i think that it's important for the history of these types of change agents to be recognized
for what they are change in society change in how we live change in how we see each other a change
at the university of virginia quite frankly stan land john rainey harrison davis and myself were
the first african-american scholarship athletes at the university of virginia back in 1970
history contains variations on just a few themes the truly significant ones continue to echo
50 years ago a group of four student athletes stepped onto the grounds of
the university of virginia and in the process became cavalier trailblazers
set against the backdrop of sweeping social change that included the civil rights movement vietnam
war protests and the first class of undergraduate women the arrival of the first african-american
scholarship athletes might have seemed like a natural progression it was anything but
uva was the last school in the atlantic coast conference to integrate its athletic programs
even the city of charlottesville had been slow to change only integrating its public schools
following a federal mandate four years after brown versus the board of education but there
was more to charlottesville and the university of virginia than a history of segregation they
were both communities that ultimately appealed to the hometown lane high school football star
kent merritt and his three future teammates we had distinct black communities in several parts
of town the old saying that community raises a child it existed it was a very very nice place to
grow up even though we didn't probably know at the time i didn't know anything about charlottesville
charlottesville seemed like a big metropolis to my hometown of tazewell so many street lights
i grew up in a very small town fairfield virginia if you blink you will quickly be in and through
fairfield i wanted to go to school and initially i wanted to go to play football and so consequently
i figured i could play football anywhere actually university of virginia turned out to be more of
an academic school which was very appealing to my parents oh yeah i always listen to mom
kent had not even signed on to virginia but he was like their assistant recruiter
when they came harrison john and stan came i mean we just kind of just
hung out and and had a great time and i think that played more of a part in them coming here
than anything else so i was the last one actually to sign here we all came from winning traditions
and we thought we could help uva win we didn't come in to change things we came in to play ball
we came in to win ball games and we came in to get the education a familiar face in virginia football
history was charged with welcoming the new class of freshmen to grounds al groh was just a few
years removed from his uva career when he took the reins of the virginia freshman team and a host of
challenges that it brought in order to coach every player you eventually have to win their trust
and you can't win their trust if you don't know anything about them
they had certain things in common obviously most obviously one being their race but they
came from four different sets of circumstances so each one of them was unique in his own way
but within the locker room with the goal of all being focused on the same objective having the
same purpose going through the same things it exposes all of us for exactly who we are and
what we always find out is there's a lot more that we have in common than what we have in difference
the very first time that i met coach groh we were picking out jersey numbers that evening
and he walked by and someone said to him coach do you see anybody any of these young men that
you know you think are going to be good players for you and he didn't miss a beat he looked at me
and he said that guy right there he's going to be a good player for us i can already tell and so you
know it's like the commercial he had me at hello he's one of my favorite people i mean he was tough
you know i mean i'm loud he was loud that's how i learned to play sports and i always
played that way no holds barred crush kill destroy run through brick walls to succeed
he was hard on us he was tough on us but i think he loved us too that was more like our
lifeline that first year they were my guys and it was in both of our best interests that things
work out well for you of course i wasn't out in the community i wasn't walking every step
with these four guys so i understood that there are things that they're going through that are
not common to the usual freshman experience we came up you know in a period of resistance it
wasn't that in your face type of racism that i saw but i did see it in the background fans
waving the confederate flag in the stadium there was the playing of dixie during the games
the change wasn't that fast i don't think i think it took a few years later
for it for some changes to come about and accepting integration totally face-to-face i had a
positive experience as long as you're winning everything's great and so i understand that
i believe in it sincerely so consequently when they did give me a negative response
because of my bad play or bad attitude you know i understood it thoroughly
just as it is now people really want to win against virginia tech harrison was having
a tough time he threw two interceptions right off the bat and uh and the crowd really wasn't
pleased with harrison the rebel flag was going you know dixie was playing then all the boos came out
and harrison just turned around and gave them the middle finger
they had a picture of that man i told myself if i ever had a
picture of that i'd make it a mural on my wall
fortunately enough we did come back and we ended up winning that ball game in the fourth quarter
the desire to succeed kind of overrode any negative responses i would ever get to make
sure that you know i kept my mind on what i was doing regardless of what anybody else
was saying even though like i said they were small or undersized people we were able to
you know compete in a lot of situations but i think we could have done better
we were able you know to come in and add some positive strokes to the football program itself
ultimately the on-field victories never materialized for virginia and that promising 1970
class but their contributions extend far beyond the pages of a media guide the program would go
on to hire legendary head coach George Welsh play in 21 bowl games enjoy the type of conference
and national success unimaginable five decades ago the identity of virginia football today its people
its fans its foundation can be traced through its history a direct line to harrison davis
stan land kent merritt and john rainey i wish that while we were there we could have done more
but the reality is that we were doing something we were proving
to all that would care to look that we were capable of doing the academic work
and performing on the football field and being successful at graduating from the university of
virginia and if those four kids could do it then the next four or five kids could do it
and the next 10 could do it as a african-american male i think we are conditioned to always expect
that there are going to be some obstacles for us that we have to overcome a lot of people didn't
want us here but we prevailed it's possible to to achieve you know under such adverse conditions
it just proved that from all walks of life we could be successful so i
think that's the example that we set and i hope it was an example that people follow
knowing where you came from knowing how you got there i think it adds some appreciation to your
life the first ones to do anything you know took some you know took some punches for you nobody
ever really does anything on their own because you benefit from anybody who has gone before you
and i think it's very special to know the story i mean you couldn't get any better you went to
school together you played sports together that's the ultimate link in anybody's life
it's hard to believe that 50 years has passed just like that