FAMU Alumna Pam Oliver Hosts Conversation on new Documentary Highlighting Legendary Black Coaches

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida A&M University (FAMU)Center for African and African American Studies will host a free screening of the documentary film, “Bridging Troubled Waters: Coach Jessie Heard, Football and Desegregation,”on Thursday, Feb. 20, at 6 p.m. at the Florida Blue Auditorium in the College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. 

Narrated by legendary track alumna, and Fox Sports reporter, Pam Oliver, the documentary explores the role football played in Florida’s Black communities before, during and after desegregation. Following the showcase, Oliver will host a conversation on the golden age of HBCU football with Jessie Heard, who played for the late Coach Alonzo “Jake” Gaither in the mid-fifties, and Derrick E. White, Ph.D., professor at the University of Kentucky and author of the book “Blood, Sweat and Tears: Jake Gaither, Florida A&M University, and the History of Black College Football.”  

At FAMU, Coach Heard starred as a running back and is in the FAMU Football Hall of Fame.  Heard is also the last head football coach at Gainesville, Florida’s Lincoln High School, and the first athletic director and head football coach at Gainesville Buchholz High School.   

FAMU alumna and FOX Sports Reporter Pam Oliver

“The ranks of Coach Gaither’s great teams are thinning. Rattler gems like Jessie Heard embody gems of important historical perspectives,” says Carmen Cummings Martin, FAMU Assistant Vice President of Alumni Affairs/University Advancement.

At Lincoln High School, Coach Heard had to navigate a roughcourse from segregation to the no-man’s land of freedom of choice desegregation to the end of separate White and Black schools in 1970. Lincoln, like almost all Black high schools in Florida, was closed.  At Buchholz, Coach Heard was one of just three remaining Black head high school football coaches in Florida. There, he built a winning program with an integrated coaching staff and team.     

During the post-documentary conversation, Professor White will explore the rich history of these legendary coaches. In in his book, he notes, “Black sporting congregations developed because of and in spite of segregation.”

For more information, please contact Carmen Cummings Martin at 850-412-5755 or via email at carmen.cummings@famu.edu

 

Back to Stories