I loved Friday nights. I knew I was going to meet the boys and we were going to scream our heads off at football or basketball. Before Gene got a car, I haven’t the slightest idea how we got to the games. We did go together and sometimes Jack came with us. We lived close. Just up on the corner only one block from Tech. We would meet Robert (my locker partner) and Dean (from my homeroom) outside the gate and go in together trying to find seats as close to the 50-yard line as possible even if it meant at little crowding.
While our screaming was very loud, it was mostly supportive of our teams. Dean had the uncanny knack of letting his voice reach peak performance at a point where he would clearly be heard above most of the others. I am sure I was just the follower, but my buddies may beg to differ. We could get rather, how shall I say it, accusatory, derogatory, even down right nasty if the refs called against our boys or we thought we saw something we didn’t like. It really didn’t seem to matter if the call was right right. If an opponent got away with roughing up one of our guys they got a fair amount of verbal abuse from us.
Since we were usually sitting on the opposite side of the field where our gang could never quit be identified by the opponent’s side (a good thing). Our school seemed to like our antics. At least the ones around us laughed most of the time. There was that one game. It was football and I believe it was against Benson and it was at Benson. We didn’t have a football field so all our games were “away games.” We were especially nasty that night and it was clearly the wrong night to be so.
The stadium was exceptionally crowded. Some of the fans of both teams were mixed in the crowd. That put some of their supporters close enough to understand what we were saying and to identify who was doing the yelling. There was a fair amount of taunting back and forth but it was easy to tell those guys were getting rather angry. It should have stopped us or at least slowed us down, but it didn’t. The back and forth banter was tense enough that we really needed to get out of there without them seeing or finding us. They both saw us and found us. They were waiting for us just outside the gate we exited. We were five and they were five, even match right? Not if you knew what kind of cowards three of us were. Jack was tougher than the rest and willing to fight, but very nervous about his teammates. Since Robert was not quit as obnoxious as the rest of us and not on his feet nearly as often and because he is a Negro, I don’t think they thought we were together. It was the 50’s and you rarely saw whites and black socializing. Many were friends, but that was usually only at school.
While Robert was behind us the Benson fans still thought there were only four little twerps with the big mouths. This was going to be easy, they thought. Jack might be a problem, but no one else would be any trouble at all. They looked tougher and a little bigger, but not by much. More threats were exchanged and one of them became aggressive towards Dean and moved closer. At that point Robert moved up beside Dean and just stood looking tall (he was) and as mean and nasty as possible. With his height and growling glare he was intimidating. The boys backed off but their angry taunts continued in somewhat softer tones. We countered with some mildly rude comments and walked off still taunting one another. When out of their sight, we ran like the dickens. Robert laughed, we all did. I think even he was surprised at how he could intimidate just by standing there. Being scared was over. We could be tough again.
While football brought out the largest student crowds other than assemblies, basketball was only slightly smaller. Both teams did well during my years there and often went to city championships and to state a few times. We never won state during my years.
It was harder to go incognito to basketball games. The other fans could not only hear us, but also see and, point, and give us the evil eye. We were never the only group taunting the other teams so not the only ones picked out for total destruction. Getting out of our school gym without being noticed was virtually impossible. Only one door led immediately to the outside. We had to get our first. We were more careful at other school gyms always checking out escape routes before the game.
I could hardly wait for Friday nights.
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