Robert Griffin interview recording, 1994 August 11

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Paul Ortiz	Where you were born, and something about the area that you grew up in?	0:01
Robert Pete Griffin	Yes. I was born in Gillsville, G-I-L-L-S, Gillsville, Georgia, 1916. A little country town, and my parents were sharecroppers there, and we moved from there when I was—I think about three years old, and we moved to Springfield, Ohio, and I stayed there. We lived there rather for about a couple years. And then we moved to Columbus, Ohio, which I spent most of my childhood and my high school days there. And my dad was a foundry worker, and my mother was a domestic.	0:06
Robert Pete Griffin	And I finished high school in 1936, and I came to Florida A and M in 1936 as a student. And I did my undergraduate work at Florida A and M. I graduated in 1940, and I went to the Army and also worked at an aircraft plant. And I returned to Florida in 1944, and I've been here ever since. I worked in the high schools, my first job, professional job was in Memorial High School, Palmetto, Florida, a little town near Tampa. And I stayed there for a short time, and I left there and went to Okeechobee migratory labor camp as a recreation supervisor.	1:23
Robert Pete Griffin	And I stayed there for about six months. And I was recalled to my alma mater as a coach in 1944. And I've been a teacher and a coach at Florida A and M since from 1944 to 19, oh, I guess it was '80, and I retired. But I still go up every day and to volunteer my services to youth programs, senior citizen programs and whatnot, certified lifeguard and swimming instructor, and American Red Cross First Aid instructor. So I'm still active. That's a little bit about that. So that kind of give you a little background. Now I'll give you a vita there where you can look at. Okay.	3:20
Paul Ortiz	Mr. Griffin, you said that your family moved to Springfield when you were about three.	4:36
Robert Pete Griffin	Right.	4:41
Paul Ortiz	What led up to that move?	4:41
Robert Pete Griffin	Well, let me tell you. Raising down in, my dad would tell me he was in Georgia and a sharecropper. And every year he'd get deeper and deeper in debt. He'd go ahead and his bosses and the store managers would say he owed him this and owed him that. And he was working every day. So he fled at night. One time he got the family and he got on the train and he fled at night, to escape that their living. And at that particular time, during that segregation time, you were at the mercy sometimes of those landowners or farmers, so he fled for a better way of life.	4:43
Paul Ortiz	Were conditions difficult? Did he often talk about conditions as a sharecropper?	5:36
Robert Pete Griffin	Yes. Oh, yes. Cruelty. Then he talk about he'd just have to take the crumbs and whatnot they would dish out to him and whatnot. So he said he just couldn't take it anymore. So one night they more or less escaped the farm and whatnot, and he had some relatives that had left earlier up in Springfield, Ohio. And so he went up there with some of the relatives that had moved from that area because of those severe, harsh conditions that they had to live under.	5:44
Paul Ortiz	And so there were other sharecroppers that moved?	6:36
Robert Pete Griffin	Oh, yes, yes. It was more or less those who could find a way to get away from that did so it was almost an influx in the early days of people trying to get away or good north because of the severe treatment that they suffered under those conditions, it was almost like an underground kind of thing.	6:38
Paul Ortiz	Almost like an Underground Railroad.	7:07
Robert Pete Griffin	Right, something like that. So that's a little bit about that. But we survived, and my dad had, my mother and dad, we had eight kids, and just the two of them, I think dad, mama, both of them had—I think dad had went to about the fourth grade. My mother went to about the eighth grade. And they weren't highly educated people academically, but they were good sound solid God-fearing Christians who had strong morals, belief, they believed a lot in the church and believed that there would be a better day. And we survived. And I'm the baby of the eighth child at my age, I certainly am, I'm the baby. We only got two of us are still living. My mother died at 96 and dad died at 87. Okay, go ahead. I get to rattling around, so just keep me on track. And I have a lot of that in some little books and things here, right here. That's about me there. That's me and my grandchildren.	7:09
Paul Ortiz	Would you mind if I maybe made a copy of this?	8:53
Robert Pete Griffin	That's just about how we had to survive, junkyard dog. We'd pick up materials from the junkyard, make our own toys and things of that nature.	8:58
Paul Ortiz	Oh, this is wonderful.	9:10
Robert Pete Griffin	Go right ahead.	9:10
Paul Ortiz	Mr. Griffin, you said that when your father went north to make a better life, now, did the family initially go with him or did he go by himself first?	9:16
Robert Pete Griffin	He went, we both—In fact, he went by himself first. And we followed shortly. Mother and the rest of them followed shortly. He went by to try to find a lay of the land, and within the year, the rest of us were up there.	9:35
Paul Ortiz	I see. Now, obviously there was some perilous conditions. Did he come back?	9:49
Robert Pete Griffin	No, no, no. Uh-huh. We had some relatives up there and they helped to send some resources down, help him to get the rest of us up there.	9:57
Paul Ortiz	I see. So you left with your mother and the rest of your siblings at one time.	10:08
Robert Pete Griffin	Right, right, right.	10:13
Paul Ortiz	Did he take the train north?	10:15
Robert Pete Griffin	Yeah, he took a train. It was a train and back in the Jim Crow section.	10:17
Paul Ortiz	That must have been quite a—	10:30
Robert Pete Griffin	It was tough.	10:32
Paul Ortiz	Tough—And Mr. Griffin, when you moved to Springfield—	10:40
Robert Pete Griffin	Field Ohio.	10:43
Paul Ortiz	And subsequently to Columbus, was there a community of people who had lived in Georgia together?	10:44
Robert Pete Griffin	Yes, yes, yes.	10:52
Paul Ortiz	Can you tell me about that?	10:53
Robert Pete Griffin	Well, they had a little network there in which they would more or less get together and talk about how much better things were up there because they got into industry, and they were tickled to be able to get into industry and plants and work. And they talk about it's much better than being out there in the field or cotton fields and whatnot from sunup to sundown. And also at that particular time, also, that was a kind industrial area up there. And they would do a lot of their mill work also at the plants and whatnot, but they would think that they would laugh about that.	10:58
Robert Pete Griffin	I was up there at the reunion, it was in Columbus, but the same nucleus of people last, oh, about a couple weeks ago. And one lady had brought a rock, just a piece of rock, a stone. She said, this stone is from Gillsville, Georgia. And I've always kept that to make me remember the hardships that I had. One aunt, and she went back there a few years ago, and just to check and get some more of those rocks that they had to haul around. They brought them up there and we passed them out at the reunion, some little stones that remind us of the tough times that we had.	11:53
Paul Ortiz	That's incredible.	12:52
Robert Pete Griffin	Yeah.	12:53
Paul Ortiz	So are those stories about Gillsville still alive?	12:54
Robert Pete Griffin	Oh yeah. Yeah. We talk about some of them at reunion and we talked about, we went through there. Some people have gone through there and they said about how much it has changed, and they vividly talk about the little old red store and whatnot and the place and the compensatory where they'd go and get food and whatnot, and they talk what used to be there. But now they say it's all changed, but they still can remember over here, used to be here, over here, used to be this, over there used to be that. But they still talk about some of those things, what they remember vividly of what was and what is now. But yeah, they still talk about those. They could memorize so well, it was so imprinted on their minds that they can remember a lot of the landmarks.	13:00
Paul Ortiz	I see. Had your family originally originated from Gillsville or had they come from other—	14:05
Robert Pete Griffin	No, right there. Right there. That was the home base. And then it was near, the larger place was Gainesville, G-A-I-N-E-S. That was the place in which a lot of them referred to now, Gainesville, it's just a few miles, Gainesville and Buford. But the Gillsville is the original place.	14:15
Paul Ortiz	Mr. Griffin, what was family life like—	14:45
Robert Pete Griffin	Oh, good. Very good. I'll tell you, we had some basic morals that we abided by. You were taught at the early age the value of work. What would often result sometimes during real tough times, we would think, we were taught that if you keep on working, keep on striving, there'll be a better day. And we'd go to church on Sundays, and then we'd have prayer meets throughout the week and whatnot where we was emphasizing that it's going to be a better day if you keep on working hard.	14:50
Robert Pete Griffin	And also, we would talk about certain things there that we always had family dinners together, and we'd cook out a big pasta and whatnot, but we'd all would have not fancy food, cornbread and beans and things of that nature. And we came up there eating good salad, wholesome foods. My mama was a terrific cook, and we were always poor, but some way that we never were hungry. And honesty is another thing that we really hammered, be honest, don't try to get things a short way and whatnot.	15:43
Robert Pete Griffin	But those morals, basic morals, I think was a part of our family. We didn't believe in cheating or short. We believed in working for what you get. You don't get something for nothing, and that kind of thing. But which I have times now with my grandkids, they want to get something right quick. You got to wait for a while and have patience. I got the little girls, they say, "I want it." I say, "No, no, no, no." I'm having a time with them because sometimes you think that somebody owes you something and you're supposed to give to them just because it's you. But no. So we talked about basic values, and I think it's in that little book there, no, the Junkyard Dog. Where is that, is that it? Yeah, yeah. We had to make our own toys and whatnot, but we all were healthy, thank the Lord.	16:33
Paul Ortiz	Now you would—	17:47
Robert Pete Griffin	Go ahead.	17:48
Paul Ortiz	Mr. Griffin, what was the role of the church in—	17:49
Robert Pete Griffin	That's where those basic morals were emphasized. And not only that too, there wasn't any, they didn't have a lot of playgrounds and community centers and things of that nature. It also had a social function too, where you could meet and talk and communicate. And it was a social function as well as one that was a place to reinstate your values. But it was social. We always had picnics, eat-outs and things of that nature. So we didn't have these elaborate community places that we have now. So it was not only a place for moral teaching, but it was a place also for social gatherings, having fun, whatnot.	17:58
Paul Ortiz	What were other places for doing those kinds of activities?	18:56
Robert Pete Griffin	Well, most of them, we'd make our own now. For years and years, we'd go to the school and most of my family got into some kind of athletics, sports, games and whatnot. And that was connected with the school. Now, at the time that the schools were in the north there, they weren't as segregated at that particular time as they were in the south. And so we took every opportunity in the world to get involved in sports and games and athletics and things of that nature.	19:00
Paul Ortiz	Were your parents involved in fraternal organizations?	19:51
Robert Pete Griffin	No, not much. They spent most of their time working and trying to take care of these eight kids they had. No, they didn't do much of that.	19:56
Paul Ortiz	Were there chores that the boys and girls had around the house?	20:12
Robert Pete Griffin	Oh, yes, yes, indeed. Yes. I remember making the fire, cutting wood, washing the dishes, cleaning and whatnot. In fact, we did just about all of that. The oldest ones were doing that, and then the oldest ones got jobs out too, outside where they could make a little money as they got older. But all of us had jobs and chores which we would do.	20:15
Paul Ortiz	Was there a difference between the chores that the boys would have as opposed to the girls?	20:46
Robert Pete Griffin	Not a whole lot. Most of the housework was mostly done with the girls, and most of the outside work, the yards, the cutting wood and things was mostly done with the boys.	20:51
Paul Ortiz	I see. Now, when you finished your chores and you had a chance to get out and play, what would you do?	21:06
Robert Pete Griffin	Well, actually, we'd just get a group of people and we'd take a little group and just walk around and look. We used to think that was a wonderful thing to walk and look in the store windows, walk around to the railroad track and watch the trains. And we'd walk around to, in fact, we'd go around from miles and miles and then we'd look and see what's going on. We'd try to find some fruit or something in the orchards or something. And it was nothing that was structured. We just, okay, let's get together. Let's go here, let's go there. We'd walk out to a lake or a pond as a group, but nothing structured. Everything was more or less kind of a roaming thing, adventurous thing in which we'd walk and talk, walk and talk.	21:16
Paul Ortiz	I see. And were all your playmates Black?	22:13
Robert Pete Griffin	Deb was, and during the time, the early time they were, but when I start getting into elementary school, it was just about, we'd go to school, integrated school, but most of my buddies were Black. In junior high school. We started getting, there were some White ones there too that would come around and do the same thing. And some of my best friends now, we had a reunion the other day, and we had our White high school players.	22:18
Robert Pete Griffin	I was a high school football star and whatnot, and some of the White ones were outstanding in those events. And we had a little reunion, had about eight of them about three weeks ago there in Columbus. And we laughed at each other. Some were on crutches and more or less walking sticks and things. But the thing about it, too, another thing, so many of us, there were some poor, I mean relatively poor Whites and Blacks, and they got along fine. They could walk around and communicate and whatnot because of the athletics.	22:58
Paul Ortiz	What about in the larger community? What were race relations like?	23:43
Robert Pete Griffin	We didn't get too much in the larger community. We wouldn't go down. We'd usually just stay in a little small group. In large community, I don't think—I really don't think it was as comradery as we had. I think there was a little bit more distance between and different sections of the town, and this was more or less in the poor section of the town, of the area. But I don't think it existed throughout. I think it just in that little area.	23:48
Paul Ortiz	So some of the major institutions, such as the church would've been all Black.	24:24
Robert Pete Griffin	Right, right, right. Right, right, right.	24:29
Paul Ortiz	Now, you had quite a change in your life in the mid-1930s when you were in high school. Is that when you began athletics?	24:35
Robert Pete Griffin	Right. It started in junior high, but really in high school, I got an—That's how I got to school. See, I received a scholarship, athletic scholarship, and here, and I came down, there was a guy who was a coach there. He was a player there at Ohio State, one of the early players, Bill Bell, his picture's up there, but let me see. Let's see there I am up there, he's up here on the end there. There's a guy you can't see. Will this thing come off? I can show you. See, that picture right there is real faint right there.	24:46
Paul Ortiz	This one?	25:47
Robert Pete Griffin	Uh-huh. The guy on the end there at the left, he was the head coach at Florida A and M, and he brought me down here, and that was a squad, I think there were 37 there. But that's me there, in '26. I was up there in all these old athletics. Gosh, let me see if I can see a better picture. Well, anyway, we can talk about those. Yeah, here you go, right there, this guy on the left is Bill Bell and the guy, I'm right there, this guy on the right is Jake Kether, and I'm right there next to Kether.	25:50
Paul Ortiz	So did you begin, you mentioned earlier that in high school, did you play all sports?	26:37
Robert Pete Griffin	I was track and football at Columbus East High. You probably can see that in the vita there. I'll let you look at a copy of that.	26:45
Paul Ortiz	What role did athletics play in your life?	27:06
Robert Pete Griffin	I think it played a great role. Really, regardless of all the slaps we would get in the face in society and whatnot. But I think it helped us to, it helped me to keep focus that I was somebody. That regardless of what you say or do to me, I'm somebody special, somebody important. I can make a contribution worthwhile that everybody would have to recognize. For instance, I'd get out there and regardless of what group I was in, if I could run fast or hit hard and whatnot, they would have to recognize me regardless of my color and whatnot. So a kind of self-worth, I think it enhanced my self-worth because so many things were telling you, oh, you're not good, you're inferior and whatnot. And I think it really was very important in keeping on even keel and keeping me focused that I was somebody, that I could make a contribution, that I could do things that anyone else could do.	27:13
Robert Pete Griffin	I think my self-worth, I think athletics kept me, because there's so many times people say you're nothing because you're Black, you're inferior and whatnot. And that's why, I don't know, that's why so many, I know I did, played harder to disprove a stereotype. So I think that's the thing that sometimes, so many times we overlook there that this is an avenue I can show, and let the world know that I can achieve.	28:29
Robert Pete Griffin	And you have that with good, solid moral foundations, that you could do it within the rules. You can do it within the rules of the game. That's very important to me, I think right now.	29:11
Paul Ortiz	Mr. Griffin, you mentioned the discrimination that you faced in general. Can you tell me about some of those—	29:34
Robert Pete Griffin	Well, yes indeed. Especially now when you travel, we'd go as a team, we'd go up there, places we couldn't stop to eat, because they wouldn't serve Blacks. I was up there with the team. I remember a time in high school, we went out on some old place in southern Ohio, and we had, I think it was three or four Blacks on the team. And the guy wouldn't service because of that nature. And then we'd have to go around to the restroom situation. You couldn't use the restrooms as the—Sometimes it'd be a little place, a shed sometimes way in the back there. But we couldn't use the eating facilities, the restroom, and we'd have to carry, so many times back there we'd carry stuff on the bus to eat because we'd be afraid to stop at these little places to try to get things. We'd carry our food and drink and things of that nature. And it was very insulting the way we were treated because of that.	29:44
Paul Ortiz	There was Jim Crow—	31:09
Robert Pete Griffin	Jim Crow. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. There was some in Jim Crow in the north too. Yep.	31:10
Paul Ortiz	Did you have other experiences? And travel seems to be one of the—	31:21
Robert Pete Griffin	Yeah, yeah. And even when we used to go out here, we'd be traveling around here, in college, we'd take our teams around and guys would—One guy pulled, one officer threatened to pull his gun because we wouldn't get out of the dining room where they were feeding. We said, no, we had some guys were recruited tough. Said, no, we're not going to get out either. And he said, you better get out or put his hand on his gun. And then the coach quieted down, and moved the fellows out. They didn't take it easy now, sometimes they'd let them know that they were displeased about the way you were being treated, but those subtle things were real hurting. And we stopped on the roadside to use the restroom behind a cluster of trees because we had to stop out, we're going to have a pit stop here. We had to go up there in the woods and whatnot to relieve ourselves. And those kind of things were humiliating.	31:27
Robert Pete Griffin	But it's a funny thing, it wasn't taken easily at all. Because one guy got to the point there, the officer said, you better get out of there, blow your brains out of something. This guy, one about football players, I never [indistinct 00:33:16] he said, "You don't have but six bullets. And when they gone, look out." That's what he said. He said, we called him bodybuilder. He said, "When they're gone, look out." And I looked at him like he was crazy. It's so foolish now, and then so many times we'd go up there, okay, just go to the back door. And we'd try to get the food, get probably the same food, probably some flight guys were cooking it up there in the restaurant, and we'd get saying, well, we just have to go out there at the back door, get to the back, little place to eat. It was so foolish, so foolish, I think. But it's humiliating now.	32:46
Paul Ortiz	Were there times, Mr. Griffin, that the men on the team turned that around or resisted that? You mentioned that earlier.	34:07
Robert Pete Griffin	Right, oh yeah, oh yeah. We had the coaches in the picture. They had to quiet down a number of times too. They didn't like it at all. So it was a kind cooling down thing that the coaches and officials had to do to try to keep, some of those guys were hotheaded and they didn't, now, another thing, years ago, we had, well, we had a number of players like myself who migrated, who were brought here to play ball. Now, let me tell you something about that too. Even though in the north, they didn't have the strict rules that they had in the south, but there was almost some unwritten laws that you couldn't play one block or two blocks sometimes at the most. See, you had a quota in other words, in those schools, those schools had a quota. And a lot of the good athletes who weren't in that selected few, they looked elsewhere.	34:18
Robert Pete Griffin	And sure enough, the south, southern schools would give them opportunities to play, and therefore a lot of us migrated here because of that recency. They used to have a bus that'd come up there and pick up some athletes and bring them down like Florida and them, Alabama state and Tuskegee and places like that. And most of the North was a little advanced at that particular time in sports. And they would have buses that come over from these southern schools to bring some of the northern athletes down. They were a little bit more advanced than the local kids at that particular time, as a rule. Now, of course, you had some of these southerners were as good as they were or better, but as a rule, at that time, they had better facilities, better coaching, better conditioning. So they were a little advanced. And we started our own coaching clinic in order to improve our situation here in the south. Okay, I got there. But anyway, go ahead.	35:31
Paul Ortiz	So Mr. Griffin, was that a major transition for you moving from Columbus to Tallahassee?	36:48
Robert Pete Griffin	Well, it wasn't so much, I found the hospitality was great, but my whole life was a nucleus right around the school, the campus. It wasn't so nice when you got off the campus, but long as we tried to do everything there, we had, I guess Eton probably to tell you, we tried to have all of our things right there on the campus, the social life and whatnot, around the school. And we stayed there most of the time. We didn't run around because it wasn't as amenable when we got off the campus. Social life was a great, the girls and ladies and everything were nice to us.	36:59
Paul Ortiz	Now, you said that social life wasn't as amenable when you were off campus. Was that—	37:54
Robert Pete Griffin	I mean, the Whites.	38:01
Paul Ortiz	I see. So there was a sense that Florida A and M was kind of an enclosed—	38:09
Robert Pete Griffin	Right, right, right.	38:15
Paul Ortiz	Now, you mentioned that many players such as yourself, many athletes were recruited from places like Ohio. What was that process of recruitment for you?	38:19
Robert Pete Griffin	Well, I got through, Bill Bell was a coach up there. The guy who was up there now coaching Florida A and M, he played at Ohio State. He was an all Big 10 player. And when he got the job down here, he came up there and wanted to know if I wanted to come down on a scholarship. So that was the way it was. And then now the same thing existed to a number of contacts. They would contact each other.	38:32
Paul Ortiz	I see. Was Florida A and M your first choice?	39:05
Robert Pete Griffin	Well, it was the first bonafide opportunity. I had feelers from other places. Florida A and M said, "We'll give you a full scholarship." So I didn't wait around.	39:12
Paul Ortiz	I see. How did your parents take it?	39:30
Robert Pete Griffin	Oh, they were great. They were tickled to death. They were glad. I was the eighth child, the last child. And all of them had gone into, well, some were domestic, one was a plumber, one was doing other things, but I was the first one to go to college, and they thought it was wonderful.	39:35
Paul Ortiz	I see.	40:04
Robert Pete Griffin	They were a little shaky at first, but they was tickled to death that I had the opportunity.	40:04
Paul Ortiz	I see. Now, given their struggles in Georgia, did they maybe take you aside before you left to talk to you about the situation in the South in terms of perhaps race relations?	40:10
Robert Pete Griffin	No, it's a funny thing, they just told me to mind own business, stay out of trouble. And they figured that everything would be all right. I'd be in good hands, which I was, the university and whatnot, and just told me to stay there at the university and don't go around and rally people. So they didn't give me a whole lot of lecture about what a tough time they had. But oh, I got, the more I learned about it. But they tried to keep upbeat in spite of all that.	40:23
Paul Ortiz	I see. And when you first began your academic career at A and M, was it a challenge for you trying to balance athletics?	41:07
Robert Pete Griffin	Yes, it was. Now, the thing, what really impressed me so much is you could feel the genuine feeling of the instructors. And they would, in fact, we were small. We knew each other and whatnot. And you'd see them in the classroom. You'd see them in chapel, investors and down on the football field, the practice field, on the track, you'd see the same people. They'd be seeing you from different points of view, and they would say, "Uh-huh." They would say, "Congratulations. You did a good job down there today," and whatnot. Let's see if we can do a good job in the classroom.	41:22
Robert Pete Griffin	I mean, the whole, everybody, you were under the microscope more or less throughout the day, and everybody was trying to encourage you and whatnot and pat you on the back and whatnot. And I think that was one of the things that at really made us try. I know they said, "You can do that here." And everything in the classroom because saw you do something hard as this, or tough as this out there in the football field so you can do this. And that smallness, that together, even though we were forced to do it. But there was some good that came out of it because we knew that somebody was watching us, observing us all the time, and to support us and to scrutinize.	42:12
Paul Ortiz	Was there a particular teacher in your view, or maybe a particular group of teachers who stood out during those years at A and M?	43:02
Robert Pete Griffin	Oh, yes. There was one in particular, it was Charity Mance, M-A-N-C-E. She was a heck of a teacher. She was education, psychology. And she would call, seemed like she'd be hard on the football players or athletes or something. And she says, "He did a good job out there in the field, but I want to see what kind of job he's going to do here in the classroom. Now let's watch him." See what I mean? She would challenge, and she'd make little funny remarks sometimes to get everybody to focus upon her point of view. She was a nice-looking young lady at the time, she'd walk around and strut around, say, "What you watching me for? You better watch what's on the board," and all this kind of thing. She had that little kind of humor, and people just loved to go to her class. And she was one of the teachers. And we had some terrific science teachers too.	43:11
Robert Pete Griffin	We used to go down, we used to have a science teacher, Whitfield. He was an anatomy and physiology teacher, and he would give, oh, he was tough. He'd give tough exams and whatnot, and he would, you'd better look out every day for an exam. We'd go down and break steel. In other words, the mannequin where we can study the bones and whatnot, so we'd be ready for him. So we said, "We going to take this thing at night and study because you know he's going to be a tough examination." But that was the kind of thing, relationship we had with our teachers. That's just a few, but we had a lot of them like that.	44:30
Paul Ortiz	I see. Now, I read, of course, the last commencement Bob Hayes came back to.	45:19
Robert Pete Griffin	Yes.	45:25
Paul Ortiz	Was there an emphasis in the athletic program at A and M on academics during those years?	45:25
Robert Pete Griffin	Yes, it was. It was. I guess it's the same, but it seemed like it was more so then, than now. When you have sometimes all these outlets and opportunities, sometimes oftentimes you ignore that academic slip. And during Bob Hayes's time, we had much more exposure, opportunities and whatnot. It wasn't as closely knit as it is now. I got a series of articles I've written on Bob Hayes up there, but it seemed like it wasn't as closely knit during his, this was before his time. It seemed like it's got a little looseness. It's a little bit more seemed like it wasn't as emphasized.	45:36
Paul Ortiz	In the late 50s.	46:33
Robert Pete Griffin	Yeah.	46:33
Paul Ortiz	I see.	46:33

Robert Pete Griffin	Not that they didn't get this constant pounding, pounding, pounding.	0:02
Paul Ortiz	I see. Mr. Griffin now, when you had a moment away from the playing field and the school room, what was social life like? What kinds of things were you—	0:06
Robert Pete Griffin	Well, I used to go, we'd go to the movies. We had a move there on the campus there every Friday night movie night, and we'd just go there and we'd have—It was different though, during that time, the boys would sit on one side of the aisle and the girls were in another aisle. So the guys, we used to write little notes up on the program and throw it over to the girls and they'd send little notes back to them. It's a little kind of communication we'd have of passing notes and then we'd have a Gibbs Park, go out there. And so the recreation hour, they'd go out there and they'd socialize there in the park.	0:21
Robert Pete Griffin	And we were very, it was almost a game though, because we were so heavily supervised with the matrons and majors and whatnot. We'd have a little game of trying to sneak and do little things without them. Catch us holding hands, and all that, slip behind the bushes and try to get a little hug or kiss or things like that. Because we were really watched, I remember those matrons there. I got some pictures now. I'll show you here. I got a lot of them, of all that kind of stuff. But it was there mostly on the campus there, which we would do these kinds of things. We were very, I now say when the people at that time, they send their kids up here to school and we would almost have to bow. I remember President Lee and whatnot, that they'd stay out trouble. They wouldn't do anything immoral and things of that nature. And we had just almost like a police guard watching us, if you do those kinds of things.	1:05
Paul Ortiz	I see. Would any of the students ever go to Frenchtown?	2:10
Robert Pete Griffin	Yeah, we'd go to Frenchtown. Some slip off and go, especially boys. They'd slip off sometimes and go to Frenchtown, but they would slip off and go down to the—We had a Jim Crow restaurant down here, the railroad, they called the Jim Crow. They'd slip and go down there and see, it was so hard though. We didn't have the cars and whatnot and didn't have the paved roads. Walking up and down that muddy hill back and forth. But they would step off. We had a years ago, we had a little Black theater years ago. They'd slip off, but it wasn't a big thing. Just very few individuals would try to do that there and they would do it, but it wasn't something which they would just was a common thing.	2:16
Paul Ortiz	I see. Because they almost got out on a dare perhaps.	3:06
Robert Pete Griffin	Right, right that sometimes.	3:09
Paul Ortiz	Gotcha. Mr. Griffin, did you have heroes during those years, role models, people that inspired you as you were growing up or—	3:14
Robert Pete Griffin	Yes. See, during those early years, I think one of the first person was President Lee. JRE lee was the president of university, JRE Lee. He was the president when I came down here. And he was the kind of guy, every morning he'd ride his horse around the campus and check on things and he would see how things were going and take time out and speak to you. Smoke the big old cigar. And when the team would get ready to at practice sometimes say, "Are you boys doing your best now? You got to do your best every day and get ready to hit the road." He said, "Now I'm sure you're going to go out and do the best and try to win and try to win the right way and whatnot." And he seemed like he would just take a personal interest in what we were trying to do around here, not in the classroom.	3:24
Robert Pete Griffin	He'd like to catch you out there on the road or on the street or somewhere and stop and take time to talk. "Come on young man," this and that. "Let me tell you something now. I want you out there and do the best you can." Then I'd come in and then, oh, after a game you talking about, they would really feed us here. He'd bring stuff in from the farm and make ice cream and stuff for us and whatnot. But he was the inspiration because he's in chapel, [indistinct 00:05:10] he'd get up there and tell us that, "You might've done this wrong." He said, "You did something that was embarrassing to me, to the school and whatnot, and I don't want you to do that anymore." And sometimes some people would come up there on the platform and they would say some things that, use some words that the students would really get teed off with.	4:34
Robert Pete Griffin	One person come up there and say, "Negra, negra." And students started rubbing their feet and whatnot. And he would get upset too. He said, "I want to tell you, it is not negra. It is Negro." And he was tell the speaker that. And then he said, "Okay, that's all right. He understands now. He didn't know." But anyway, he would tell. And then he had a way of getting some of those, well, some of them people who came up were just old rednecks and he had a way of telling them in a nice way where they didn't get angry and say, "Oh, you're such a good person. You've done so much for the school and whatnot, and I want to tell you, I think you made a little mistake. This should be Negro instead of Negra." Some people would want to say nigger, I guess. And he would, but and then after everything was gone, he would get up there and say, "You folks now don't understand what I'm trying to do."	5:36
Robert Pete Griffin	He said, "I know that I've got to go out there and at the mercy of those people and try to get some appropriation for this school." And he says, "I know appreciate that, and I'll let them know that in my way." He says, "But the students start raising, grumbling, and straighten their feet." He says, "Now, please understand that the way I'm doing it." He says, "Now we are going to get a whole lot here." I remember one speech he said, and he's almost crying there. He said, "I won't see it, but you will. You'll see right here at this school will rise to the top." He said, "I can understand you, but I won't see it, you will."	6:50
Robert Pete Griffin	So he's the kind of guy that really got you thinking a little bit there that he said, you kind of felt sorry. He was going through so much because he was looking for, he was thinking that's going to help us. He was a very great guy. Then Bill Bell, and they got up there, and the Jake Cather one on each hand were very influential people. And then there was Dean Bragg, who was the dean of men, was very influential in my life. So much so that, so much home spun philosophy I got from guys like that, from Bill Bell and President Lee.	7:32
Robert Pete Griffin	I just got to mention Miss Charity Match. But sometimes you can understand, you take a different course sometimes to try to reach an end. You see what I mean? And that's what these, and the people that don't want to do that and well, that's all right. That's their perogative. But okay.	8:18
Paul Ortiz	I see. Mr. Griffin, when these speakers would come, now, was this during Vespers?	8:43
Robert Pete Griffin	Oh yeah. He had him Vespers that time. He would definitely have, he'd want town people to come. They would come too, about a third of a place sometimes on Sunday night with townspeople. Started music, we had a wonderful choir. They'd want to hear organs, they wanted to hear sing and whatnot, you see. And then he'd get a little spiel in to try to ask for something that we need this and that, see. You get me?	8:48
Paul Ortiz	Now President Lee would ask the person who came for appropriation?	9:15
Robert Pete Griffin	Yeah, he'd tell him what we need. He'd say, "We need this so bad. We hope we can get this or we can, so you could enjoy it more, so you can enjoy this music. Or nice seats or we'd need this and that, you see, and we need to probably get some rugs on the floor, some things of that nature. And he would go through and say, "When you come up here, you'd be more comfortable, wouldn't you? And want to have, get this road paved up here where you can get up this hill, so this road. We got that road paved." And I guess somebody, that Lee Hall thing, that was quite a building way back at that time. So somebody did quite a bit of politicking because that time we weren't voting, see, didn't have any power. He had to try to use those. But anyway, I used to get angry too after some of the messes. But now I can understand what he was trying to do.	9:20
Paul Ortiz	But so he was trying to really, he would kind of do his own kind of politics during Vespers when—	10:23
Robert Pete Griffin	Right, right. When you get a crowd in there and enjoying something, then he would mention a little something about this organs, we're going to have to get this and that done and whatnot. Dion. That's right. Politicking for Vespers. Okay.	10:33
Paul Ortiz	Do you remember particular occasions when people would come to, when you'd have White speakers perhaps who particularly grated on the students?	10:46
Robert Pete Griffin	Well, not particularly. I know they would, sometimes they would. Well, you got to realize too, see there was a lot of uneducated. Sometimes Whites would come up and speak to, in other words, there was some tobacco chewers who would come up there and face on the student look at them. [indistinct 00:11:22] and things of that nature. But I don't know of any specifics, I can't recall any specific thing or not.	11:00
Robert Pete Griffin	But sometimes that would be when we were a student or I was sitting up there as a student there and we would let them know. We'd start growling, raking our feet and whatnot. So no, nothing in particular, just generally. Sometimes they come up and then we the legislators, we would have during the legislation, they'd have a special program there and they'd ask them to come out. Then we'd cook a lot of stuff in the kitchen and try to serve them. And that was strictly politicking. But that was—Okay. Go right ahead. I was going to talk.	11:34
Paul Ortiz	Mr. Griffin, I wanted to ask you what kind of football team did Florida A&M have during your years?	12:20
Robert Pete Griffin	Terrific. Terrific. Terrific. I got something, I got all this stuff here. We had best team we ever had. We went unscored up on them. Untied in 1938. I get that. I got the program there and we started. That was mine. I was a captain on that team. Oh gosh you see I got all that equipment, you can see I'm messy, but let me see. Let me see.	12:26
Paul Ortiz	[crosstalk 00:13:06] at Florida A&M that were on that team now? Administrators?	13:06
Robert Pete Griffin	That was on the team?	13:07
Paul Ortiz	Yes.	13:07
Robert Pete Griffin	John D. Harris. He's retired, but he's coached over there at the Lincoln High School for a number of years. Let's see, that's pictures of Graham. Let's see. But man, you can see I'm kind of chunky. Let's look to that. Now this [indistinct 00:13:50] looking through it. It may be something that you want catch value. That's not what I'm looking for now, though, but—	13:12
Paul Ortiz	Oh, okay. See, here's the record here.	14:04
Robert Pete Griffin	Yeah, that's her old records. Yeah. Yeah. This was in '38. Let's see.	14:05
Paul Ortiz	So your first year was in '36?	14:20
Robert Pete Griffin	Yeah. Yeah.	14:21
Paul Ortiz	It looks like you had a lot of improvement between '36—	14:21
Robert Pete Griffin	Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.	14:21
Paul Ortiz	[indistinct 00:14:54]. Looks like you really had it on [indistinct 00:15:25] during those years.	14:21
Robert Pete Griffin	Oh yeah. Yeah. We lost our share as well as won our share. Yeah, I got plenty of those. I'm trying to find that. Yeah, I was talking about Dean [indistinct 00:16:30] the matrons. He used to watch us.	15:28
Paul Ortiz	He even looked tough.	16:31
Robert Pete Griffin	Yeah. Do I have to leave this thing on? Those are some things that you may be looking at. Go right ahead, Jim. Don't let me throw you off track. Yeah, I'll get to talk.	16:52
Paul Ortiz	So Mr. Griffin, it seems like you had quite a team during those years.	17:01
Robert Pete Griffin	Oh yes, yes, yes. It was quite an affair. I think it was a total effort. I'm telling you, the school and the team were together. The students, the administration and everybody was together and we got quite a bit of respect from the townspeople. They were proud of the team. See, we were only team that were participating here. Florida State was a women's school at that time, it was female, see. And this Florida A&M was only athletic team during those early years. And so we had a lot of support from the townspeople as well. They'd come out, they were proud of the Rattlers.	17:07
Paul Ortiz	So people from town would come in watch the game?	18:03
Robert Pete Griffin	Right, right, right. Yeah. It was on part of our team. We had a whole wooden stadium up there. Oh, it was up there on the side of the hill up there and it was all. It's a picture in there of it. And sometimes it'd be almost on Saturday afternoon. We'd play on the afternoon, it was a social affair. And a lot of people would come out and picnic as well, what they call tailgating now. And sometimes about half of their fans would be White. They were crazy about the Rattlers also during the late thirties and early forties.	18:08
Paul Ortiz	But there would be mixing between the White?	18:58
Robert Pete Griffin	No, uh-huh, most of the time they'd have a White section over here for Whites and our students would be on another section or they'd have a part of a section though for the townspeople, for Whites.	19:00
Paul Ortiz	Mr. Griffin, during those years, what was a road trip like when you were getting ready to go out to play Tuskegee or?	19:15
Robert Pete Griffin	Well, it was a big affair because there was preparation. We'd have to take time to get everything we needed because we knew we couldn't stop at any place to get things or we had to carry your food, your drink, any medication you might need, your maybe toiletries and things of that nature. Because we didn't have the accessibility of stopping at various stores and restaurants and things of that nature. So we had to carry much our food. And then we'd had a great big old churn of lemonade, things of that nature. So you had to be sure you had everything.	19:28
Paul Ortiz	Do you remember a particularly tense game of the 1938 season?	20:21
Robert Pete Griffin	Yeah.	20:25
Paul Ortiz	Championship.	20:25
Robert Pete Griffin	Yeah. It was an exciting thing. We were going into this last game. In other words, we were playing the Orange Blossom Classic and we hadn't been scored upon or beaten. So we're going in there. The first few minutes we were playing, incidentally, we were playing Kentucky State and they had a crafty coach, Keen. So they put a spread formation out there we hadn't seen before. And at that time we didn't exchange pictures and all this kind of thing that you do now. So we saw that and boy got through a ball a long pass down the field and for a touchdown. First time I'd been squirreled on that year and we were really dumbfounded. This couldn't happen to the great brothers. So we got on up there and we finally got, and that was seven to nothing. We finally got started and we were marching down the field and pretty soon and we got a score there.	20:34
Robert Pete Griffin	We were almost, yeah, yeah. In other words, we went on down the field there and incidentally, right after that there, we caught them back for a safety, which give us two. So they has seven to two. Okay. And last quarter you'll see it there that we got the ball. We were behind. So we had a touchdown. I mean we were on a touchdown march. Hank Butler, boy up, he ran the ball one way and gave it to John D. Harris. He ran the ball the other way and then Strong, a big fullback ran the ball up the middle. I'm playing center. I'm snapping the ball, snapping the ball, snapping the ball.	22:00
Paul Ortiz	He did a double reverse?	22:57
Robert Pete Griffin	Yeah, that's right. That's right. Then we were down there about the time was running out. We were down there for about the 25, about the 35 yard line. So we snapped the ball, we snapped the ball, we did a Strong fullback ran to me about five yards, and he ran the ball back to Hank Butler. So he ran the ball. So I'm up there trying to block, and he went down to about the 30 and they were closing in on him. So he ladder on the ball to me on the center, and I ran that outgoing ball over the touchdown and we won. So we would beat those guys nine to seven.	22:58
Paul Ortiz	Nine to seven.	23:43
Robert Pete Griffin	So I made the winning touchdown. It's right there. It's in that book there. It's in that there rather strike thing that I gave you what they made.	23:44
Paul Ortiz	So did you play both ways?	24:01
Robert Pete Griffin	Oh yeah. Yeah.	24:03
Paul Ortiz	Center on offense.	24:05
Robert Pete Griffin	Right. And linebacker on defense.	24:06
Paul Ortiz	Linebacker on defense.	24:09
Robert Pete Griffin	I got the original program, that there thing, that's something [indistinct 00:24:20] did. I got the original thing on it. Where is it? I didn't know you were—Now here's something that may be of interest to you since you're—They just, there's something about as you're writing upon race relations in Black and White. It came out a couple of years ago. That named some of the people who were [indistinct 00:25:28] did that for the Democrat.	24:13
Paul Ortiz	So it sounds like you had a very good coaching staff.	25:36
Robert Pete Griffin	Oh yeah. Those people who were important and—You go right ahead. I'm just [indistinct 00:28:44]. That's all right. Just relax. Do what you want to. I'm just so unorganized today.	25:43
Paul Ortiz	Mr. Griffin, what do you think the secret was to the success of the rally? What were some of the ingredients that went into?	29:04
Robert Pete Griffin	I would think one of the things that I think is important and has been important is there's unselfishness attitude that exists among the players. For instance, there wasn't anybody that said, "I'm doing this." It wasn't an ego thing and this selfish ego thing. The whole thing was for the I would think, for the whole, for the team. No, you never heard people say, I, I, I. It was more or less a we, we, we. And not only for that, they figured that they had an obligation to do their particular best for the team and they loved the school. And they figured that, "If I don't do my best, I'm not carrying my load because everybody has to do it because we all have a share and we got to do the best we can at all times." I think that we thing superseded any I thing or me thing, it was a we.	29:13
Paul Ortiz	Did you have at that time, career aspirations of any kind? Were you thinking in terms of a particular kind of vocation?	30:55
Robert Pete Griffin	Not in particular. I knew that I was had something instilled in me to try to stay in shape, make a contribution in anything that I went into. Because I knew one thing, that you had to be in good condition and condition is something in which we emphasized so much. And well, I think that you can see just our terrain. Most of the people were living down, we had a few little wooden structures and one hall down here, but in Sampson Hall, I mean that was only brick building we had at that time down at this end from the poise. We'd walk up and down to the classes, up the hill, back down the hill, up the hill for dining Hall, back down, walking, walking, walking. And that hill was a blessing. I think that hill helped to develop some stamina and I think we used it as a blessing.	31:07
Robert Pete Griffin	I think that really helped us quite a bit, that there natural. In fact, we say we are on the highest hill in Tallahassee, so we got stamina. We walk up and back and up and back. And I think that was a blessing in disguise. I know that no one else had cars and we didn't have any cars, but [indistinct 00:32:37], I think that hill was a blessing and having to do those particular thing. Yeah, terrain was very important.	32:18
Robert Pete Griffin	And then of course, I also think that there used to be a pecan orchard there, a big cane field and things of that nature in which as students, we'd go over and get some sugarcane, eat pecans and we'd have all kind of vegetation. We'd pill for a little stuff like that. And I think that natural hardship, some people may say, turned out to be a blessing. I think so.	32:48
Paul Ortiz	Did you, maybe during your senior year or during that time, were you beginning to think about, I guess the—Well, let me rephrase that. Did you have aspirations or did you have deep down inside of you? Were you thinking, "It would be great if the opportunity was open to me to try out for a professional team?"	33:29
Robert Pete Griffin	Oh yeah. Oh yeah. See, I had a brother who played the baseball in the Negro League way back there. The Homestead Graze and Cleveland Buckeyes and whatnot. They would travel, Pittsburgh Crawfords, they would travel and maybe play. That was up in Ohio, but they'd go around various towns in Pennsylvania and New York and whatnot and play barnstorming. And he's a professional football, I mean a baseball player.	34:00
Robert Pete Griffin	He's a barnstorm. And I used to think that was a wonderful thing. He'd go out there and people would come and they would play. And that group, Satcher Page was in that group. Cool Papa Bale and all like that. See that was the epitome of it for us because we couldn't play. Now sometimes they would play, get together sometimes even though during segregation, they'd get together and they'd play against each other, unofficially some of the players and whatnot would play.	34:40
Robert Pete Griffin	And they found out, that was the one thing that there was some people who were glad and others were too, and the baseball situation, when the Color broke down, when Jackie broke the Color line, because some of the White owners of the clubs, they were tickled to death because they wanted to get some of this Black talent. And so that's the same thing. Similar thing happened here in our program.	35:17
Robert Pete Griffin	We used to have clinks there and we'd have outstanding football man, outstanding coaches would come down and lecture for us. We had people like Woody Hayes and Bear Bryant and things. And I got pictures of that too. And they would sit down and we'd demonstrate, our boys would demonstrate for the, we had a clinks to try to improve their high school coaching. And they would come down and [indistinct 00:36:16] get one time, Perry Bryant said, "I hope I'm around when this thing goes because my mouth is drooling. I want some of those famous boys that you all got down and demonstrating."	35:52
Robert Pete Griffin	He said, "I sure hope I'm around. If I get some of them boys y'all got down here. Some of those fast boys, I can whip anybody." [indistinct 00:36:41] and [indistinct 00:36:41] thing is broken here, you see it. They had vision because they saw Blacks are very dominant in sports. And some of those guys had visions. They were just hoping for the day it would come. They'd be soon enough so they could enjoy some of the talent that they saw. But that said, I know, I mean, there wasn't an illusion that, sure, they probably would training and coaching and probably be more refined. But naturally, I think our Black athletes have been as good all through as the White athletes. They just, White athletes had more time in which they polish, whatnot. But far as natural ability to do it, we're just as good as they are.	36:30
Paul Ortiz	Did you have a vision in the late thirties and early forties that things would change that you were—	37:35
Robert Pete Griffin	I think so. I really think so. I really thought people would get tired of that. Now another thing here at A&M, we had to play ball and some of the kids, the high school kids over at the Leon High, which was the White high school, come over there in our gym, especially during the break, the Christmas break and whatnot. And they slip in there and they played ball and we played with each other, the Blacks and the Whites and have a good time. And years ago, during that time round in the area, that was before we had a track.	37:42
Robert Pete Griffin	I remember as a coach over to Leon High, Weinburger, he's a track coach. I was a track coach here. And he says, I asked him, I said, "I wish I could work with—". He said, "Come on, bring your kids over there." So I brought my track team over there and it worked out. And the next day he caught hell, they gave him hell.	38:27
Paul Ortiz	Oh really?	38:54
Robert Pete Griffin	Yes, they gave him hell. And he eventually got fired because of that. He got fired because he brought the kids, let my kids come over to work out. So it's been some, it's not been easy, it's been diehards throughout, but yet and still there was vision throughout also. I want you to know that people were just looking forward to this particular time.	38:55
Paul Ortiz	Were you doing other things in your own way to begin to breach that Color law?	39:25
Robert Pete Griffin	Oh yeah. Yeah. Well, one thing I used to, years ago I did quite a bit of swimming. I still swim three times a week. But when I was in Ohio, when I was in high school, I was up there and I was finished high school. I was managing a pool up there right after I finished high school, a swimming pool. And we had a few Whites up there. But when I came here, I was teaching first aid and this lady wanted me to—I had met her, we'd been in Clinks, and she said, "Coach, I want you to teach my son first aid." I was a certified instructor trainer, just a White lady.	39:35
Robert Pete Griffin	Ms. Diffinbog had a building over there that she was named after her, over there at FSU. And she said, okay, so she would bring her son over and I would teach him. And then as he recruited three or four more White students and we worked and they were certified, did a good job. So undercover there were as examples of communication and most of them turned out smooth except this thing over here, Leon, which mushroomed. But you just can't hardly—See, people would watch each other and athletes and young people watch each other. They compare all the time. And you can't say that. You may separate physically, but you can't separate mentally anymore, I mean whatnot. People are comparing all the time. Go ahead. Excuse me.	40:40
Paul Ortiz	No, this is great.	41:45
Robert Pete Griffin	I get on a tangent. I get on a tangent. I've seen a thing develop, see. Right now, I had just a few years ago, I used to go around to three or four counties teaching and I'm still doing it. But I go to these congregating meal sites and senior citizen centers and we do a lot of aerobics for these seniors and we get to talking about old times and whatnot. And most the folks are, most of the people out of this area, when I go over to Quincy, I go down the [indistinct 00:42:23] and whatnot, are large personal Whites. And we get to talking about old times and whatnot.	41:47
Robert Pete Griffin	And we all, when we get through, we have a session in which we communicate and shake hands and embrace each other. And we'd laugh about that there and now you get to hug. I said, "I get to hug all you ladies," and they said, "Yeah, coach, I'm next and next." And large portion of them are White. And I said, "I couldn't have done this years ago," and they laughed. He said, "We want you to do it, don't you know?" And I said, 'Sure, undercover that's always been some kind of communication, I think." These are just my experiences. I imagine other experiences also. But we compared. Some of us were brainwashed to the degree I've heard one professor would brainwash some students sometimes in talking about, "You can't do this, you can't do that."	42:30
Paul Ortiz	Now which professor at which school?	43:31
Robert Pete Griffin	That was one of our professors was telling, downgrading his own. He'd been so brainwashed himself, his own people. Was telling us, "You can't do this, you can't do that because you're Black." So see, just one man and he's gone but anyway, to his resting place. But that really irked me. That really irked me when he was a guy telling his own folks that you can't do this because of your Color. You can't achieve in this and you can't achieve in that. Okay, get me back on point.	43:33
Paul Ortiz	Oh no, it's all this stuff.	44:12
Robert Pete Griffin	All this stuff here is this awards and whatnot I've received throughout the—	44:12
Paul Ortiz	So after your college career, was that when you went into coaching?	44:18
Robert Pete Griffin	Well, yeah. When I went into college career, see, I never fully divorced myself from the university. I've always volunteered to help. I've coached, see I was a head coach for one year, but I've always volunteered my services to them. And I've spent a lot of times in the community. I was manager of a clearing house, a human resources clearing house over in Frenchtown. And what I would do there, we had a whole house and we'd have a kind place for the homeless, have a place for the hungry and whatnot. And we'd collect a lot of clothing and furniture. And we'd keep it there for people who had been burned out, destitute. And we distributed to them. And we had a little kids group, we had some professors that volunteered their time, some arts and craft would come over there.	44:24
Robert Pete Griffin	And that was one of the most pleasant experiences I've had. And we've sit there and talked with all ages, intergenerational, and we had a lot of communication there with all races and helping in this community thing. And I think we getting more and more back to it. But we had that place there in which becomes a human resources clearing house and community involvement and something I think we're getting back to now, but I think we kind of left it for a while there because of, I guess maybe segregation, whatnot. But now we are getting more and—	45:34

Robert Pete Griffin	—be more than one side. Some people can—	0:01
Paul Ortiz	Mr. Griffin, what year did, uh, Bob Hayes come to Florida A&M?	0:05
Robert Pete Griffin	Okay, I got—I think it's—Well, let me see. I think—wait a second. Probably, I think it was—I don't know. Yeah, see if it gives the exact year. I want to give you the exact time. Here's a article on him, here.	0:09
Paul Ortiz	He won a gold medal in 1964.	0:29
Robert Pete Griffin	I believe that. See, wait, wait, wait, wait. I can probably—Let's see. Problem is I got a whole—What's in that other folder? You got another folder over there?	0:29
Paul Ortiz	A green one.	0:45
Robert Pete Griffin	No. Let's see. This one.	0:46
Paul Ortiz	Oh.	0:47
Robert Pete Griffin	Yeah, see it's in there? You been through there? No, that's pictures.	0:48
Paul Ortiz	Pictures.	0:51
Robert Pete Griffin	Oh, this is diplomas. This is [indistinct 00:00:59]. It's not in there? In the early '60s I know. I want to be exact for this. Here's the—Most of these. All these magazines got a article on him, but I'm just trying to see the dates. It's in there somewhere. Let me see what is this saying? This is dissertation. And I wrote A Historical Development of Athletics of Florida A&M College, that was my thesis.	2:01
Paul Ortiz	Oh, I see.	2:27
Robert Pete Griffin	In 1946. Then I tried to update it. Maybe it's in that red thing. Eaton has that, I know.	2:28
Paul Ortiz	Oh.	3:08
Robert Pete Griffin	He got all those dates, yeah.	3:08
Paul Ortiz	But you uh, you were his coach?	3:12
Robert Pete Griffin	Yeah.	3:13
Paul Ortiz	Really?	3:13
Robert Pete Griffin	Yeah, there's some articles on him on there when he—That's him up here up the wall there, see that there? Right there. Right there. Right—Down lower, that—right there, yeah, that's him.	3:16
Paul Ortiz	Oh.	3:28
Robert Pete Griffin	That's him in Tokyo.	3:28
Paul Ortiz	Did you notice anything special about him in the beginning?	3:35
Robert Pete Griffin	Yeah, he kind of—I think in that Scholastic Coach there, I think it tells about his sprinting style. It's a whole—Scholastic Coach. I think it's right there, the sprinting style, the bunch start. Let's see if he got it covered.	3:38
Paul Ortiz	Is there a particular style that you taught him?	4:13
Robert Pete Griffin	Yeah, that bunch start. I'm trying to see—Pick up Scholastic Coach, see if you see that.	4:16
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	4:22
Robert Pete Griffin	I think it's there. This thing is—Look at the Scholastic Coach or Athletic Journal. One that's—has a picture, a series of pictures of the bunch start. Maybe it's that.	4:22
Paul Ortiz	Football and—	5:09
Robert Pete Griffin	You see football? Okay, you don't see anything?	5:10
Paul Ortiz	No.	5:11
Robert Pete Griffin	Okay. Look at another one, then, just take them out, don't worry about it. Okay now, it should be there. Okay.	5:13
Paul Ortiz	Orange Blossom Classic. Football.	5:29
Robert Pete Griffin	Maybe I—	5:37
Paul Ortiz	Athletic journal. June.	5:45
Robert Pete Griffin	I bet it's [indistinct 00:05:52]. It's some pretty good pictures in there. Damn, I [indistinct 00:06:22].	5:46
Paul Ortiz	This is June '48.	6:21
Robert Pete Griffin	No, that's football. I got it. I want you to see it because it's got some pictures, a series of pictures in there. This thing, it's some pictures to that thing.	6:21
Paul Ortiz	Okay, and this is done the year before Bob Hayes won his gold medal.	6:25
Robert Pete Griffin	Yeah, yeah. That year. Yeah, that's—	6:30
Paul Ortiz	So, how did this style develop? Is it something—	6:37
Robert Pete Griffin	Well, it was a very good style. It was there. I didn't develop it at all. I utilized that because of his physique. He had a high split. He was kind of pigeon-toed, he was very muscular and it seemed like that was more adept for him to explode, because of—This thing, we had the people down taking a series of pictures on it. Yeah, that's the thing I think he [indistinct 00:07:17], he could explode. He had terrific muscles, the gluteus maximus. He could—[indistinct 00:07:27]. Yeah, that's what I remember.	6:43
Paul Ortiz	And he played football?	7:34
Robert Pete Griffin	Yeah, football.	7:36
Paul Ortiz	So was he one of the few sprinters of his time that used the bunch?	7:46
Robert Pete Griffin	Well, yeah. It was some. It was some in there, but he was one of the foremost sprinters of his time that used that particular start, yeah. And we played around with him and analyzed, and did a lot of—have our experimentation, whatnot. And the thing about it, I was carrying him to a clinic and they were criticizing, a group of people were looking at Bob, talking about his faults, you know? He carried his arms too high, he's too muscular, he wobbles, he comes down like a truck horse, you know, like this, you know? And they were just trying to find faults in his form.	7:53
Robert Pete Griffin	So years ago, I knew Jessie Owens very well. In fact, I was in high school when he was at Ohio State running, and he was smooth. Oh, he was smooth. Bob was just the opposite. Bob was just like a truck horse, to a degree. But, he had so much power and I started fooling around with him, trying to change his style, make him smooth and I found that he was going backwards. You can coach backwards as well as you can coach forward, so I left him alone. I went back to his natural.	8:45
Robert Pete Griffin	I was carrying him to a clinic one time, they was criticizing, saying, "Oh, he's not doing this. He doesn't do this according to the book," and all like that. So I was listening and listening, I said, "Now, listen. I heard y'all, but name me one person that can beat him running." I listened some more. Sometimes, I've seen this in my coaching career so many times, with some natural talent a person has, you can interfere with it too much and cause him to retrogress instead of progress and build up on that.	9:26
Paul Ortiz	Okay. So, that was one of the things that you worked on with Bob Hayes?	10:07
Robert Pete Griffin	Right, his style, yeah. He was doing it, and I let him keep as much of his natural thing. Probably refined it a little bit, probably. Got his arm action and whatnot a little bit, but I didn't interfere too much with his natural.	10:19
Paul Ortiz	During those years, Mr. Griffin, what changes did you notice transpiring, perhaps, in terms of race relations?	10:35
Robert Pete Griffin	Well, I noticed we had a wonderful governor during that time, Leroy Collins, and he was in legislation, whatnot. He had a kind of upbeat attitude about things of that nature and figured we ought to be together, utilizing each other's talents as much as we could and whatnot. He was a—I got his picture up there too. He's something like—Graham is something like him. Governor Graham.	10:44
Robert Pete Griffin	And another thing, they'd come out and they were proud of anything that a Floridian would do, like [indistinct 00:11:36] and whatnot, and they kind of set the pace for people to recognize talent because of where it is. So, I think you could just see it. The things beginning to change. People weren't as hostile. There was a time way back, I guess when [indistinct 00:11:57] was telling you about, couldn't change clothes in stores, you know? They didn't want you to try on things of that nature.	11:24
Robert Pete Griffin	But I think Governor Collins really helped us set the tone for this communication and intercourse between the Blacks and the Whites. He let people know where he stood.	12:05
Paul Ortiz	So, it seemed during that time that communication was improving?	12:29
Robert Pete Griffin	Right, right, right, right. That's what it seemed to me.	12:33
Paul Ortiz	Did you witness this in terms of the relationship between Florida A&M and other colleges in sports?	12:38
Robert Pete Griffin	Oh, yeah, yeah. Years ago, we used to have the FAMU Relays, I was coaching. Way back there, we'd have some teams from throughout the country—Hey, hun—and we'd have Florida State—	12:52
Mrs. Griffin	[indistinct 00:13:06].	13:05
Robert Pete Griffin	That's my wife there, Ms. Griffin. Yes, ma'am.	13:07
Mrs. Griffin	[indistinct 00:13:09].	13:09
Robert Pete Griffin	And they would come over and run against us, and run with us. It got so that now they'd look forward to it, coming over. No, that there—Then there were other teams during the spring break, would come, and pretty soon very popular people would put their own schedule, FAMU Relays, and they'd want to come and talk, paternalize and whatnot. So I really think athletics is that little thing, an agent of change, you know? Influences in Black. I think events like that help to done a lot. Socialization at games and at cultural events.	13:09
Robert Pete Griffin	Well, in other words, there was things—Now, of course, there was some done at other places, but when people come out in the open and let people see how they're getting along and how they can get two things together, I think that's so much more important. He had to have a lot of nerves a lot of times because he'd be criticized. A lot of people, "You're not going to run Whites with those Blacks and whatnot", and people—because of that.	14:09
Robert Pete Griffin	So, a strong urge to socialize and compete and whatnot. He was just—When it comes to causes, he was very helpful in that.	14:35
Paul Ortiz	Mr. Griffin, throughout your life and the struggles that you have endured and transcended, what have been some of the most inspiring things that have helped you overcome hurdles?	14:52
Robert Pete Griffin	I think one of my professors there at The Ohio State—see, I had to go—Here in the State of Florida, you couldn't get an advanced degree. I went back to Ohio State for my Master's. See, I went to high school up there, and I was talking to Dr. Obertauf, one of my professors, and he's a fine guy. But, I went up there and I had a little trouble about writing all this stuff. And I said, "Oh, yeah. Doc, I can't do all that, I can't do all this."	15:11
Robert Pete Griffin	He called me and shut the door in his office, and sat back and started rocking in his chair, and he says, "Let me get this over to you once and for all," he says, "You can do anything anyone else can do and you can write anything anyone else can write. You may have to do a little more honing and toning, but you're willing to do that, aren't you?" I said, "Yeah." He said, "Well, get your butt down here, and let's do this thing." And he said that, [indistinct 00:16:53] guy. He sat there and said, "Now don't come tell me you can't do it." [indistinct 00:16:57].	16:17
Robert Pete Griffin	And that thing really stuck to me. He says, "You may have to do a little honing a little bit, and a little toning a little bit, but don't you ever say you can't do it." So I went ahead and I learned more English from this one guy than I've ever learned. But, that's the thing about when he inspired me quite a bit, OB. He came down here and he said, "I'm coming out here and visit," came down here and sat right on the floor there and says, "Didn't I tell you so?"	16:59
Robert Pete Griffin	He went out there in the field and whatnot and says, "I came down here to see how you're getting on, man." And that guy really was a genuine feeling. We had a genuine communication. I got his literature up here now sometimes. But see, people don't take the time. Now listen, I'm no [indistinct 00:18:01] I had to work. I had to really dig for what I do, see? Some people, it may come easy but I did it, it can be done. He said, "It may be a little bit honing, toning and whatnot," said, "People turn people off when you say you can't."	17:31
Robert Pete Griffin	I found that in football. I've taken right there [indistinct 00:18:22] Grandpa Pete. I make a little statement in there, that you can make a silk purse out of a hound's ear, if you hone it, and tone it. Well, I got off the subject there. What did you ask?	18:18
Paul Ortiz	Mr. Griffin, I just had some—	18:39

Item Info

Title:

Robert Griffin interview recording, 1994 August 11

Date:

August 11, 1994

Creator:

Griffin, Robert Pete

Contributor:

Ortiz, Paul

Description:

Name: Robert Pete Griffin; Date of birth: 1916-05-29; Place of birth: Gillsvile, GA; Occupation(s): educator; coach; Residence: Tallahassee, FL
Informant ID: 383; Interviewed by: Paul Ortiz.

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Language:

English

Digital Collection:

Behind the Veil

Source Collection:

Behind the Veil: Documenting African American Life in the Jim Crow South interviews, photographs, and project records, circa 1864-2011, bulk 1990-2004

Series:

Related Resources:

See below

Provenance:

The David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library acquired the Records of the Behind the Veil Oral History Project from the Duke University Center for Documentary Studies in 1997, 1998, 2000, and 2002.

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Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

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Copyright for content created by the Behind the Veil project is held by Duke University and made available to the public using a Creative Commons Attribution / Non-commercial (CC-BY-NC) license.

Identifier:

RL00170-CS-1527
RL00170-CS-1528
dc76415c-7ae1-430b-8fe0-5635110c9d3f
behindtheveil
98f8e0f4-ec2d-4652-9048-13af46815635
ark:/87924/r4wq05g8k
98f8e0f4-ec2d-4652-9048-13af46815635

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Robert Griffin interview recording, 1994 August 11

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1. Robert Griffin administrative file, 1994

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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Robert Griffin interview recording, 1994 August 11

Transcript

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John Hope Franklin Research Center

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