why -- even when I used to officiate lacrosse, especially, you know, that’s the elite white sport, and I’d walk out there -- this is when I was officiating. When I was coaching, I don’t think they ever knew I was the head coach because everybody -- but I walked out with my striped shirt on. You don’t know what the hell you’re doing. Here’s the whistle. [01:28:00] You don’t know anything about this sport at all, the parents. Officiate this game. I’ll sit over here and watch. Oh, no, no, no, no. So then after you start working and they know you -- there’s nothing they can say. It’s like, oh, okay, I’m sorry. I used to laugh at them all the time, but you got to have a certain temperament to be able to do that.

[Extraneous material redacted.]

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