Gregg Doyel

gregg.doyel@indystar.com

George Taliaferro died Monday, Oct. 9, 2018 at the age of 91. This story was originally published in 2015.

BLOOMINGTON -- George Taliaferro talks slowly, deliberately, enunciating each word so clearly that there is ... no ... mistaking ... what he just said.

And thank goodness for that, because otherwise you wouldn't believe what he just said.

Did he just say he used a screwdriver to integrate a movie theater in Bloomington, where he was an All-American running back at Indiana in the 1940s?

Did he just say his father was killed by his uncle on Christmas Day? That he refused a U.S. Army brigadier general's order to play on the base football team? That he opened the first Boys and Girls Club of Bloomington?

Did he just say IU basketball coach Bob Knight asked him in 1972 to help recruit African-Americans? And that their friendship evaporated over time?

Did he just say his wife was the state's first African-American judge south of Indianapolis? And that one of his favorite people is an 8-year-old girl who has had all of her organs replaced? Did he just say she is a ... prin ... cess?

Did he just say he was the first African-American player drafted by the NFL?

Slow down, George Taliaferro. You may be ... speaking ... clearly.

But I can't keep up.

* * *

George is trying to direct me to his house in Bloomington, where he and his wife and all four daughters graduated from IU.

"We have six degrees from Indiana University," Taliaferro says, "and all because I was able to run very fast out of fear ... of ... being ... hit."

He gives his address and wonders if I have "one of those know-it-all (GPS) things" that he says will get me close to his house but past it, because his front door faces a crossing street. I suggest that maybe his address is wrong.

"Listen," he says. "Those know-it-all-things don't know everything."

They don't. And if they knew everything about George Taliaferro, 88, they wouldn't believe it, though it's not so hard to believe this: When he reported to IU in 1945 he couldn't swim in the pool, live in the dorm or eat in the cafeteria. He could attend movies, but only on weekends, and only if he sat in the balcony, away from the white people.

"I couldn't do ... anything ... on ... campus but attend class and play football," he says.

George called his father in 1945 and told Robert Taliaferro he was coming home to Gary, maybe to work alongside his father in the tin mill at the US Steel Corp. A few years earlier, when George was still at Gary Roosevelt High, he told his father — a foreman at the tin mill — that he wanted to be just like him.

"Then you should cross your arms across your chest and lie down and die," Robert told him. "Because I never had the kinds of opportunities that you are going to have."

His dad's education ended in the fourth grade in rural Gates, Tenn., after which Robert Taliaferro went to work on a farm, but he remains one of the smartest men George Taliaferro has ever known. And Robert showed it when his son called to complain about segregated Bloomington.

"George," his dad said, "can I ask you one question? Is there another reason you are in Bloomington, at the University of Indiana?"

And Robert Taliaferro hung up.

"I was absolutely devastated," George says. "I lay awake all night trying to figure ... out ... why ... he wouldn't help me. And it came to me: That for the first 18 years of my life, every day I left my father and mother's house to go to school, they told me two things: 'We love you; you must be educated.' It came to me that the other reason for my being at Indiana University ... on the campus at Bloomington ... Indiana — was to be educated."

Taliaferro stayed and led IU that 1945 season to the No. 4 national ranking and its only undefeated season (9-0-1) and outright Big Ten championship. Before his career was finished he led the Hoosiers in rushing, passing and punting.

And integrated the movie theater.

He had been in school a few years when he showed up at the Princess Theater with ticket money and a screwdriver. It was a Tuesday, when the "colored" section was closed, but Taliaferro was given a ticket and headed for the balcony. Not to sit in it. But to emancipate it.

"In full daylight I removed ... two ... screws and took that sign down," Taliaferro says. "And then I sat downstairs and watched a movie."

He still has the sign, an oblong piece of white metal with seven blue letters: Colored. George Taliaferro leaves me in his living room, returns with a leather attaché case and pulls out the sign. He smiles. There is ferocity in his eyes.

"I decided," he says, "that I was not going to sit upstairs ... any ... longer."

* * *

The letter was waiting for him after his freshman year.

"Greetings," Taliaferro tells me, reciting the letter from memory. "Report to Fort Benjamin Harrison on Feb. 4, 1946, for induction into ... the ... U ... S ... Army."

Taliaferro remembers being one of 66 recruits, and watching the other 65 ride a bus to the barracks — while he was driven in a weapons carrier to Brig. Gen. Graham's headquarters.

"He said, 'Son, I look forward to you bringing a championship football team to camp,' " Taliaferro says. "Because I was so angry at having been taken out ... of ... Indiana ... University ... and put into the U.S. Army, and I was 19, I popped off and said, 'I don't want to play football while I am in the armed services.' And Gen. Graham said, 'Son, you can either play football or you can go to Officer Candidate School — and that is an automatic, three-year enlistment.' I responded to him: 'I will see you tomorrow after ... football ... practice.'

"And we won the championship of the Middle Atlantic military installments."

What position did you play?

"I was everything," he says. "Today, as ... you ... and ... I ... speak, I am the only professional football player to ever play in the NFL and play seven positions — running back, quarterback, punter, wide receiver, punt returner, kickoff returner and cornerback. I enjoyed playing football that much, and if ... the ... pros ... had ... known, I'd have played for nothing. But when they offered money I was too well raised to refuse."

The father who raised him was killed on Christmas Day 1947 by the shotgun Robert Taliaferro's younger brother had opened that day as a present. It was 3 a.m. and the corridor was dark as George crept into his dad's hospital room in Gary and heard him speak one word:

"Junior."

"I walked from the door to my father," George says, "and he ... was ... dead ... when I got to his bedside."

* * *

What happened after that? So much. The Chicago Bears drafted Taliaferro in 1949, making him the first African-American ever selected. But the All-American Football Conference years earlier had opened its doors to African-American players, and he already had agreed to play for the Los Angeles Dons — and while the Bears were his favorite team growing up 30 miles away in Gary, Taliaferro had given his word to the Dons.

"I ... never ... played for the Chicago Bears," he says.

He did damn near everything else. He played seven seasons of pro football, six in the NFL with New York, Dallas, Baltimore and Philadelphia, three times making the Pro Bowl. He became a volunteer with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Baltimore, advised prisoners adjusting to society upon their release, got his master's in social work at Howard University, taught at Maryland, was dean of students at Morgan State, returned to Indiana as a professor and special assistant to IU president John Ryan, and helped start Big Brothers Big Sisters of South Central Indiana in Bloomington.

He met Bob Knight, grew close to him, then grew apart. Today the bookshelf in his beautiful brick home in Bloomington has a basketball signed by one former IU coach: Mike Davis. Taliaferro gave away the signed ball Knight gave him, so disturbed by Knight's behavior that he doesn't remember who he gave it to.

Also in those shelves are books by Toni Morrison, Thomas Wolfe and Herman Melville. Taliaferro is smart and learned, but he gleefully says, "Not as much as ... my ... wife."

Viola Taliaferro went to law school in her 40s, set up a private practice, then was appointed magistrate in Bloomington. In their foyer, matching Distinguished Alumni Service Awards from IU hang on the wall. Between them is a picture of George kissing Vi. This is a home of two lives, well lived.

With a small picture of Lauren.

* * *

Lauren doesn't trust easily. She has been through so much, this 8-year-old beauty who attends Spring Mill Elementary in Indianapolis, a jaundiced baby who underwent her first surgery at 3 months, her first liver transplant at 10 months and her 12th surgery before she was 3. That's the one when doctors affiliated with the Children's Organ Transplant Association replaced almost every organ in her abdomen: liver, kidneys, pancreas, stomach, small bowel, small and large intestines.

For nearly 30 years George Taliaferro has worked with COTA, including as its board chairman, and now serves as chairman emeritus. Four years ago at a COTA event he met Lauren.

And Lauren, this sweet little girl, she trusted him right away.

"He got down at her level to speak with her, and she jumped into his arms," says Lauren's mother, Suzanne Seiders. "She's not overly friendly, partly because of all she's been through — she's hesitant with people — but she was never like that with George. They have a unique relationship. And George just melts when he sees her."

Says George, "Lauren is all the good things in life. I think she's one of the most magnificent ... human ... beings ... God put on this earth."

He is smiling and misty-eyed as he is telling me this, and I cannot help but tell him: So are you, George. So ... are ... you.

We go outside, toward his snow-filled front yard, and stand on the circular driveway that neighborhood kids shoveled clean. This is where George Taliaferro was standing when I arrived an hour earlier. He was sure my know-it-all GPS wouldn't know how to find him. I tell him I'm trying not to feel insulted. He smiles.

"When there are people who are making their living delivering packages and mail," George says, "and they miss it, there's a chance ... you ... will miss it."

No chance, George. Wouldn't have missed you for ... the ... world.

Find Star columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at www.facebook.com/gregg.doyel