Yesterday I had a wide-ranging interview with William: athlete, coach and army veteran, who moved to Baltimore from South Carolina in 1953. Eventually our discussion digressed into sports as a way out of the 1960s ghetto for boys of his generation. At this point he brought up something that has always intrigued me. Being a laborer working with mixed race crews most of my life, I was always intrigued by the difference in how black-on-black disputes and white-on-white disputes were resolved in very different ways. One of the unique aspects of the masculine black tradition was body-punching, a type of limited on-the-job fight that very rarely escalated or resulted in a lingering animosity.

I’ll let William tell it in his own words.

“The neighborhood was ordered around the steps, and your "step rights." You always had the right to sit your own steps. But sitting on other people’s steps, or, most importantly, on corner or vacant steps, you did at the pleasure of the young men, the older respected teens.

“Body punching was an important aspect of this. Two boys would be set to fight by the teens, and you had your strike zone, belt to collar. That was all good. If you could not man up to this your were not allowed on the steps. And nobody really got hurt. If someone was just being overwhelmed it was broken up and you parted friends. There were no winners or losers. It was about standing up, being a man.

“Now, if you did something low down, vandalism, punch someone in the face, use a weapon, the older boys got you. Just a beating, that was just enough to get the point across, not to damage. Of course, that is abuse, a crime today. Now you have shooting and stabbing as choices that are optioned early on in the process of finding your way as a youth.

“Of course, coming into another neighborhood, the rules did not apply, and a fight that went beyond body-punching, and in which there was no guarantee that others would not jump in, was a real clear possibility.

“For a natural athlete, that three-in-ten guy, that guy who had what it took to make a go, this type of process prepared you well for a life of sports, which, considering the opportunities of those times, was the alternative to running from the police and getting caught up in all of that. Sports are still a real window of possibilities to the young man of the city, but it is just a window, a passing opportunity.

"I will never compete with another rec. program. Anyone who is working with youth should be honored and supported. It is also necessary to set up a filtering process, that permits high school and college coaches and recruiters to see the promising athletes, and also denies them direct early access, in other words, they must go through a parent and coach. And this, this waning of parental involvement in sports, has been detrimental.

“Football or baseball? You really have to ask which one I liked the most?

“That is easy: football. In baseball you are lucky to get your bat or glove on the ball in one of three plays. In football—I was a defensive back—I got to hit someone on every play.”