William Redd

I say we had our own little — I lived on Cox’s Row.  It was nine houses if I can remember.  All of them were exactly alike.  The Cox family, some Cox family, I know who they were, I think rented them.  Was about $10 or maybe $20 a month.  None of them had running water, outdoor toilet, the whole works.  But it was that little community.  Page and 10th.  Main Street.  So we were right there together.  So part of the property was kind of rough.  We cleared the field.  And marked the field, had our own little football.  And my stepfather worked for city hall.  And he used to clean up what the new building for the city.  It used to be like a rec center.  And they evidently had some uniforms that they were going to throw away.  And they gave them to him.  And we became the Cox’s Row Red Devils.  We had our own team.  So  we learned the principles of the game right there.  And then as we got into — just like when I went to Burley, before I went to Burley, when Burley had a girls’ basketball team for a while, so when they played sometimes the eighth grade boys would play.  So we would come over from Jefferson and we would play the eighth graders.  So we learned how to play before the crowd and everything.  So then when I went into Burley I played for JV for one year and then I played varsity for the next four years.  And was captain of the team in ’58.  So yeah.  I mean we just made up our own team.  We didn’t play nobody but we’d play among ourselves.  And of that group maybe 8 of the 12 guys in there already played football.  A couple of them played basketball.