Plus diving a little deeper into Texas Football magazine
Idrove by Rockdale’s pickleball court at Moultry Park last week. As you know, the park is located behind the Aycock School. The Aycock School was open from 1902 to 1967 and was originally known as the Rockdale Colored Public School.
Aycock has such a rich history and I’m not sure why its athletic achievements aren’t showcased more in our community. These Tigers won the city’s first state championships in both football and basketball in the 1955-56 school year.
I wonder why we don’t have a sign as you drive into Rockdale sharing this information? We are a city of champions right!?
Like they say, “We have come so far but we still have further to go.”
All of that made me think about Willie Mays, who passed away in June. Back in the 1970’s they made a short animated movie about the “Say-Hey Kid,” it was shown as part of The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie series.
Mays retired in 1973 so while I don’t remember his playing days too much, I remember that cartoon and have a reference point for who he was. That plus I was a Hank Aaron fan.
Mays played for the Birmigham Black Barons in the Negro League before playing for the New York/San Francisco Giants.
Just days after his death, a MLB tribute game took place where the Barons played at Rickwood Field. It was a big deal and they honored Mays.
Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson was there as part of Fox’s broadcast crew for the game.
[Sidenote: when we lived in the Bay Area a million years ago, my boss lived next door to Reggie Jackson, so I guess that makes me famous? (Just kidding.)] Jackson shared that he had mixed feelings about going back to Birmingham, where he played for the Birmingham A’s in the Double-A Southern League before being called up to the Kansas City/Oakland A’s. He was one of only a few black players on this minor league team and he suffered opposition and said it was “not easy.”
“Fortunately, I had a manager and I had players on the team that helped me get through it, but I wouldn’t wish it on anybody,” he shared.
Jackson said he does not want to relive that part of his life. “I walked into restaurants and they would say, ‘I could not eat there.’ I would go to a hotel and they would say, ‘You can’t stay here.’ ” Jackson gives credit to Willie Mays for helping him to cope with open racism, “He (Mays) grew up in an era when if you had a complaint about the game or a complaint about society, you suppressed it. Today’s players don’t do that. He loved the game, he respected the game, even when he had a complaint about what may have been going on about minorities or whatever. In his era, you didn’t speak about it. He loved the game so much that he refrained.”
The Aycock success is bittersweet I guess. It’s great those players won at the highest level but sad that they had to win in a segregated society. We have a lot of respect for those student- athletes, both on the court and on the field but also as individuals. —ka— I’m still mad at Dave Campbell and Texas Football magazine but I dug the annual preview issue out of the garbage long enough to check out area schools Taylor and Lexington to see how they are expected to do in the upcoming season.
The Taylor Ducks are picked to finish second in District 13-4A just behind Austin LBJ and just ahead of Austin Travis. There are a total of seven teams in their district.
The Ducks finished 5-6 and 2-3 in district play last year.
The Lexington Eagles are the George Jefferson of Central Texas. What I mean is they are moving on up!
They are slated to win District 13-3A D2. Old Dave has them picked over Blanco, Rogers, Thrall and Comfort.
The Eagles finished 9-4 and 4-1 in district play last year.
The Tigers will play Lexington on Sept. 13 in a home game. Let’s go!
Those are your sports fun facts of the week.
- Log in or Subscribe to post comments.