BLACK COACH

by Pat Jordan ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 22, 1971

In 1970 Jerome Evans, a black, replaced C. A. Frye, white, as football coach at Walter Williams High School, Burlington, North Carolina, (pop. 40,000) thus becoming the first black head coach ""at a major, predominantly white high school in the South."" This is more than a recapitulation of Evans' first season at Burlington wherein he achieved good statistical success while making a few pardonable mistakes, e.g., he initially overrated his white players -- ""He thought they were more intelligent and talented than they were. . . . He had been so brainwashed by white propaganda."" Rather, this is much more a sensitive, nonscholarly sociological report on the racial attitudes of the community (ingrained racism dies hard), on Frye (a mercurial man, a redneck underneath), on the players, the school superintendent, and most of all Evans, a compulsively neat, lonely man who is by self-definition not a black but a Negro though under the skin ""I've got a lot of hate buried in me."" Pat Jordan's Black Coach has much broader appeal than the title suggests.

Pub Date: Nov. 22, 1971

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Dodd, Mead

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1971

Categories: NONFICTION