Veronica Jones

Miss McDaniel, that’s her name, Coach Miss McDaniel, she took us on and whatever I need, like if I needed tennis shoes at the beginning of the season, she would buy my tennis shoes for me.  In the school, the other PE teacher she put me out her class, because she was doing some things inappropriate, so I called her down on it, and she went to the principal and she says, as long as Veronica’s in my class, I’m not going to teach.  So Coach McDaniel, Coach McDaniel put me in her office during that class period, so I ended up grading papers and typing tests for her.  Racist thing, the only racist problem I had was that one year we was playing Albemarle High School, at Albemarle.  And this Black girl was running down the court with the basketball —

Phyllis Leffler: At Albemarle?  

Veronica Jones: Albemarle, mm-hmm.

Phyllis Leffler: She was Black and on the Albemarle team?

Veronica Jones: Yeah she’s Black, right.  And Miss McDaniel stood up and said, “Stop that nigger!”  So when she said that, Brenda and I stopped and looked at her, and about that time, the whole building stopped, spectators, teams, and everything.  So Miss McDaniel had to apologize to us, to the other team, to the officials, and to the whole gym.  Well, we decided, me and Brenda decided we’d start throwing chairs in the gym, they calmed us down.  So we decided not to go back on the team.  So we missed practice for three or four days, and then she finally came up to us and said, “I’m very sorry, can y’all please come back?”  So we came back.  But in doing that, Miss McDaniel ended up being one of my mentors.