Interview with William Corpew O'Neal 18
February 22, 1996



C: Was that Patty?

0: No, it was Isabel. She got little odd jobs for me in the Athletic Department, one of
 which was to see that the officials got to the game on time properly attired, all that sort of business. The train came down in the middle of Main Street. It originated in Jacksonville, and it arrived supposedly around noontime at Gainesville. So I would go down and meet the train and pick up the fellers and take them to the White House Hotel,
 where I had a room ready for changing their uniforins.

C: These were the officials for the game?

0: Yes. Then if they wanted to eat in that room, they could have room service at any time
 of day and eat outside. They had a little better food than you get just ordering off the menu, but the job of getting them to the field. The field was surrounded by the cyclone fence and the fence was a hundred or two feet away from the stadium itself and had several gates, one of which was just for vehicles. I could drive the car through that gate and drive up on the field anywhere really that I wanted to go and sit in the car and watch the game or go sit on any vacant seat that there happened to be. Well, after I got
 them near the coaches, I'd go sit on the bench or anywhere I wanted to.

C: Now, what year was this? Was this high school, when you were in high school?

0: Yes. That just kept on happening through the years and I got really accustomed to the
 boys. Along about the late 50's I began knowing the children's parents and in the early 60's I had a cousin named Bruce Bennett, of Valdosta, who came on scholarship and who desperately wanted to play quarterback. He had made All State Quarterback. He was left-handed, which is bad, and he didn't have a shot arm, which is bad, but he could run like hell with the football. He wanted to play quarterback the worst. Finally, Ray Graves told him, "All right, I'll make you a proposition. I'll give you a chance to be a starting quarterback. I don't think you'll do any good but I'm going to give you a chance." That was all he wanted was a chance, and he played fairly early and he let Tommy Shannon play the other half Of course, Tommy was a hell of a lot better quarterback than Bruce. Bruce was a tremendous defensive back. I told him, I said, "Well, cousin, think about it this way. There are hundreds of boys got cut out down in that football field in a football unifort-n. How many of them do you think could be an All American safety man, an automatic defensive back? How many of them do you think would be an All American quarterback? You'll find it about five to one." And he settled down a little bit and began to see that it was more fun to play defensive. Later we met the Trammels, Allen and his parents. Our son, Pat, was going to be a freshman in school the next year, and this is stupidity to the nth degree. Pat was a very gifted
 student in high school. Ray said, "Let's move him intoYon Hall out here."

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