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Most Likely To…

June 1971.  The end of the school year was approaching, and all us soon-to-be-graduates were gathered in the Central High School auditorium for the senior awards assembly.  I had not looked forward to attending because it seemed to me like another one of those obligatory high school events that no student enjoyed, but there I was.  As I sat there, I began to daydream and to reflect on my eclectic high school career.

As a kid I had always been in awe of Central High School – Whittier Junior High, too, for that matter.  Central and Whittier shared a campus and a long and storied tradition.  Central was the first high school in Flint, Michigan.  In fact, the letter on the Flint Central varsity jacket was simply an F, a holdover from the days when Flint Central was simply Flint High School.  The mascot for Flint Central was the Indian, and at halftime of every home football game, an Indian (or more precisely, a black kid in an Indian costume) would dance the war dance in the end zone.

In keeping with the Indian motif, the Whittier Junior High sports teams were known as the Braves.  There was no dancing mascot at Whittier, however.  Whittier Junior High was named for the poet John Greenleaf Whittier.  As far as I know, there was never a connection between the poet and the City of Flint, but at the time all of Flint’s junior high schools were named for dead poets or dead presidents.

The Central/Whittier campus was a magnificent place.  Both the high school and the junior high school were constructed of red brick, with vines of ivy climbing the walls.  A grassy yard bisected by cement walkways lay in front of the buildings.  Large oak and maple trees contributed shade and added to the majestic ambience.  In those days, when someone spoke of an Ivy League school, the first image that came to my mind was the Flint Central campus.

I began my career at Flint Central as a tenth-grader in the fall of 1968.  I was a diligent student, but I was never interested in focusing solely on the classroom.  In the fall of each year, I participated in the Flint Central marching band.  In the winter, I played on the school basketball team.  In the spring I focused my attention on the Flint Science Fair.  As far as I knew, I was the only student who had this strange mix of extracurricular activities, but for the most part, none of the other students noticed or cared. 

During my sophomore year, I played trombone in the band, and I played center on the sophomore basketball team. In the spring, I placed fourteenth overall in the Flint Science Fair.  I had a good year, but it was nothing special. 

In my junior year, I was selected to be the assistant drum major of the high school marching band.  The assistant drum major automatically became drum major in his senior year.  My selection as assistant drum major came about in an interesting way.  Out on the practice field one afternoon, our band director, Mr. Bruce Robart, asked the eighty-eight band members to form a single line.  With the current drum major standing by his side, he asked every student who was interested in becoming assistant drum major to step forward.  At that moment, the other eighty-seven band members stepped back, leaving me as the only one in front of the line.  Mr. Robart said, “Mr. Tarver, looks like you’re it!”

That same year, I made the varsity basketball team.  This was a big improvement from sophomore year, when I only made the sophomore team.  I was leaping over the junior varsity team right into big-time Flint Central varsity basketball.  I owed the improvement in my status to my neighbor and friend Mike Thompson, a.k.a. Dookey-Hookey.  During the summer after my sophomore year, Mike decided that he was going to help me make the varsity.  He figured that I needed to become a much tougher player, and he took it upon himself to make me tougher.  We spent many afternoons and evenings playing one-on-one on the driveway court behind my house.  Every time I would drive to the basket, Mike would hit me or push me and say, “You got to get tough, Turtle!”  I was bigger than Mike, but his pushing and cajoling were hard to take.  In the end, it did make me a tougher player, and that fall I was fearless as I competed for a spot on the varsity.  Not only did I make the varsity – six games into the season I became a starter.  I made the starting squad because the coach saw me as a tough player – a hard-nosed defender and a determined rebounder and a relentless hustler.  In fact, my teammates gave me the nickname Tarnacious.  I owed it all to those “Get tough, Turtle!” sessions with Dookey-Hookey.

At the beginning of my junior year, I got involved in school politics for the first time.  A group of us black students decided that it was time to assert ourselves, so we ran an all-black slate of class officers.  Denise Davis ran for president, I was the vice-presidential candidate and campaign manager, my friend Shirley Hampton ran for treasurer, and another neighborhood girl, Jenny Dones, was the candidate for secretary.  To our surprise, we all won!  In a school that was thirty percent black and seventy percent white, we managed to elect an all-black group of class officers.

We didn’t have much time to savor our victory.  Soon after the election, Shirley Hampton was summoned to the principal’s office.  The principal confronted her with the fact that Shirley’s family had recently moved out of the Flint Central district.  They indicated that Shirley would have to leave Central and attend our arch-rival, Flint Northern.  Denise and Jenny and I were all very upset.  Not only were we losing one of our newly elected black officers; we were losing Shirley to another school – to Northern, no less!  It was a tragic situation, and we immediately set out to determine who ratted on Shirley and told the administration that her family had moved from the district.  Our speculation quickly settled on Chris Crawley, a white girl who was Shirley’s opponent for class treasurer.

Chris Crawley was an attractive girl, tall with light brown hair.  She was nice to just about everyone, and didn’t seem to have a problem dealing with the black students at Central.  The fact of the matter was, I kind of liked Chris Crawley, and I hoped that she wasn’t the one who told on Shirley.  It didn’t seem like something that Chris would do.  I appointed myself as the person to question Chris on the matter, so one day after school I pulled her aside and asked her about it.

“Hey Chris,” I began as I saw her walking away from school.  “Got a few minutes?”

Chris smiled and said, “Sure.” 

We walked toward Chris’ house, which was only a few blocks east of the school.  As we walked, I congratulated her on being treasurer, and we made some small talk about the student council and about school in general.  Then we came to the subject of the election.  Chris said, “I feel bad about what happened to Shirley.  I didn’t want to become treasurer like this.  Denise and Jenny already don’t like me.  Now I know they’ll hate me.”

I felt kind of sorry for Chris.  In our zeal to elect an all-black group of officers, we really did overlook the fact that there were good-hearted white kids in our class – kids like Chris.  I knew that Denise and Jenny didn’t like her, but I tried to downplay that.

“Denise and Jenny are just mad about what happened to Shirley.  They think you might have had something to do with it – that you might be the one who turned Shirley in,” I said cautiously.

Just then, Chris began to cry.  “I would never do something like that,” she protested.  “I like Shirley, and I think it’s terrible what happened.  If you want me to, I’ll resign!”

I felt myself starting to go soft.  Chris Crawley seemed like a really nice girl.  She had a heart, and she was certainly attractive.  As we approached her house, I started to get apprehensive.  This was not my neighborhood, and I wasn’t sure that Chris’ parents should see me walking her home.

“Chris,” I said, “Don’t worry about it.  I’ll tell Denise and Jenny you had nothing to do with it.  Things may be rough for a while, but you’ll be okay.  I look forward to working with you.”

Chris said, “Oh, thank you David.”  Then she turned to walk into her house and said, “Would you like to come in?  You want something to drink?”

I declined.  Just going into Chris’ neighborhood was enough adventure for one day.  I said goodbye, and turned to walk home to Sixth Street.

In the ensuing weeks, Chris and I got to know each other more and more, and I found that I enjoyed talking with her.  I started visiting her at her home after school, and we would spend hours studying together and talking.  We were just friends, but I liked Chris a lot, and I began to think about what it would be like if she were my girlfriend.

Someone at school started a rumor that I was dating Chris.  Suddenly, I found myself being shunned by a lot of the black kids at school.  Some of my teammates on the basketball team were giving me a hard time in the locker room.  One of them, Bobby Stone, Michael Stone’s older brother, told the other players on the team: “Don’t pass the ball to Tarver – he likes white girls.”  I knew where the animosity was coming from, but still I felt terrible.  For the most part, the folks who were getting on my case weren’t my friends, so I didn’t care a lot about what they thought.  Still, it made things pretty uncomfortable for me at school.

Meanwhile, at Chris’ house, I was approaching a moment of truth.  I was visiting Chris more and more after school, and we were spending more time talking and enjoying each other’s company, and less time studying.  At one point, sitting there on Chris’ sofa, we kissed. 

Chris’ parents seemed nice, and they didn’t seem too bothered that a black kid named David Tarver was spending a lot of time in the den with their daughter.  One night, Chris’ mother entered the den with some tickets in her hand.  She said, “How would you kids like to go to this concert at Whiting Auditorium next week?  I think you might enjoy it.”

I was stunned.  Chris’ mother was actually encouraging me to take her daughter out.  Until then, our relationship had existed solely in the den of Chris’ house.  I hadn’t thought about what it would mean to go public – I just knew about all the grief I was getting from the guys on the basketball team and from some of the other kids at school.  Chris was getting grief too – a lot of the black girls at school hated her guts.  I didn’t know what to say, so I just said “Thank you, Mrs. Crawley,” and took the tickets.

Over the next couple of days, I thought real hard about going to the concert with Chris.  Something about it just didn’t seem right.  I already had a girlfriend, Gay Carlton, and although she was living in the Chicago area, I still felt like she was the girl for me.  Moreover, I realized that I wasn’t ready to have a white girlfriend – not at that time, not at Flint Central High School.  I liked Chris a lot, but it wasn’t that serious.  Over the ensuing weeks, I visited Chris’ house less and less, and eventually we saw each other only at school.

My junior year at Flint Central ended on a high note.  In the spring of that year I entered the Science Fair again.  This time I finished in fourth place overall.  It was a great achievement, but I still fell short of my goal of winning the top prize.

I entered my senior year at Flint Central with a lot of optimism.  I looked forward to being the drum major of the marching band and a starting forward on the basketball team.  I also looked forward to finally winning the Flint Science Fair.  I had high hopes for the year.

Marching band season started out okay, but by the end of the season problems started to set in.  The band director didn’t think I was serious enough about being a drum major, and he didn’t like the fact that I sometimes had to leave band early to get to basketball practice.  The basketball coach didn’t think I was serious enough about basketball, and he didn’t like the fact that I was arriving at basketball practice late, after band practice.  I couldn’t win.  I was a fair drum major, but my heart wasn’t totally in it.  I was happy when football season ended and I could concentrate fully on basketball.

When basketball season started, things went downhill fast.  Our first game was against Pontiac Central High School, one of the top teams in the state.  The star player for Pontiac was Campanella (Campy) Russell.  He was so good that people were already touting him as an NBA prospect.  I made my mark on our team when, during the previous season, I did an outstanding defensive job on Campy.  In fact, my defensive job on Campy is what led to my starting position on the team.  I was looking forward to matching up with Campy again.  I thought if I did a good job on him again, folks around the state might begin to notice this David Tarver kid.

During the first few minutes of the game, all my hopes were dashed.  The first time Campy got the ball, I overplayed his right hand.  Campy simply drove around me with his left hand for an easy lay-up.  The next time down the floor, I played him straight up, but this time Campy sealed me off with his left hand and drove around me with his right – another easy basket.  The next time Campy had the ball, I stepped back so he couldn’t drive around me.  He simply pulled up and hit a jump shot – nothing but net.  Campy grinned and shook his head as he trotted back down the floor.  His teammates were all laughing.  My teammates were all furious.  All in all, Campy scored nine points in the first two minutes of the game.  That’s when I heard the words I dreaded most from our coach, Cliff Turner:  “Get Tarver out of there!”  Just like that, I was out of the game, and my backup, Eugene Wilborn, was in.  I never started another game for Flint Central.  For all practical purposes, it was the end of my career in organized basketball.  I finished out the season, but I spent most of the time on the bench.  Our team didn’t have a very good year.

With my basketball career down the drain, I focused more attention on my Science Fair project.  Senior year was my last chance to win the Science Fair, and I went all out.  For a few months, I neglected basketball and school and just about everything else while I prepared my project.  The effort paid off, as I won second place overall, but I was sorely disappointed because I felt the judges cheated me out of what was rightfully mine – a first place finish.

The school year ended on a high note, as I decided to try something I had never done before – sing on stage.  Every year, Central put on a talent show called Kaleidoscope, and it was open to all students.  A few other kids and I formed a group, and I was the lead singer.  We performed “Just My Imagination” by the Temptations, and we brought down the house.  We won first prize!

A few weeks later, it was time for the Senior Prom.  I hoped that Gay Carlton would be able to come to Flint and go to the prom with me, even though her folks had moved from Detroit to the Chicago suburbs.  To my immense satisfaction, Gay said yes.  More importantly, her parents said yes, and they agreed to bring her to Flint.  I almost had a heart attack when I learned that the Carltons were going to be staying at the home of my old girlfriend, Denise Ridgeway, but I hoped that Denise and I would be considered very old news.  Gay and I attended the prom, and it was a magical night.  In fact, it was the best night of my young life.

All at once, I was jolted from my daydreaming about Gay Carlton and my recollections of my high school career.  I realized that I was sitting in the Senior Awards Assembly, and that our principal Mr. Crowder was about to announce the award recipients.  Up until that point, I hadn’t cared much about the awards assembly.  I didn’t even know what awards were going to be handed out, but I was curious to see who would be voted “Most Likely To Succeed.”  I listened and watched intently as the awards were given to my classmates.  My friend Reggie Barnett got the top award, the prestigious Red and Black Award, given each year to the top senior athlete, and he certainly deserved it.  Reggie was an outstanding athlete in football, basketball and track, and he was an all-A student.  Some of the other awards selections were dubious, and some I just downright couldn’t understand.  Whereas I entered the assembly not caring about the awards, I left feeling angry and cheated.  I felt that no one at that school had taken on the variety of activities that I had pursued.  I had shown that I could lead the marching band, play on the basketball team, be a finalist in the Science Fair every year, and be the lead singer in a band, and at the same time be an honor roll student in college prep classes.  I couldn’t understand why I was passed over in every award category.

A few days after the awards assembly, one of the staff counselors, Mrs. Brown, beckoned to me to come into her office.  I had seen Mrs. Brown around the school on many occasions, and we talked about my college plans once or twice, but I never had her for a class.  She always seemed like an earnest, sincere person, so I was curious about why she wanted to talk to me.  Mrs. Brown asked me to sit down and then she gently closed the door and sat behind her desk.  She had a pained expression on her face.  “David,” she began, “I just wanted to talk to you for a few minutes about the awards assembly that was held the other day.”

Now my curiosity really peaked.  I had pretty much dismissed the assembly from my thoughts, except for the dull pain of rejection I still felt.

Mrs. Brown continued: “Listen, I just want you to know that your name came up for every one of those awards, and for some reason the staff didn’t see fit to give you any of them.  I don’t know what some of these people around here have against you, but it’s just not fair.  I wanted you to know because I think you’re a fine young man, and I don’t want this to affect how you see yourself.”

As I listened to Mrs. Brown, I felt as if a big weight was lifted from my shoulders.  I suspected that the largely white staff at Central resented me, for reasons I didn’t completely understand.  I thought it had to do with the fact that I didn’t conform to their view of what a black kid should be: what interests he should have and who he should associate with.  Whatever their motivations, Mrs. Brown was confirming for me that I was an outstanding person, a person who she believed had great potential.  At that moment, I realized that I would have to struggle to achieve the things that I wanted to achieve, and that I couldn’t focus on the opinions of others – certainly not on receiving accolades from others.  I had started to feel that way after coming up short at the Science Fair, but this episode really made it clear to me.  Mrs. Brown had given me a great gift – a huge dose of confidence.  She helped me see myself as a talented and versatile eclectic, not an awards assembly loser.

When she finished, all I could say was, “Thank you, Mrs. Brown.”  I was overwhelmed with gratitude that she would take the time to tell me what happened, and that she would be so concerned about my feelings.

A few days later it was graduation night.  We received our diplomas at the stunning Whiting Auditorium, and then it was time to party.  Reggie Barnett and I were feeling on top of the world.  He was headed to Notre Dame on a football scholarship, and I was headed across town to General Motors Institute to study engineering.  All of that was in the future, though.  On that night, we got into my little white Austin America sedan, rolled all of the windows down, and blasted Sly and the Family Stone as we cruised slowly up Saginaw Street toward the North Side. 

“Sing a simple song.  Try a little do re mi fa so la ti do! Do re mi fa so la ti do!”

“Don’t call me nigger, whitey.  Don’t call me whitey, nigger!”

“Everybody is a star, remove the rain and chase the dust away.  Everybody wants to shine, who’ll come out on a cloudy day?”

“Stand, they will try to make you crawl, and they know what you’re sayin’ makes sense at all.”

We screamed every song at the top of our lungs, and we believed in our hearts that we were both Most Likely To.

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