Wade Tremblay

Wade Tremblay self-describes as “a somewhat retired businessman who had the good fortune to attend both Lane High School (1962–1965), Fork Union Military Academy (1965–1967), and Albemarle High School (1967–1968). He played baseball at Fork Union and in local sports leagues. Although he did not play contact sports, he remembers the coaches at Lane High School as “icons,” drawing between 6,000–7,000 people per game. Tremblay also remembers the boys’ bathrooms as “dens of iniquity.” What better person could there be to comment upon the many ways desegregation was experienced at different times in differing places? Tremblay remembered when “Blacks still had to ride on the backs of buses in Charlottesville…. they could not sit at the lunch counters. Separate water fountains. The whole drill was still in place.” He refers to desegregation both at Charlottesville’s high schools and at UVA as a “bumpy road.”  Nonetheless, he believes that integrated sports teams were probably the “single best uniter… As more and more Black athletes got to Lane High School and to UVA, our performance improved… And these guys are the stars in many cases.”