Greg Johnson Was Among The First Group Of Blacks Admitted To Leesburg High, And He Helped Put To Rest The Theory That Whites Were Superior On The Football Field.
When Greg Johnson was growing up near Leesburg in the 1960s, many people believed white football players were better than blacks.
Johnson, 42, a longtime football coach at Osceola High School, didn't know any better until he was among the first class of blacks reluctantly admitted to Leesburg High School in 1968, when Lake County schools were integrated.
Johnson walked onto the campus as a 6-foot-4, 185-pound freshman brimming with emotion.
''We felt resentment,'' he said. ''We had heard the myths about how good white players were, but nobody knew what to expect.''
The previous year for the all-black Carver Heights High School, Johnson played as an eighth-grader, though equipment mostly was make-do.
''I tied a big shoulder pad and a small one together with shoestrings and wore one high-top and one low-top shoe,'' Johnson said. ''We dressed in so many different uniforms for games we looked like a circus.''
So the 30 or so black athletes from Carver Heights - ''the Marines of integration'' as Johnson called them - were shocked when they saw Leesburg's locker room.
''We couldn't believe it . . . practice and game jerseys that matched, equipment we didn't have to piece together, all the things we hadn't had,'' Johnson said. ''We didn't know how bad what we had was until we saw how good Leesburg had it.''
Lake County was a difficult place for blacks at that time. Sheriff Willis McCall, who was in office from 1945 to '72, had a national reputation as a blatant racist.
Many charges were brought against McCall but none ever stuck, including a second-degree murder charge for killing a black prisoner he claimed was attempting to flee.
''McCall was notorious for intimidating blacks,'' Johnson said of the sheriff, who died in 1994. ''When something happened involving blacks and whites, the blacks disappeared, or died.''
When he was young, Johnson took out his rage by fighting and relished using his fists in elementary school. But as he grew older, he said that Martin Luther King's non-violent approach appealed to him more.
''Television played a motivational role. Everything was happening so quickly,'' Johnson said. ''I could have adopted Malcolm X's philosophy, but Dr. King's ability to get things done through non-violence appealed to me.''
In high school, he stepped between blacks and whites to keep them from fighting. But the blacks from Carver Heights helped bring success on the field, so that helped ease tensions.
A year after the merger, Leesburg reached the state title game, losing to Live Oak.
''We had a strong winning tradition, Leesburg didn't,'' Johnson said. ''That made us acceptable to the student body and community.''
Charter buses had replaced rides on rusting hulks used by migrant workers. Booster-funded meals at restaurants replaced convenience store pit stops and Carver Heights coach Hubert Dabney's warnings: ''If you do anything wrong you're going to jail!''
Johnson excelled in football. Twice at Leesburg he was an all-state selection.
His success was expected. Football was so much a part of his life that as a toddler he was treated like one by his uncles.
''They'd put him under an arm and take off running with Greg yelling 'Football!' the whole time,'' said Johnson's mother, Juanita Tanner, chuckling. ''He was always eager to play. It's all he ever wanted to do.''
He went on to Florida State University, where he started for three years. He was Philadelphia's fifth-round pick in the 1976 NFL draft and played in the Canadian Football League.
The Black Student Union helped sell Johnson on FSU, but he was called an ''Uncle Tom'' by athletes at predominantly black Florida A&M after signing with the Seminoles.
It was a time before black athletes were welcome everywhere in the South.
''I remember Florida coach Ray Graves saying he'd never recruit a black,'' Johnson said. ''And even though I visited and liked Auburn coach Shug Jordan, I had a bad taste for Alabama because of George Wallace.''
Johnson's pro career ended in 1977 because of injuries. He sold insurance and worked as a teacher and assistant coach before being offered the job as head football coach at Osceola High School in Kissimmee.
Johnson turned down the job twice when Mike Vogt resigned. Johnson wasn't convinced the community would endorse a black coach.
Ultimately, he accepted, but not before he ''prayed long and hard and canvassed the community to gauge support.''
Racial concern proved unfounded. When Johnson resigned for personal and financial reasons after eight years in January, he had equaled the longest stay by any football coach since World War II.
''What I found here was the exact opposite,'' he said. ''The people associated with Osceola and Kissimmee gave me total support, maybe the best I could have found anywhere.''
Resources
Frank Carroll
The Sentinel Staff
Orlando Sentinel
February 18, 1996Leesburg Public Library
http://www.ci.leesburg.fl.us/library/
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Gerald LaceyStaff Writer
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1986 Varsity Jackets Football Lettermen #82
Class of 1988 Leesburg High School
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