Clipping 2 from interview with Wentford Gaines

Clipping 2 from interview with Wentford Gaines

2 minutes, 20 seconds audio clipping from an interview of Wentford Gaines by Jerone Dudley conducted over Zoom for the Black Cultural Center Oral History Project. Gaines describes Black football players's reactions to Tennessee Tech University tennis coach Larry Ware's dismissal and abandonment of David Brents, the first Black tennis player and team captain, in Johnson City, Tennessee.

Transcript of the clipping:

Wentford Gaines: So when I came back, that’s when we got, when we started the football program. That’s when spring football started. Had to get like 20 sessions in I think within 30 days, or something like that. But once we started, we found out after we had went through maybe two or three--well, maybe three or four sessions, that the tennis coach had left the best tennis player in Johnson City, Tennessee, where they went for a tennis match. Now then, you—with five dollars—he gave him five dollars and told him to get back the best way he could. So we didn’t want to hear that. So, every Monday you had what you call a—I don’t know if they still have the President’s Open Forum where you can go speak with him? So, what we did we went there and told him what our grievance was. We wanted something done about it right away. Cause you don’t leave a kid 200 miles away from school and tell him to get back the best way he could. And it just so happened that the baseball team was there so he road back with them. So, we went to the football coach and told him that—well, we had a spoke, a spokesperson, he did it. Told him that what the concerns were and what we wanted to do before we came back to spring football. We wanted that settled before we come back out and practiced. He reassured the guy that—and plus, we let him know that what we’re doing could be considered a boycott, and if you boycott, your football scholarship could be taken away. So, but we told him that’s not what we were doing, we wanted to make sure that things were right before we came back to practice. So, we meeting as a group: we had eight football players, we had a few basketball players, and I don’t think the baseball player participated in it. But we had the most athletes of any, which was only eight. And of course all eight of us were starting. But, he told us, “Nah, nah, that’s ok, you go ahead, we’ll iron this out and we’ll see you when you get back. Hopefully we come up to a reasonable agreement.” So, we found out later on that same night, that he, he had taken up all our football equipment.

Black Cultural Center Oral History Collection

Copyright held by Wentford Gaines, Jerone Dudley, and Tennessee Technological University. This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. In addition, no permission is required from the rights-holder(s) for educational uses. For other uses, you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/

BCCOH_Gaines_20201127_clipping2