William Redd

So what happened, we had to go to Richmond, this was the third game.  The ninth game of the year we had to go to Richmond to play Armstrong and we played them on Hovey Field, which is Virginia Union’s field, which is right across the highway from Maggie Walker School.  It was a day game.  So when they get out of school at three o’clock they just come to the game.  So that’s why they anticipated I guess there being a problem, because of what had happened the third game, and here the team of 30 some players coming to Richmond.  So in the midst of the game, I don’t want to hold y’all up now, but in the midst of the game I played only defense my first year, but I played middle guard. Five-man defense. Over center.  Loved it.  So finally I come out of the game in the third quarter with Bob Fursten, the fellow who ran over top of me the year before.  And we’re on assignment now.  All of the stadiums.  We was over at Albemarle another night.  All of the stadium got a fence around it, so it separates.  Then you could just walk up behind the bench.  So we finally — I’m sitting here, and he’s sitting beside me, and I hear this, “Big boy, big boy.”  He turns to me and say, “Redd, somebody wants you.”  I say, “How they want me?”  He outweighs me by 50 pounds.  And I made the mistake.  I turned around and this fellow is standing right behind us.  He opens up his coat and he’s got a pistol in his hand.  He, “I’m going to get you, and I’m going to get you.”  “I say, Bob, that man has got a gun.”  And he’s just — I don’t know whether he didn’t hear me or whether — I got up and walked towards coach and said, “Coach, I’m ready to go back in.”  I figured if he was going to shoot me not sitting on that bench but he’s going to shoot me out on the field.  This was before the game was even over with.  High school.  A high school football game.  These were people who were going to get back at us about what had happened.  And the thing would have been the people that attacked them wasn’t even the ones.  They were back in Charlottesville.