Roland and Ronald Woodfolk

ROLAND W: I played defensive back.

RONALD W: I played defensive back, and also I was a running back.

ROLAND W: I ran too, but I preferred playing defense. Coach called me out in practice one day, I think I was, George Foussekis was having a bad day that day, because I was blocking and taking him everywhere I wanted to take him. In fact he swung at me, and coach got on him with that.  He was just frustrated.  But, the thing was that Coach said, “Woody, every time you start doing well, you get tired on me.  What’s your problem?  I said, “Coach, I don’t like offense.  Offense you get hit.  Defense, you get to hit, and I like to hit, I like to hit people.”  Actually we was in, what we call a chalk talk, which is a team meeting after review the films on the team we’re playing that week.  And one of the, this was my senior year, and I don’t remember, you know a guy named David Trice, he was the quarterback after Gene Arnette, and I heard him tell somebody else, I don’t know who he was talking to, but it was a tackle that I was making, and I kind of bowled, rode the guy down to the ground, and David was about six feet, I know he was about 175, I was about 150, 5’9”, he said, “I sure wouldn’t want Woody to be hitting on me.” I took that as a compliment, yeah.  Cause, but yeah.  Like I said, we had real team spirit, we got along, we did well.

PHYLLIS LEFFLER:  And you got along during --

RONALD W: Yeah, but see you don’t know until later whether you were just being tolerated.  And I’ve heard that comment that we were just being tolerated. But coach was the cohesive part that kept everybody together.  We did everything as a team.  First one said, there’s no I in team.  So you know, if everybody do their job, we’ll win.  Like when we won the state championship back in ’63, he said, he told the team, “I don’t know what kind of team we’re gonna have this year, but I tell you what, you’re gonna be the most conditioned team on the field.” And he wasn’t lying about that.  I mean, some of the things he put us through, I think you could call child abuse. 

ROLAND W: Yeah, to be honest with you --

PHYLLIS LEFFLER: Now we would call it that.