Sports: Gussie "Junior" Williams, 1949, Winn Parish, LA.
Submitted by Greggory E. Davies, 120 Ted Price Lane, Winnfield, LA 71483
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From: August 4, 1949 Winn Parish Enterprise

Success Story

Winnfield Colored Youth Signed By Dodgers

When a few days ago Owner Branch Rickey of the Brooklyn Dodgers personally
supervised the try-outs in Ft. Worth of three Grambling College pitchers,
Matthew Hall, Mackie Freeze, and Gussie Williams, and later offered them
hastily-signed contracts, it was a fitting climax to an interesting Winnfield
story.  For one of those now nationally known stars is a Winnfield boy. 
Gussie Williams, known to everyone around Winnfield and Dodson, where he was
born, as "Junior".

It began over ten years ago when Junior's widowed mother, Rosanna Williams,
operator of Rose's Beauty Parlor in L. and A. section of Winnfield, expressed
to James A. Gaulden, then English instructor at Grambling College and now
principal at Winn Parish Training School, the desire to secure the best
possible high school and college education for her two sons, Oscar C. Williams
and Gussie.  One boy, four years is a tight fight, so two boys, eight years is
bound to be a first-class scuffle, Gaulden, who not long before had just
finished working his own way through college, told Rosanna, but added that
there was always a way for those who really wanted to do something worthwhile.

"If you can scrape up the various school expenses," he said, "I'll give them a
place to stay and they can eat when I eat."

So began the Grambling career of Oscar and Gussie.  By the end of their first
four years, both boys had forged ahead successively and by the end of their
first two years in college they had securely endeared themselves to all with
whom they came in contact, Oscar in literary matters, dramatics, and school
publications, etc., and Gussie in athletics, football, basketball, and
baseball.

Junior Also Great In Football, Basketball

At Grambling's recent commencement exercises, both Oscar and Junior were the
proud recipients of their B. S. degrees.

Junior is as well known for his stardom in football and basketball as he is in
baseball.  He was a member of the championship Grambling College football team
for the last three years, serving as a galloping, pass-snatching Varsity left
end.  And in basketball he is known all over the South as a "poison" basket-
hitting forward.

Born in Dodson, Gussie was reared in Winnfield, and now lives in the L. and A.
quarters.  He is now 22 years old, stands 5'9" and weights 176.  It was
learned that Brooklyn officials told him that he will probably be farmed out
next year at a Brooklyn chain club in Wisconsin after spring training
in in Florida.