Oral History Program Raymond A. Freeman Interviewed by James F. Cartwright 26 June 1986 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Raymond A. Freeman Interviewed by James F. Cartwright Assistant University Archivist 26 June 1986 Copyright © 2012 by Weber State University, Stewart Library iii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Weber State College Oral History Program was created in the early 1970s to “record and document, through personal reminiscences, the history, growth and development of Weber State College.” Through interviews with administrators, faculty and students, the program’s goal was to expand the documentary holdings on Weber State College and its predecessor entities. From 1970 to 1976, the program conducted some fifteen interviews, under the direction of, and generally conducted by Harold C. Bateman, an emeritus professor of history. In 1979, under the direction of archivist John Sillito, the program was reestablished and six interviews were conducted between 1979 and 1983. Additional interviews were conducted by members of the Weber State community. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Freeman, Raymond A., an oral history by James F. Cartwright, 26 June 1986, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Raymond Freeman 1940 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Raymond A. Freeman. Mr. Freeman graduated from Weber College in 1941. In the interview, he recounts his experiences at Weber College as an athlete and African-American minority. The interview was conducted on June 26, 1986 by James F. Cartwright. JC: To begin with, I'd like to ask you about your early family life. Where are you from? RF: I'm a native Utahn, born and bred right in the sod, not quite eight blocks down. At the time it wasn't called Kiesel Avenue, it was called—I can't think of it now—but I was born at 3655. The home's still there. It's got siding on it. My father was from Logansport, Indiana. My mother was from Paola, Kansas. My mother came in 1902 and I don't know how soon afterwards my father came. They married, and I have a brother that is eight years older than I am. He lives in Denver, Colorado and he's also a native of Utah. He went to Grant School, to Central Junior High and to Ogden High School. He was a musician. My mother was, at the time, a housewife. My father worked in cement contracting. Some of the old sidewalks he helped construct are still around. He worked in conjunction with C. H. Sanborne, I think the name was. Apparently, he came a little after my mother. What little I know about his family—his mother was born on one side of Logansport, Indiana and his father was born on the other side. He was kind of in the middle and they're all within about a twenty mile radius. But that's about all I know. My father died when I was eight years old right in the middle of the Depression. Then, of course, my mother went to work. She was a seamstress 2 later on. At first she taught dancing when she was younger. Then she became a seamstress and worked in the WPA for quite a while when I was in high school and college. My mother died about eleven years ago. When they talk about early history, I tell them my mother was here in 1902 and they say, "How do you get along with the Mormons?" I say, "Most people think I am one of them, so it doesn't matter to me." My closer friends are. Most of the people I talk to that are native Idahoans and Utahns, their ancestors really haven't been here that long. JC: You had just the one brother? RF: Yes. Let me see, I'm sixty-six so he is seventy-four. He was in the ROTC. He was a very popular drummer and played in the band around here and then after he graduated, he went to Denver. Now I can hardly get him to come and visit me. He's only been here a couple of times since he left. He has four children and sixteen or seventeen grandchildren. I don't know how many great-grandchildren he has. I have one daughter, Kathleen, who lives in San Francisco. She has been married and divorced. She's an actuary. She worked for Frank B. Hall but now works for Comprehensive Benefits, Incorporated, which provides forms of incentives and insurance for executives and insurance for companies too. She works in Sausalito. JC: She grew up here? RF: Yes. She didn't go to public school until she got to the University of Utah. She went to St. Joseph, both grade school and high school, has a BA from the University of Utah and an MA from the University of Utah. My wife is a native Denverite. She went to West High and Manual High and went to what is now 3 Colorado Northern, but at that time was Colorado Teachers' College at Greeley. We’ve been married forty-two years now. JC: Where did you meet? RF: Well, I met her here in Ogden at a party for some people that worked swing shift. She was working at Hill Air Force Base and one of my closest friends introduced us. She knew my brother and most of his family. In fact, they lived in one block and she lived in the other, and then right around the corner from them. We got married after about eleven months or so. JC: You’ve lived here since then? RF: We were married about a month when we moved out here. They have rearranged Washington Terrace from the older homes—the barrack-like houses—that they used to have. We are actually on a part of the property that we lived on then when they had the real old homes. The northern part of our house and yard is a part of my other old home. We lived there when we first got married. So I've been at this location even though the address has changed. This has been my home ever since. I went to the U at first when I graduated from high school in 1937. I went to the U for a year and a half. They were on the quarter system. Now wait a minute—we had just begun winter quarter. I had an injury earlier when I was a kid and I had to have some surgery. So I came home and had the surgery and recuperated. That was in the latter part of December, I guess that would be in 1939. Then I was going to go back to the U and a fellow that I had known for a 4 long time who went to Weber said, "Why don't you come to Weber. You've got more friends there than you've got at the U. You know everybody up there." I was an athlete and, of course, I was interested very much in football at the time. I really didn't want to go to a junior college. I wanted to go back to the U. But he said, “Come up and see if we can get you a job." Of course, I got a job just like that. I didn't get any scholarships when I was at Weber. I don't know if they even had them at that time. I got a job and worked to help pay my tuition. All in all, I guess I went about a year and a half to Weber, too. It entailed a couple of years. I graduated from Weber in 1941.2 Then I went on to the University of Nevada at Reno, which was the University of Nevada at that time. There was no Las Vegas. JC: It wasn't even a junior college, I don't think. RF: No, they didn't even have a junior college. In fact, once when we had played a football game there we flew back through Las Vegas, and the Chamber of Commerce had the football team there for a luncheon. Then they had the Last Frontier, which they've rebuilt two or three times now, gambling resorts and hotels. We had big thick steaks and we were real excited. I said to my roommate, Marion Motley, an all time, all-Pro Hall of Famer, "Do you think this will ever grow?" Little did we realize that it might spread out like that. JC: In other words, Las Vegas was a pretty small town. RF: Yes, a pretty small town. At that time I don't think it was as large as Reno. When I went to the University of Nevada, I arrived there on a Sunday. It was dirty, the paper was blowing around. There were some Indians and other people laying in 5 the streets. I thought they were dead. I said, "What have I done? What have I done coming here? I've made a mistake coming here." I called the coach at Nevada and I said, "I want to go home." He said, "What's the matter?" I said, "I hate the town. I hate the looks of it. It's dirty. There are people laying around on the streets not doing anything." He said, "Wait a minute. Have something to eat, and I'll be right down to get you." We went on the campus at Nevada. Nevada was 1,000 students, and at the time I graduated from Weber, Weber was 998. When I saw the campus, my heart dropped stopped. It was beautiful, just gorgeous. It was a real small campus with a lake in the middle of it, and everything compact, mostly all mining students. I majored in journalism and minored in education when I was at Weber, but I had a very satisfactory relationship with Nevada. I liked the school very much. Of course, naturally, my heart is mostly with Weber. Now, when I graduated from Weber, a funny thing happened. I wasn't there. We were performing in a track meet in Denver, Colorado. We were with a teacher at Weber, Ferron Losee, who became the athletic director at Los Angeles City College and then became the president of Dixie College. He became a very fine educator. He was from Brigham Young University and the University of Southern California. He came from a fine old family and a fine gentleman, too—a real nice person. JC: Now, wasn't he the track coach? RF: Yes, he was the track coach and the swimming coach. I used to work for him in intramurals, too. A fellow named Darrell Deis was the head of the intramural 6 program who about three or four weeks ago, died out in California, in Pebble Beach. I worked for Losee, and he coached me a couple of years in track. In fact, he talked me out of going the winter quarter because I had too many credits. With the credits I had at the U and the credits at Weber and I wouldn't be able to perform in track. He said, "If you go now, you'll graduate, and you won't be able to compete." I said, "So what? I want an education." I love to compete, but I wanted an education. Well, Losee was a nice guy, and he talked me out of it. In the meantime, it was just like going to school because I was working the whole time. JC: Then you enrolled the next spring quarter. RF: No, that was winter. That spring quarter, the credits I had put me way over the limit when I enrolled, counting those that I had then. I think I was just one hour or two credit hours from going over a hundred at the time. He talked me out of that registering for winter quarter, and of course, when I graduated I carried about sixteen or seventeen hours. JC: But you were able to run that spring quarter. RF: That allowed me to compete because I didn't have those credits when the quarter started. Getting back to my graduation at Weber, I worked that summer. Mrs. Clarisse Hall and I were working, and I hadn't picked up my diploma. However, my mother attended the graduation and they gave her quite a spiel and made her very proud. I think it was up at Ogden High. So I still hadn't picked up my diploma. Mrs. Hall caught me in the hall one day and said, "If you don't come in 7 here and get this diploma, I'm going to burn it up or throw it away." You can see how close we were at that time. You knew everyone. Henry Aldous Dixon was president. I knew him, I knew his son, I knew his daughter. I knew David O. McKay. I met him. I was going to school with his granddaughter. He would come back because he was an ex-Weberite, too. S. Dilworth Young, too. I think he's now in the Quorum of Seventy. He worked in Scouting. I loved Henry Aldous. He was just wonderful. Of course, they lived right on the campus and you'd pass his home and he always wanted to know how you were getting along. I have very fond memories of Weber. I guess the class that did me the most good was a class that I didn't really want to go into. It was home education, I think, something like ten, eleven, or twelve. It was a course on nutrition and I believe that Mrs. Tanner taught that course. At the time I could tell you how many calories were in a piece of bread, what I should eat salad-wise, and how many proteins I should get out of a meal. After I went to Nevada, I wrote a letter back to President Dixon and to Mrs. Tanner, telling them how I appreciated having taken her class, and how much good it had done me. Some of the values I still have today. I was sports editor of the Signpost. We had never made all-American then. I think the University of Utah student paper had, but I don't think Utah State had and I don't think BYU had. We entered the paper even though we were a junior college at the time. One of the stories I had written was about a football game that we played against Riverside Junior College, and the headline was Sneddon Swims Seventy Yards to Tie Game3 or something. The editors in chief of the 8 school papers—I think it was the University of Minnesota—that was the big journalist school then, gave us the ten points, plus a bonus of five points for outstanding sports page. I remember Professor Nilsson was worried about the sports page and everything else. The rest of the paper didn't do that well, but the extra points for the sports page put us over and we got all-American honors for the first time. I guess I was as proud of that, as I look back, as anything that happened at Weber because that was an accomplishment in a field that I hadn't planned on going into. I hadn't planned on going into journalism at that time, but I did and enjoyed it very much. JC: How long did you write for the Signpost? RF: I just wrote part of the one year. The time that I was there, that's when we got all- American. I guess they've had it many times since. I don't know now. JC: Was that Professor Cluster Nilsson? RF: Yes. It was an odd name. Was it Cluster? JC: Well, there's the book [pointing to one of Freeman's copies of Acorn from his years at Weber sitting on the table]. [The next few comments pertained to finding the pictures of the faculty in the Acorn. After finding the faculty pictures in Acorn, Freeman commented on several as their pictures brought out memories.] RF: Here's Losee. Yes, you're right. Nilsson's name was Cluster. Here's Swenson, too. I had a very good relationship with Reed. He was the tennis coach. He had coached basketball and helped with football. 9 I can remember when I was in junior high. I went to junior high at Central, which was a part of Weber College.4 We used to see the guys sunbathing on top of the Weber Gym. Stan Watts was one of the great all-around athletes. He did everything—a great shooter. He went on to BYU. I always thought when we were kids, “Boy, wouldn't it be nice to go to college, and get up there on the roof and goof off like those guys.” I guess they weren't goofing off. But they would go up on top there and they would just have on their shorts and take their shirts off. They weren't indecent or anything. They would sunbathe up there. JC: That's goofing off, but it sure is fun. RF: Yes, it sure is fun. I can remember when I was a kid, about eleven or twelve years old, and we went swimming. A neighbor of mine took us swimming at Weber College. This was not a very happy moment. We were up swimming, and we swam for a while and a guy came over to me and said, "I'm sorry you'll have to get out of the pool." I said, "Why? What's the matter?" He said, "We don't allow colored people to use the pool." I was very impressionable as a kid. I had had some prejudice, a lot. I was very lucky as a kid that it didn't affect me too much because some of my friends were either Japanese or Jewish or Italian. Ninetynine percent of them were white. I stayed in school and most of the black kids— the few that were here—didn't stay in school. But I really didn't like that so I thought it was real ironic when Albert Stringer talked me into coming to college there. I said to myself when I was a child there, “One of these days I'm going to come back and walk through those doors and they're going to be very glad to see me.” So it did happen. Things 10 changed. I had many fond memories of Weber gym. In fact, I got a job there working in the laundry when one of our great basketball players, Norris Nelson from Morgan, graduated. He got killed in the war. He was a pilot. I got that job, and I had really wanted it since I was in college and I finally got it. When I was going away to University of Nevada, that summer, I got a call from a friend of mine that worked at the college, Harry Burschell—his son later on was quite famous at the college. Harry needed towels. He said, "I got these people up here and I know it's a big favor to ask.” I said, "I'm getting ready to leave town, Harry." He said, "Oh, I've just got to have somebody. I can't get away from the desk." So I went back. That was in early August, because I went to Nevada in August. I went down and put a couple of batches of towels through the laundry, tied them up and got him three or four stacks of towels. He was forever grateful. JC: Bailed him out for one afternoon. RF: Yes. When I first went there, they said, "If you want to get along and you want to get in the gym between classes or anything, do not make an enemy out of Harry!" I lived and learned. He was a very good friend, a very nice person. When I was at the U, Dick Bennion was the student body president and the Conference broad jump champion and the Conference tennis champion. When I was a freshman there, I became close to him because of his ability in tennis. I played tennis too, and track. He met a girl from Ogden, Lucille Jensen— we graduated together. He's still married to her. He was in love, and he was trying to run and he was trying to jump, and he told me, "Don't ever compete in two sports at the same time." So I came right back to Weber and did the same 11 thing that he told me not to, because I was in track and played tennis, too. Reed [Swenson, tennis coach] was after me one time, and Losee would tear me up one side and Reed would tear me on the other. I had a lot of fun. Mark Austad was in school the first year I was there. The late Rolfe Peterson, who used to be in San Francisco, he was a radio announcer. He was at KSL for a while. He became quite famous. JC: What other sports did you participate in? RF: I participated in football, track and tennis. At the time, they didn't have baseball, but that was probably my best sport because I don't ever remember learning how to play baseball; I just always knew. My brother would throw me the ball when I was a little kid, and I just grew up and knew how to play. I always wanted to learn how to swim better, and I did learn how to swim a little better at Weber. We had a kid named Perry Leavitt from Brigham, and he used to help me a little at swimming. At one time, I even helped in the swimming event in judging the diving. Losee had told us what to do, and we would hold the signs up. Of course, now they do it electronically. They just press the buttons. I helped them on the diving, but I wasn't sure what I was doing, but Losee was. I remember once when Losee was away in the early spring at his last swimming meet or something. The track team had been out, and we came back and got in the pool. I thought, 'Well, I'll just swim my events,” which aren't too hard. I swam a hundred yard dash, and that wasn't too bad. I tried to swim the 220, and they almost had to pull me out of the pool. I was laughing a few weeks later and telling Losee about it, and he really got on me. He said, "You can't do 12 that. You don't use the same muscles. That's the worst thing you could have done." I said, "I almost found out. They almost scraped me off the bottom of the pool." I used to watch the swimmers swim back and forth, their fifty laps, and they could do that. He said, "It's nothing, once you get used to it." I was always amazed, as most athletes are, when they look at athletes in another sport. When people are outstanding, they can appreciate what other sports demand. JC: When did you begin some of these sports, at Central Junior or Ogden High? When did you begin football? RF: When I first started football, I was at junior high school, and we had a program of football with Washington, Lewis, Mound Fort and Central. I had some friends— they weren't the school bullies, but they might as well have been. They said they'd beat me up or something or "You're going to go out for football or we won't even play with you" or something. I wasn't too interested in football, but I went out to keep up with my peers. While I was playing football, we were practicing up at what is now Central Junior High in the old Ogden High. I caught a punt and a kid that was the track star was chasing me and he never did catch me. The late Don Barney asked, "Have you ever run in track?" I said I just see them in the news. He said, "Did you know that you beat Zib?" I said, "Well, I know that I didn't want him to catch me." He said, "I want to see you out for track." Then I was in two sports—no, actually, three sports because of Bill Stratford. I think he came back to Weber to teach. He came to Central from the U. He graduated from the U and was the tennis captain there. He got up a tennis team at Central and we played Washington Junior High. So I was in track, 13 baseball and tennis there. We just had the one meet, but I got started there. My mother got me a tennis racket with S & H Green Stamps. I started playing on a dare. I eventually won the Junior Men's singles title when I was sixteen or seventeen. But the ability to run and the baseball ability were all there. Football came along; I had to learn that. It was kind of hard to learn how to block; all I did was get the ball and run when we played in the park, and I was pretty tough, and I could tackle good and had good eyes, hands, everything. That led to football. As I got into football, I realized there were a lot of other things that you had to learn about the sport and I grew to love it. From just learning my own position, I learned every position on the team. Eventually I became quarterback because they would ask, "What do I do?" and I'd say, "You do this," and "You do that." So I knew all the positions. JC: I understood from the Acorn or maybe the Signpost that you did play both quarterback and tailback. RF: Yes, tailback and quarterback. JC: What is the difference between these two positions? RF: Back in those days, the quarterback was generally what they call the man up under. You are familiar with single wing. Well, that would be the first man, generally a blocker. And the reason for that was that he didn't take too much of the punishment except blocking, and he wouldn't have his brains scrambled from a hard tackle or something like that. I knew signals and I knew all the plays then, and by that time I knew quite a bit about football. JC: Now, at this point, you're playing a wingback rather than tailback? 14 RF: No, I was playing a tailback. See you have a man up under, and a fullback, and a tailback and a wingback.5 JC: Oh, okay. RF: Now, at Ogden High, I played the wingback the first year and then I played the tailback, but I started calling signals there too, because he couldn't find a quarterback that was satisfactory. He said to me, "Would you like to play quarterback?" and I said, "Yes." He asked, "You know everything about it?" and I said, "Yes, I know all the positions. I studied them all summer." So that's how I became quarterback. Bob Davis was the coach then at Weber College, and he didn't think the other guy was doing a good job, so he asked me if I'd like a crack at it. So I called signals, and yet I was a tailback. Once, I got hit pretty hard, and they said I was wobbling around and wasn't sure what I was doing, and I got taken out of the game over at Mesa Junior College. I could see the value of not having the tailback call the signals. But I was fast and I could pass and I could run and I could block good. JC: Explain a little bit about what the various positions in the single wing did. What was the responsibility of the tailback and the wingback? RF: The tailback threw the football and ran the football. The wingback was a blocker and he could be a runner too. He would be what they now call a flanker. He would generally be a pass catcher, and on certain plays he would. In those days you would run what they call a cross block: two men would handle a large tackle or sometimes an end. The wingback would get help from the halfback. And the 15 fullback was always in that second position right next to the tailback, and of course he would carry the ball on short yardage. JC: Up the middle. RF: Yes, or sometimes he would get the ball and fake to the tailback who would go one way and give it to the wingback who would be coming around the other way to feign them out. The tailback and the fullback did the bulk of the ball carrying. Now, with the double wing, you would generally have the fullback handling the ball and the tailback would go over to this wing, so you could fake to both these guys running around, and pivot and take the ball in himself. But generally he would hand off and they'd go off one way or the other or he'd fake to one of them and carry the ball himself. JC: Did the quarterback still receive the snap? RF: No, then the fullback would. JC: So it would go straight from the center to the fullback. RF: To the fullback. The old tailback would then go over on the other wing and then they'd cross or you'd put him over there to camouflage. JC: I guess he could pass receive as well. RF: Yes. He could pass receive if you had a fullback who could throw. Or you could have the other wingback come around and give him the ball to pass. And it was especially effective if you had a left-hander because most kids are taught to cope with right-handers. And he'd come around that left side and throw the ball on them. They don't know what's wrong and it takes kids that young a few minutes to find out what's going on. Then everyone went to the T. 16 JC: Now, did you have experience playing under the T? RF: Yes, I had experience when we were freshmen. When I was a freshman at the U most of the teams that we played against—a lot of the teams, rather—used the T and the double wing. The University of Colorado used the double wing system. We would run those plays against the varsity. We would use the T. And Utah State was strictly a T-team. However, from the T you could shift to the single wing. It was very versatile; you could do a lot of things. So I learned how to handle the ball as a T-quarterback then, too. And I had good hands, and I could handle the ball. It gave me a lot of options then which the quarterbacks now don't have. You see very few quarterbacks that are fast. Most of them have good arms, but they're not good runners. I could run and I could pass and I was very fast, so it was very good for me. I would go back and fake the pass and would run back, or I would go back like I was going to run and I could pitch out to someone and they would tackle me and— JC: You didn't have the ball. RF: Yes, I wouldn't have the ball. I was very lucky. I really didn't get hurt too much when I was playing football, although I got a lot of bruises and things that now are probably hurting me. But many times I could see guys jumping on me, and I'd roll over or something and they'd hurt themselves. I remember in one game, this big tackle came, and I could see him. I rolled over and he knocked himself out and one of his teammates—just a little over aggressive. 17 JC: That is related to another of the questions, and that concerns injuries in football. How did the equipment protect players? What were the types of injuries that often happened? Is football safer now? How and why? RF: Well, they have these knee braces now. They had just begun using the silk pants, padded with the two pieces. The old pants just had the one piece. Luckily, I grew up at the beginning of the plastic—the end of the old school and the beginning of the plastic school. I can remember our first suits at Weber when we got the purple silk pants and the plastic helmets. We had quite a few knee injuries—water on the knee. And they would draw the water off and they would have a of lot injuries like that. We'd usually have some concussions, but most of them were knee injuries and bruises.6 I remember with me, I caught athletes’ foot up at Weber. It just about crippled me at one time. I missed two or three games. JC: Bad pain and itch, then. RF: Oh, yes. That was really bad. I've been careful. Then you didn't wear sandals and things like that in the shower. They had a pan in front of the shower and you would walk in that and it was supposed to—well, it did help. JC: If they kept the disinfectant strong enough, I guess it did. RF: But sometimes they didn't do that. Many of the kids had athlete’s foot, and that was quite painful. I had a wonderful almost-two years at Weber. I loved every minute of it. When I got out, I loved it even more when I looked back on my good Weber life. 18 JC: Well, you've talked about who the coaches were and you mentioned that you didn't know whether they had scholarships, but you didn't get one. Did they have scholarships at four-year schools? RF: When I went down to Nevada, that's the reason I went. They promised me room, board, books, tuition and fees, and he would get me a job. Now at the U, I had a scholarship. I told them I couldn't go to school unless I had a scholarship. And they didn't expect me to come to the U. They expected me to go to Utah State. But I got a scholarship there; I got tuition and fees, and they got me a job on the old NYA program—that was National Youth Administration a long time ago. I would make money—I think we got fifteen dollars a month—busing, as a busboy. I didn't know what a busboy was; I guess I thought they lifted buses or something like that. But it didn't take me long. That's when I got my first Social Security card. I didn't even know what Social Security was at the time. They took a penny out. You'd make ninety-nine cents, and you'd go down and get your money. I worked at the Newhouse Hotel. I can remember the Junior Prom; one of my friends asked, "Did you go to the Prom last night?" I said, "I was right in the middle of it." He said, "Really? I didn't see you." I said, "You were sitting over at the table, you were down in the old cafeteria there, and your date had on an orange dress," or whatever it was. He said, "You rascal, you were there." I said, "Right from beginning to end." I never did tell him that I was working that night. But it cost quite a bit then—I think it cost ten dollars—and you had to rent a tux, but of course you could rent a tux for a couple of dollars. The girls got a compact with a "U" on it. The Junior Prom 19 was a black tie affair. It was quite a thing. I did go to that; it was one of the funny aspects. I enjoyed my time at the U, too. I had good teachers. I don't know what this thing is now, letting athletes slide. I had a paper that I had written, a composition that was about a B-, which isn't bad. Most kids would be very happy to get a B- in anything. I had a teacher tell me that I was capable of doing better work than that, and "I will not accept this. You're going to go home over the weekend and do better." Now, I never did have a problem. I learned early in junior high, if you're going to be an athlete and you want to get your education, go to classes. That was drummed into me by my mother. I had seen a lot of the kids; they had problems—they didn't go to class, and that. I did go to class. I wasn't an honors scholar, but I was a good scholar. Teachers would say to me, "Now you can do better; I think you're sluffing around. You're becoming an average student, and you're not an average student; you're above average, way above average." They never let me slide. If they had people over at the U that were sliding, they didn't let me slide there. And of course the teachers at Weber, I was familiar with all of them. Like Orson Whitney Young was a real good teacher. Dr. Miner was a bacteriologist; I took a bacteriology class from him—a real outstanding teacher. I think he eventually went to BYU. But all the teachers were outstanding. And you knew them, and they knew you by your first name. JC: They weren't afraid to say, "Shape up." RF: No. I can remember Reed Swenson was my advisor, and I had to take calculus. And I said, "I'm just not going to graduate, Reed. I'm not going to take calculus 20 and I'm not going to take home econ." He said, "Yes, you're going to take calculus and you're going to take home econ." I said, "I don't want to be with all those girls." Of course I was old enough then that I should have wanted to be with the girls. Most of the kids that I knew were not knowledgeable about the ways of the world, about women and men and the differences. We liked the girls, and it was nice, but I believe that if one of them had kissed you out in the public, you'd go away and hide. Reed said, "You're going to take both of them. I'm your advisor, and you're going to take calculus and you're going to pass," which I did. I took calculus and passed with a B+, I think. At that time, I learned another lesson, too. If you have problems, nine out of ten professors or teachers, when they say, "I'll be in my office two hours. If you have a problem, come and see me," they really mean that. If there was something I didn't understand, I would go to them and tell them that I had a problem. The guy I took calculus from was a PhD at twenty-eight at Weber. He said, "We're not going to have a lot of algebra and a lot of numbers. This is going to be simple." He wrote numbers all the way around the board. I went to him at the end of the class, and said, "This is not for me. I don't think I want to graduate." He said, "No, calm down. This is not going to be this bad." It wasn't actually calculus, it was Physics 8 or Physics 10. What was that guy's name? [Freeman began looking at the faculty pictures in the Acorn.] Here's C.H. Anderson. I took social psychology from him. I see Farrell Collett. Oh, what was his name? Maybe I went too fast. I remember Walter Neville. David Trevethick—now he was a fine teacher. 21 JC: He was in English, wasn't he? RF: Yes, he was in English. I took English from him. He was a very colorful teacher. He didn't talk like an American. He talked like an Englishman. He was very proper and used good diction, a real outstanding teacher. Here he is—Robert Clarke. I saw G. M. Clark and realized it was Clarke even before I saw him. I took him for physics. JC: He was brand new. The year you were there he may have only been there two or three years. RF: I think so. I had no problems. He said, "No, you'll be alright. And if you’re not, just come and see me." Well, that first day I didn't think I was going to be alright but I thought I'd rather face him than Reed. Anyhow, [laughter] he said I was going to take both classes and graduate. Of course it was good. I have very fond memories of Weber. I was very thankful I was able to work. It gave me a lot of values I would never have got anywhere else. Many friends, some of them are deceased—some of these students that I see. Here's Foulger. His brother, Sid Foulger, is chief engineer for Marriott Hotels. He builds the hotels. I can remember when he was selling shoes. He was an outstanding young man, a very nice person. Here's Orson Whitney Young—an outstanding teacher. I didn't belong to any of the clubs except the Letterman Club. They had fraternities, but they weren't nationally associated. JC: Did you at Nevada Reno? RF: No. 22 JC: I was wondering what the social life was like for black students. How many black students were there at Weber when you were there? RF: I think that there were three of us at one time, and that's as many black students as I ever went to school with in my life. At one time I was there alone. I understand that there was a guy, George Johnson, who went to Weber for a while. I don't know whether he got his degree or not. There was Ethelda Kinsey. She and her brother and another sister all went to school at Weber. I think she was one of the first black students to graduate. She was there before me; she was a little older than I am. And George was there. And there was a guy named George Causey who has died. He came here as a freshman from San Antonio, Texas. And Willie Thomas turned out to be an outstanding scholar. I was lucky that my mother believed that you ought to have something to do. I grew up on the playgrounds, and that was a lot of my athletic ability, too. I stayed in the playgrounds in the summer. I played tennis and softball, and I had good advisors there—people who cared; someone that would stop every now and then and pat you on the back and say, "You're doing a good job; you're a nice kid. Hang in there." And that helps; you got to have that. JC: So most of the problems that you had with racism were not directed towards you but directed towards the opposing team. RF: Yes. I can remember one time when we were playing, one of the kids made a derogatory remark, and I said, "Hey, you're talking about me." He said, "Oh no, I'm not talking about you. You're the same as I am." But I said, "Well, no. You 23 can't think of it as that way." He was a very fine athlete on the other team and I couldn't let that go. I was very lucky—I grew up knowing kids of all nationalities. Most of my life, I spent just a block away from a lot of the Jewish kids and a lot of the Japanese kids and a lot of the Italian kids. At Grant School, there was a conglomeration of all of them: a very outstanding school with all good students. Not too many got in trouble. I guess some that we didn't know of. The kids from Grant School had a very outstanding record. Willie has done quite well. I think he is a millionaire now. He went in the army, was over in Europe and he stayed in Europe and went to Oxford. We used to write each other, but I haven't heard from him in years. I do know that he married and had a son. I think he teaches at Southern University. But George didn't stay in school long, and of course, the others weren't there. So most of the time, I was there alone. But that was no problem. In fact, my problem was sometimes the kids would say derogatory things about other black students we played against. I'd have to calm them. They'd always say, "Well, I don't think of you as a black person," or "colored" as they used to say then. I'd say, "Well, I am." Well, they'd grown up with me, and I'd slept at their house, eaten at their house, and had done everything with them. JC: Were there very many black students at the Grant School? RF: Most of the time I was there alone at that school. There were some of the Slocums that came to that school, too, but most of the time I was there alone. Now, many of the kids that I knew down there are still friends. David Handy and 24 Thelma Ellis—her name was Summers—I've known them all my life. Jim Toscan and many others. Those that are alive, I still know them. So I grew up just like a kid in New York and other big cities. You weren't a bad person just because of your color among those kids. You were a bad person just because you were a bad person. When the War came along, I volunteered to go in the Air Force. I'd had this hip operation, of course, and he told me to forget it. I was drafted, too, but they said, "Forget it. You're IV-F with that hip so you're not going to go." So I didn't go. I stayed out at Hill Field and I retired from Hill Field. I ended up as being an inventory management specialist. I bought parts for the F-4 aircraft and that's what I retired as. JC: So you were a civilian at Hill all the time. They never let you in. You could play football, you could play tennis, you could run track, but you couldn't be in the army. [Laughter] RF: Which a lot of people didn't understand in those days. I'd had this hip operation when I was at the U, before I went to Weber, and if I hadn't had that, probably I never would have gone to Weber, but would have gone right back to the U. JC: Then you wouldn't have gone to Nevada, either. RF: No, I wouldn't have gone to Nevada, either. One of my good friends, Bruce Balken, he was a senior when I was a freshman. He is a good friend of mine, I can remember, at the U. He goes to the same church as my wife and I do, too. We are a split house: an Episcopalian and a Catholic. I'm Catholic, but we both 25 go to each church. I've known Bruce, even from the U, so I'm going back a long, long time. He is now a pediatrician here in Ogden. JC: I'd like to ask you about the social life at Weber for minority students. You were alone essentially as a black student, but what about the Japanese-American and Chinese-American students? Were there any Chinese-American students? RF: I think there was one Chinese that I went up to school with. There were three or four Japanese students. I think there were Akisadas and some others. They socialized a little. I think there was one girl in the pep club. Generally speaking, I didn't socialize too much. I would go sometimes to the dances and things. As far as dating interracially, I didn't do that. I had many friends and I could have done that, probably, but it just didn't ever occur to me. JC: You didn't feel like it was an unwritten taboo? RF: No, I didn't feel that way. I just wasn't interested in doing it. No, I felt very much at home. There probably would have been parents and students that might not have liked it, but that didn't matter one way or the other to me. It just didn't happen. JC: Did the team face any kinds of problems on traveling because you were black? RF: Yes, I think Bob Davis did, and I didn't realize that until years later. He said, "You caused me a lot of problems." I can remember once we were traveling going down in Arizona. We were going to southeast Arizona. We stopped at one motel and we didn't go there, and we stopped at another motel and we didn't go there. I didn't realize, then, that that was a problem. I remember once we went to a motel when we went down to play Mesa. We stopped at the best motel in town. The 26 players on the bus going down had paper fights wherein you would roll up papers and pelt each other, all in fun, all the way to Grand Junction. After we arrived, many of the guys played cards and pretty generally messed their rooms up. I and Ace Bedsaul, another quarterback, roomed together. Coach Davis said we used so much energy playing he didn't think we would have anything left for the game. We won 6-0, however, I turned out to be the hero on an eighty-yard run. The team really had an exhausting good time. Most of the rooms were a mess. Not mine, however. I wasn't a real wild one. I didn't drink and I didn't smoke, still don't. We had no problems there. But the next year we went to play Western State, way up in Colorado, and came back down to Grand Junction and stayed at a worse class motel, and they didn't want to let me in. Weber had already committed their money, but they said they couldn't have me stay. Bob Davis came and talked to me, talked to me a long time. They got me a room at a house near there. I think after that, he kind of thought about black athletes. Eventually he came in contact with a lot of them. But that experience kind of established a precedent; if you aren't going to take our students regardless of who they are and what color they are, you don't need to take our money. Of course, when we traveled in California we didn't have any problems; we stayed in the best hotels. A lot of that rubbed off. I thought the good life is pretty good. An athlete gets pretty good living here. It might be a way to raise your standard of living— which it did. I always wanted to accomplish a little more. Not that I'm living like a millionaire, but I'm living better than I would have had I not gone to college and 27 seen how other people live. But I really didn't have any problems socially. I've had the girls put their arms around me and kissed me and all that, but it was an embarrassing situation. JC: You blush. RF: Yes. I've had a few friends that—one, Ruth Thomlinson—was very close. We played tennis, she was a tomboy, and we were very close. We used to bet malts and things like that. But no feeling of love or anything—no love as a companion, no carnal desires or anything like that. But I enjoyed my time. I can say that I grew up in a good time, but very prejudiced at the movies. JC: Even here in Ogden? RF: Yes. You had to sit over to the left or the right or upstairs if they had one. It was very prejudiced. Many of the restaurants you couldn't eat in.Okay you go ahead and ask me any other questions that you like. I'll try to be as candid as I can. JC: What kinds of opportunities were there in professional sports for black athletes at that time? RF: At that time, there was just nothing in professional, unless you were a baseball player in a large city. When I was at Weber, I had one black friend, John Carey, who was from Denver, and had gone to West Virginia State, which was a black school. He told me, "You need to get away from Utah and get around your own people; see what your own people are doing." I've always regretted that I didn't go to a black school in one way because I didn't get the educational background as far as black history is concerned. They just hit the surface here. And the association, because as I grew up, my peers 28 were all white and that's practically the way that I live now, although I go to the large cities and my relatives live in a lot of black districts, though some of them don't. I don't really have any problems with the whites or the blacks now. Mostly at work, there weren't too many blacks; a lot of black soldiers. In sports, at the time, I was supposed to go to UCLA, but I met a representative there, and they didn't want to give me a scholarship to help me along and I told them I'd have to have help. About that time Jackie Robinson, who broke into Major League Baseball, became the first black to play.8 In all probability football was a good sport too, but I was probably more outstanding in baseball than anything, because I could always do it. I probably could have made it there, but there wasn't that many opportunities. Professional football didn't open up. We had a kid, Bob Sneddon, that went into professional football, but he was white. My roommate at Nevada, Marion Motley, became a Hall of Famer, but he was from Ohio and had gone to a black school, and he was telling me how the campuses were just like the white campuses but they were all black. And I thought, “That would be great. I would at least learn a lot about my own people.” But the chance was not there. However, when Motley went away—he went into the army. Well, actually the navy. When he came out of the navy, an old high school coach whose team had played against Motley—and Motley had been so outstanding (he was an All- American at Nevada and at a black school, South Carolina State) that he [the coach] remembered Motley and gave him a chance and another guy [Bill Willis] that had gone to Ohio State where he had coached, Paul Brown.9 They played 29 on the old Browns team, and they played with one of the guys that I knew, Max Beatie, from Salt Lake—South High. Now he was a year behind me; he was a freshman when I was a sophomore. They [the Browns] had a real fine team, won four or five pro championships. JC: So they were among the early blacks to play professional football. RF: Yes, they were the early blacks. And at that time they had just started playing basketball. The only thing we had seen in basketball up to that time was the Ghosts, that would come through here, and then the Globetrotters started coming through which they still do. And of course they were some of the greatest basketball players I had ever seen. They won the world championship. I probably would have gone to a black school, but black schools realized that there weren't many black kids out here, so they just neglected the area. They went to large cities to get their black athletes. JC: Did they play baseball at UN? RF: No, they really didn't play baseball. They only time we played baseball in the high school, we had a makeup game, and we played Weber twice—Weber High School. There was just the two high schools. We played them once there and once here. But they didn't really have a baseball program in high school. In junior high school, yes. JC: What about University of Nevada? RF: No, they didn't. Neither did the U. JC: Oh? The U didn't either? RF: No. The only minor sports were wrestling, swimming and tennis. 30 JC: So you would have had to leave the Intermountain area to get into a baseball playing school. RF: Yes. Now, the black major leagues were going at that time. But they were back east, and it was hard to get back there to try out and times were not that easy to get around unless somebody knew you. JC: Did you graduate from the University of Nevada? RF: Yes, in education. JC: Do you keep up with journalism? Did you take journalism there? RF: Yes. They were surprised that I took journalism. I haven't done anything in journalism. I've forgotten all about it. It was a means to graduate. They had a coach there, that thought that football was it. I had to get him straightened out that it was a means for an education, even though I'd probably play free or pay him to play. I still had in the back of my head that education was still primary. I realized that not many athletes—not then and not even now—make it, black or white. Get your education so you can do something—and eat. JC: That degree, while you may not work in it, in the actual field you prepared in, it allows you entrance to jobs that— RF: That you never would even be considered for without it. However, it has held me back in a lot of jobs at Hill Field. Once they learn that you had a degree, people that just had high school educations would be working above you and would be your bosses, they were very prejudiced because of your background. I started out at the bottom as a laborer there and it wasn't until I met another guy that was on the school board...10 I don't think but twice in life did I ever come up—well, 31 three times—in the thirty-four years that I was at Hill Field, did I get a job because of my background and ability. Most of them were very prejudiced and ignorant; not knowledgeable in their jobs at all. JC: So you had to hide the fact that you had the education. RF: Yes. A lot of times you just didn't mention it. But I learned to cope, and I used my education where I could. And at least three people that I know of said, "You've got the education and the background, so you're going to get the job." I got the job. The others made all kinds of excuses and I was held down quite a bit. JC: Do you think that was because of racism? RF: Yes, that was it. You were dealing with people that weren't educated. Most of your racism is because of people that are not educated. JC: So, in other words, it wasn't because they had a high school education or less and you had more that bothered them, it was that you were black. RF: And had a college education, yes. JC: But if you had been white and had the college education, they wouldn't have cared anywhere near so much? RF: Probably there was a little...well, no I won't say parochialism. But a lot of them were staunch Mormons, and that had a lot to do with it. Being black and Catholic in a Mormon area is not—that hadn't bothered me much before. It began to play when I got out on my own. When I was a kid, there was no problem. My closest friend was a Mormon, who is still alive, who I grew up with down near the old Second Ward. So I know there were a lot of bad Mormons and a lot of good 32 Mormons, because a lot of the good Mormons have helped me along my way. There was no problem that way as long as I was with my peers education-wise. JC: You mentioned you had several Japanese-American friends. Of course, you had left Weber by the time of Pearl Harbor, but what kinds of problems did your Japanese-American friends face here in Utah? RF: At the time some of them were Buddhist. At that time it wasn't like now; some Japanese were Mormons, but not many. Maybe one percent, but not many like there are now. They had problems sometimes socializing and sometimes in their school work. But one Japanese, Stoma Ochi, was secretary at Weber. He was a year younger than I. His dad had a business. I remember Akisada, Jiro Tsukimoto, and Eddie and Roy Sasaki, and Yuki Yano, a girl, who became a great nurse. I had a lot of Japanese friends; most of my friends, I've known for life. As I said, no problem when your peers are your equals, education-wise. We are equal otherwise. When you get a common understanding. JC: Then you learn to accept as equals. I appreciate very much your time. 33 Notes 1. Unless the University of Utah began winter quarter before Christmas vacation, Freeman's return to Ogden for surgery was apparently not in December 1938 but actually in January 1939, as he had just begun winter quarter and had attended the University a year and a quarter beginning in the fall 1937. 2. Freeman attended Weber for five quarters beginning fall quarter, 1939. He played football two years, 1939 and 1940, the Acorn for each year including either a picture or his name in the football write-up. He then sat out winter quarter, 1941, enrolling again in spring quarter to be eligible to compete in track. 3. Signpost. Thursday, 3 October 1940 (vol. 4, no. 2), p. 4. Next to the article is a picture of four Weber College football players practicing a running play with Freeman carrying the ball. 4. In 1938, Weber College bought what became known as the Central and Central West Building from Ogden City School District. From 1909 to 1938, the city school district used this building for Central Junior High School, the junior high which Freeman attended. These buildings face 25th Street, just east of Adams with only the President's house between the Central Building and the Weber Gym. Hence, during the years Freeman attended Central Junior High, Weber College athletes were fairly visible to the junior high students. Earlier, the oldest part of this building, Central West, served as the first permanent home of Ogden High School, 1901 to 1909. Before the city school district bought the building in 1901, the Congregational church operated the Ogden Academy in the same building. See the Utah Historic Records Survey of 34 the WPA, A History of Ogden, p. 62; Ogden Standard Examiner, 13 September 1937, p. 5, and 19 September 1937, p. 1A; and Milton R. Hunter, Beneath Ben Lomond's Peak, pp. 538, 553-54. 5. See Mr. Freeman's drawings at the end of the transcript, illustrating the single wing, double wing and T-formations. 6. Freeman later clarified what the braces and helmets were like and how they cut down injuries. "The knee braces were made of steel and canvas, and one fastened them on above and below the knee. They protected primarily from injuries from clips from the side and not much from the front or back. They helped linemen more than backs, being quite cumbersome. Knee injuries were quite prevalent before the braces which did cut down on the injuries slightly. The fact is, grass is a safer field than the new synthetic turf. "The new plastic helmets cut concussions and head injuries most dramatically because they reacted like shock absorbers. Helmets were much more comfortable with the rubber and foam insulation. Many, many head injuries were reduced." 7. Mr. Freeman later added more details to develop the significance of this experience. Coach Bob Davis up to that time had only known some black athletes at the high school level. Freeman believes his association with Davis called attention to many problems of hotels and restaurants and black athletes. Freeman added that Davis never wavered in his support of Freeman. He told Freeman near graduation that because of him any black athletes would be welcome. Freeman indicated Weber College never returned to that motel. 35 8. Jackie Robinson attended UCLA before the war, starring in football, basketball and track as well as baseball. After playing with the Kansas City Monarchs, a black team, he signed with the Brooklyn Dodger organization in the fall of 1945, to play for their farm club, the Montreal Royals, in 1946, becoming the first black to play professional baseball outside the black leagues. The next year, he played for the Brooklyn Dodgers. See Encyclopedia Americana, 1984 edition, s.v. "Robinson, Jackie," by Bill Braddock. 9. Paul Brown, the founder and coach of the Cleveland Browns, had coached previously at Great Lakes Naval Training Station during World War II and, before the war, at Ohio State University and at Massillon High School. At Ohio State, Brown had coached Bill Willis. Freeman indicated that Brown's teams at Massillon had come up against Canton Central High School where Marion Motley played, but it is also possible that Motley played for Brown at Great Lakes. Brown also hired a third black, Horace Gilliam [or Gillom], a punter out of the University of Nevada. Motley and Willis joined the Browns in the franchise's first season in 1946 and were the first blacks to play professional football. Gilliam joined the team the next year. See The NFL's Official Encyclopedic History of Professional Football, p. 118. 10. Freeman broke off here and in later conversation did not add much detail other than to show that some educated people were prejudiced against blacks.