Same School, Different Class A Memoir of School Integration

By David Waddell ’73 and Kim Bancroft ’73

In 2010, David “Moochie” Waddell contacted his former GCDS, class of 1973, classmate Kim Bancroft out of curiosity. Their initial conversation—he in Texas, she in California—about their lives since graduating quickly moved into deeper sharing regarding how each experienced their adolescent years while attending GCDS from 1970–73. Never more than school acquaintances at the time, they now learned how issues of race, class, and social dramas meant they’d had no idea how the other had lived in Greenwich back then.

Many ensuing phone calls led to the book they’ve written in alternating chapters, Same School, Different Class: A Memoir of School

Teachers

(From Chapter 5)

By David “Moochie” Waddell

Kim, from our conversations you know that the teacher with whom I’ve had a close friendship for over 45 years, and to whom I’m forever indebted for all he was and is in my life, is Wellington “Wally” Ramsey III. He was not only my academic counselor, but also my football, basketball, and baseball coach. When he retired, he was elected as one of the original four Master Teachers.

Mr. Ramsey is still “Coach” to me. I credit Coach with everything I achieved at school, on and off the field. He never let me get lost in the school society or allowed my athletic prowess to be intoxicating and distract me from my mission, which was to take full advantage of the great education at hand. He helped to sharpen my personal skills and, of course, to hit the books. Each day, he taught me to strive for impeccable manners and dress. His favorite saying was, “Do everything with class.”

During my years there, Coach never expressed the importance of what I was going through regarding racial integration and the challenges I faced coming into the GCDS world with all its affluent egotism and racial insensitivity at the time. He knew, but that’s not what he wanted me to concentrate on. He also knew that I got down on myself at times, that my fragile selfesteem overpowered me. He knew when I felt I was at a disadvantage academically and socioeconomically, but he wouldn’t let me use that as an excuse. He perpetually motivated me and got me to stay positive. If I stumbled, Coach caught me, but he always made it a lesson not to be repeated. The year I lost the public speaking contest, he immediately informed me, “I’ll help you win next year!” He pointed out positive comments the faculty said about me. He used sports analogies to make his points. Using love and truth, Coach made me realize each day that I was as good as the next classmate, regardless of the size of their family’s bank account.

Integration. With honesty and humor, the former classmates explain what they could rarely reveal to anyone at the time, including to themselves.

Central to the book is Waddell’s experience of being one the first two African American students to graduate from GCDS (Monique Lee being the other). Waddell’s mother, Carol Waddell, and former principal Frank Efinger, along with others, led the effort to integrate GCDS after 46 years.

Here Waddell and Bancroft share excerpts from their chapter on how GCDS teachers significantly shaped their lives.

Coach also encouraged me to bring into the classroom the equivalent commitment as I put forth on the court or field. My parents expected the same from us, but they added a different perspective that Coach did not address directly. My parents, and Black parents in general, taught their children that we had to strive to be twice as good as our white counterparts to get anything in life; nothing was going to be handed to us. We always had to prove ourselves.

The only thing my parents ever cared about was that their children were treated fairly, that we were given the same opportunity to succeed, regardless of socioeconomic circumstances or race. So of course my parents were fond of Mr. Ramsey for his genuine support. He provided eyes and ears for my parents. He made sure I didn’t get swayed by the elitist attitudes of some or the diversions of others. Because they felt Coach Ramsey represented integrity and fairness, he will always have a place in the Waddell Hall of Fame.

On one rare occasion, Coach scolded me for not meeting his standards of decorum.

I was in seventh grade at basketball practice in the gym with the team, getting ready to practice. Other boys and girls mingled about. The older sister of a classmate stood on the sidelines, wearing a long winter coat. I snuck up behind her, bent down, and playfully tugged at the bottom of her coat. It seemed innocent.

As I walked away, I heard, “David Waddell, come here!” I turned around and saw Coach walking in my direction. He asked me to follow him to a corner of the gym. I was perplexed why he shouted for me, but the look on his face said it wasn’t about the intricacies of playing defense. When we arrived, he placed his hands over my head and against the wall, confining me, which was unnecessary because I hung on his every word. More importantly, I respected him. I wasn’t moving!

He bent down and leaned into me so that his eyelashes practically touched mine. Then he sternly reminded me that a young man should respect all females in every way. What I had just done was disrespectful and wouldn’t be tolerated.

I was shocked, but I knew that if my parents had known what had happened, they’d have told him he didn’t go far enough. My folks were raised with the African proverb that “it takes a village to raise a child.” Coach Ramsey was welcomed into our tribe with all privileges. When that very brief woodshed moment was over, he put his hands on my shoulder and said, “WE will be gentlemen at all times and do everything with class.”

When he corrected me, I knew that it came from love and wanting the best for me.

Before the ceremonies began on Graduation Day in 1973, Coach called me into his office. “I’m very proud of you,” he said, handing me a gift: a framed photo of our very successful ninth-grade basketball team.

The picture was great, but I cherish most the words Coach wrote on the back: “Long after the scores have been forgotten, our friendship will be everlasting.”

At that moment, I was touched by his gesture yet reserved. I was just beginning to realize that the last three years of my life were hours away from becoming history, and the one person who helped me navigate through the test was saying his goodbye.

Everlasting the friendship has been.

More recently, in 2018, I received an email from Coach informing me that Mr. Tom Brody, an excellent English teacher in his own right at GCDS and who also served as Mr. Ramsey’s assistant coach for our basketball team, had passed away at the age of 87. I had also admired Mr. Brody greatly. I then found a photo in my yearbook of 1973 of Coach Brody and Coach Ramsey calling out to the team on the court.

I replied to Coach: This is sad news indeed. I have very fond memories of Mr. Brody. I’m forever grateful that he was as caring and passionate off the field as he was on it. He put more emphasis for me on education than on how good I was on the court. You each had your own styles of teaching us what was important. And we were foolish enough to think that we were “just playing ball”!

It’s been almost 45 years since I last saw Mr. Brody. He will forever be in my heart.

Coach, I hope with all my heart that YOU know how much I love you!

—Blessings, Mooch

Academic Joys

(From Chapter 5)

By Kim Bancroft

We’ve learned from each other, Moochie, how different our experiences were at GCDS, not just because of race and class and family situations, but also because of our different orientation towards academics and athletics. While so much of my life was unhappy at that time, I found joy at GCDS in having teachers who pushed me to read lots, analyze well, and write thoughtfully.

Even though I was already a good student, I’d come to GCDS from a public school. I quickly figured out that the expectations here were higher. I remember studying Latin, the first time I’d ever studied that very foreign language. I’d done well in my French class in the public school, but this language, with its often military-oriented vocabulary, was a mystery. I got the first F in my academic life in that class. I was stunned! I pushed my mind into high gear.

I don’t know if Country Day humani- ties teachers were trained in special ways to reach into our young hearts and minds, but for me they did. I remember reading about slavery in the sixth grade. For the first time I saw the ghastly images of the ships with human beings packed together like sardines. I read stories of human beings auctioned off, beaten, and maltreated on Southern plantations. My conscience awoke to history and its potential horrors.

We also read about Hiroshima. I reeled with shock when presented in a personal way with John Hersey’s stories of survivors of the U.S. nuclear bombings of Japan, families and homes destroyed, skin peeling off. I learned to be wary of the negative impulses in human “kind.”

Expressing our thoughts articulately was crucial. The GCDS method of teaching grammar was tedious yet ultimately helpful: English teachers would mark an error and put in the margin the number of a rule from our grammar book. We had to write out the rule and correct the error. This process reinforced the functions of grammar and good writing skills. One avoided breaking the same rules, only to write them out over again. The writers of the handbook were none other than William Merriss and David Griswold, two distinguished teachers at Country Day.

Indeed, the teacher who most affected my sense of self was my eighth-grade English teacher, Mr. Griswold. Before turning in a composition, he asked us to write a self-critique on the back of our papers. About one composition, I scribbled that I didn’t think my story was very good.

Mr. Griswold wrote back something to the contrary: “I think you have a fine story here, Kim. You’re a talented writer. You have an interesting conflict that you created in this story, and you use dialogue well.”

What?! I could write?! I had no idea. With that simple encouragement, Mr. Griswold opened my mind to see new possibilities in myself. He affirmed my love of writing and further energized it. In fact, I’ve often attributed my desire to become a teacher to that epiphany gained from Mr. Griswold: he changed what was possible for me. Later I wanted to share that power of mentorship with my own students, to teach them to be positive in the face of whatever problems they too might be confronting at home or in themselves. I wanted to let them know that they had talents, skills, likable personalities, and more.

As we pick through piles of memories accumulated in our Country Day years, Moochie, I see how I took and ran with the most important part of what GCDS offered me: a chance to develop as a thinker, reader, writer, and speaker— skills I practiced as a teacher for three decades and continue to practice as an editor, journalist, and writer today. Even if I faltered at sports at Country Day or