As the First Football Players from New Bethel High School Helped Integrate the Wolverines’ Football Program, they set Examples of Class, Integrity, and a Will to Win that Would Inspire the Next Generation of Wolverines who Would Follow them.
By: Garrett Mitchell, Staff Writer
From the stands at Spartanburg’s old Dorman High School football stadium, a wide-eyed 9-year-old Frankie Walker watched and cheered as Woodruff battled James Island for the 1968 state football championship.
Greg Anderson was suffocating on defense, Nate Glenn and Willie Stevens were electric running the football, and the Wolverines and quarterback Deedie Dunaway were throwing everything and the kitchen sink at their physically larger and favored opponent.
In the end, Woodruff fell one point short of bringing home the championship, but as James Island celebrated their 9-8 victory, the young Walker was left with a lasting impression by Anderson, Glenn, Stevens, and the rest of the Wolverines on that cold, rainy Thanksgiving Day.
The players Walker was cheering for were already heroes and would be immortalized in Woodruff football lore. As he left the stadium, Walker knew he wanted to one day play on the grandest of all stages, too, as a Woodruff Wolverine.
“I can tell you, out of everything else, I remember 1968 at Dorman High School watching us play James Island,” recalled Walker. “Deedie Dunaway, Greg Anderson, Nate Glenn, Willie Stevens, those are the ones I remember. And of course, I knew how fast Willie was and I knew how tall Greg Anderson was, so those were things I just remember. Those were some big guys back then, but I guess that’s because I was so little. That was when I really caught onto the game.”
The memories retained by the young and impressionable Walker that night always stayed with him. Those memories, in larger part, were created by many of the first black football players that started integrating the Wolverines’ program in 1966. Anderson, in fact, was a sophomore in ’66 and one of the first three African American players to attend and play for Woodruff High.
But Walker is so deeply impacted by watching those Wolverines play for a championship, which inspired him and the next generation of Wolverines to carry on a spirit of unity that Anderson and his teammates helped create and, maybe, Walker and his peers could one day finish what those players had started.
Looking back at those days, Dunaway speaks fondly of the new teammates he bonded with. For Dunaway, it was never about race or whether or not black players would be accepted at Woodruff High. For him, he simply wanted to win a championship and viewed Marshall Stephens, Larry Fryer, Anderson, and Glenn as friends and comrades who could accomplish the ultimate goal together.
“For us, it was we had new players and it was a very positive thing,” Dunaway said. “Back then, our guys were mill boys. We all worked in the mill when we weren’t playing football. We accepted everybody, and we knew it would improve our team, too.”
Dunaway added, “When I was a sophomore, we were following the 1965 state championship team and we wanted to carry on that legacy. When Marshall and Larry joined the team, they were just two of the guys, our friends, and teammates.”
Stephens and Fryer made immediate impacts on the field, but as students and ambassadors, their influence reached beyond the gridiron. They, along with Anderson, Glenn, and Willie Stevens were gifted students who contributed in the classroom and as citizens of the community, their efforts proving that integration was something that would make Woodruff schools a far better place.
Marshall was told at home that during the changing times he would have to apply himself ever harder with the eyes of the town and the school watching integration happen. He took that advice to heart.
“We were taught behavior,” said Stephens. “We were told, son, you’re a black man in a white man’s society and you are going to have to work twice as hard. With all of your talents, skills, knowledge, and understanding, you’re going to have to crack those books and be sharp. The teachers knew they had to push us, even though we were doing pretty good. That was the hardest part of that transition.”
By that time, the point of no return had been reached. As desegregation and integration were taking place, New Bethel High School burned, suspiciously, but there was no turning back even if there was any desire to do so by any students.
All that the first African American students and athletes could do was show that they belonged. Of course, they always had, even if an ignorant few tried to say otherwise, but it was the athletes of New Bethel that truly connected the students from both schools as one.
“I always tried to give the people who didn’t have the opportunities to shine or play a chance to make an impact,” Willie Stevens said. “When I was elected to the Woodruff High School Football Hall of Fame, it blew my mind. Woodruff has always had a great tradition, but before I even came to Woodruff I would always read about Buddy Cox and all of those guys who were there, how they were leaders, and we were trying to get everyone to do the same thing at New Bethel. There was just something about Woodruff football.”
Stevens continued, “It helped me understand life, even with all of the obstacles thrown at us.”
In hindsight, it was men like Marshall, Willie, Greg, Larry, and Nate that helped the town of Woodruff and
Woodruff High School overcome their own obstacles, misconceptions, and biases.
As students, citizens, and athletes, they blazed their own trail and interconnected it with the Wolverines’ tradition of excellence to make their school, team, and teammates better. That legacy will live on forever, and each man has their own notions of just how impactful their examples of virtue and bravery were in 1960s Woodruff.
“We were the celebrities of Woodruff,” said Anderson when remembering the 1968 state championship game. “As far as Woodruff was concerned, we were the Green Bay Packers of the Dallas Cowboys.”
Marshall and Willie also look back now and are proud of what they and their peers accomplished, though they say in all honesty that their paths were not always easy. They do look back with pride that their example helped pave the way for a new generation of Wolverines.
“We were nurtured and loved and coached and taught and challenged,” said Stephens. “In broader terms, among our legacy was the fact that we toughed it out even though the odds were sometimes against us. We persevered and on the athletics side of it we began a legacy and created a positive standard.”
Willie Stevens added, “I tell athletes now if you have the heart to win, you’re going to win. We had heart and we won, on the field and in life.”
Larry Fryer, the first black player to ever score a touchdown for Woodruff High in 1967, hopes those who looked up to him and his 9teammates took from their efforts a positive example of not only how to play the game, but how to accept people into personal relationships as well.
“I’m proud to have been a part of Woodruff High School and the football team for my two seasons,” he said. “It really brought the neighborhood together. We stopped looking at color and started looking at the team. I think what we did served a purpose. I think it gave the kids watching us the idea that it didn’t matter what color you were, we were all playing on the same team. It gave them the opportunity to go out and do their best.”
In the years following their graduation from Woodruff High, the men who helped integrate and unite Woodruff and the football program took different paths in life. The commonality of their individual journeys is the level of success each experienced and enjoyed. Those courageous young student-athletes grew into pillars of their community and all they ever needed was the chance to show that they would.
Marshall Stephens went on to become the first African American graduate of Erskine College before serving as the first black copy editor of The Greenville News where he served two stints in that capacity.
Stephens earned a Master’s degree from the University of Tennessee and hosted a popular radio jazz show in Knoxville, the city he came to call home, from 1985 to 1994, before moving back to South Carolina where he established a program managing program at Greenville Technical College.
Willie Stevens played baseball at Spartanburg Methodist College before transferring to Wofford where he played football. Stevens earned a doctorate in psychology and moved to Winston-Salem, NC where he worked in the school system for over 30 years counseling disadvantaged youth. He travels all over the country speaking to schools and students about how they can overcome their own challenges and lead successful lives.
Greg Anderson graduated as Woodruff High School’s all-time rebounding leader in basketball and was elected to the school’s football hall of fame. He operated several successful businesses in Woodruff and now resides in Chicago.
Larry Fryer is now retired and continues to call Woodruff home.
Upon reflection, Deedie Dunaway says he is privileged to have called them all his teammates and friends and states that Woodruff is forever a better place for their contributions.
“I always hoped somebody would follow us and what we were able to accomplish,” said Dunaway. “At that time, we only had each other to look up to. I think the whole life we had during that time, we lived football and sports, and our dedication to what we did was very rewarding. I am grateful I was able to share it all with those guys.”
Frankie Walker also made good on the promise he made to himself on that late November afternoon in 1968. Walker became the Wolverines’ starting quarterback in 1974 and led Woodruff to the first two of four consecutive state championships in 1975 and 1976 in what became known as the dynasty years of Wolverine football.
The passion he learned from Greg, Marshall, Willie, and the rest of the New Bethel Bulldogs-turned-Wolverines never left him.
“I don’t think the success or the way we came up would have been what it was unless somebody started it,” stated Walker. “Those guys took a chance of going out for the football team, maybe when they weren’t even wanted by some people, but they loved the game enough to prove themselves. I don’t think what we did would have been possible without those guys.”
Walked concluded by saying what should have been obvious to everyone from the very beginning…
“We really are all Wolverines.”
Author: Tracy Sanders
