News
Jimmy Hollins of B.V.C & Mary Scala of Charlottesville Historical Resource Committee joined together.
A GREAT WEEKEND
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The weekend of October 8, 2010 will be a big one for Burley High School Alumni, it is the fifth All Burley Class Reunion Starting at 5:00 pm that Friday. The Charlottesville Historic Resources Committee and the Burley Varsity Club will kick off the activities a few hours earlier with the unveiling of three plaques.
A few months ago the Burley Varsity Club held a Celebration/ Dedication Ceremony where we honored our former Coaches. At 11:00 Am we will meet on the old football/ baseball field where we will unveil Coaches Smith and Jones’ plaque. The group will then move to the front of Burley where the Historic Resources Committee will unveil its plaque on the Burley building.
Once they complete their unveiling, we will move to the front of the Gymnasium for Coaches Greene and Moore`s plaque unveiling. The event will then move to the Media Center for refreshments. All Alumni are invited to attend this ceremony.
Burley Varsity Club Announces the Celebration/Dedication DVD For Sale.
Truly A great Day in the History of Jackson P. Burley High School is now recorded on DVD. This DVD ofthe event is on sale if you are interested in having one.Cost is $20. Please contact the Burley Varsity Club or call Jimmy Hollins -email burleyvarsityclub@gmail.com - or call 434 825 - 6617.
Breaking News
On March 17, 2010Bama works fund of the Dave Matthews Band committed a $1,500 challenge grant to the Burley Varsity Club . Under the terms of the grant the Burley Varsity Club must provide information to the foundation that it has raised $1,500 for the plaques to honor Burley High School former Coaches. On May 17,2010, the Burley Varsity Club provided information to the foundation that it had raised $1,500 toward the purchase of the coaches plaque. On June 14, 2010 the Burley Varsity Club received the $1,500 matching grant check from Bama Works Fund of the Dave Matthews Band. According to Jimmy Hollins, Chairman of the club, the grant was a shot in the arm and the club is very close to placing the order for both of the plaques.
Please help the Burley Varisty Club meet this and other goals with a generous tax deductible contribution for this and other worthwhile projects commemorating the contributions of Burley High School to the greater Charlottesville community and Albemarle County. Make checks payable to the Burley Varsity Club. Mail to the Club at 819 Henry Avenue - Charlottesville, VA 22903.
If you have any questions please feel free to call Jimmy Hollins at 434-825-6617
Honoring a forgotten past 
By Scott Ratcliffe
Published: May 1, 2010
Sherman White used five words to describe four legendary area high school coaches at Friday afternoon’s celebration of Jackson P. Burley High School’s dedication of the now-middle school’s athletic fields and gymnasium, sponsored by the Burley Youth Leadership Initiative and the Burley Varsity Club.
The words used were: coach, architect, success, treasure and family.
The foursome — Robert W. “Bob” Smith, Clarence Jones, Walter “Rock” Greene and Walter Albert “A.P.” Moore — were honored along with other former Burley High students, coaches, teachers and administrators during Friday’s ceremony, which included performances by the Burley Middle jazz band, cheerleaders and step team, along with the singing of the alma mater and a reading of a poem remembering the old days.
“It’s an important day in the history of Burley High School,” said James Hollins (Burley class of ’65), president of the Burley Varsity Club. “Not only were they our coaches, but they were our mentors.
“As they say, you carry on the roots of someone else, so this is a part of their roots that we are carrying on for the younger kids to see.”
The Varsity Club was formed when Hollins noticed that some of the school’s championship trophies were missing from their case, and decided that the story and legacy of the success of the “Mighty Bears” is one that needed to be revisited and celebrated for those in the community that had never heard it.
Now, says Hollins, all one needs to do is pay a visit to Rose Hill Drive and see it for themselves. The athletic fields will be named for Smith and Jones, while the gymnasium will honor Greene and Moore.
Several guest speakers, including Burley alum and former longtime Charlottesville football coach Garwin DeBerry, spoke Friday of the “sports juggernaut” created by Smith and passed on to his successors and peers during their respective coaching tenures at the school.
Smith, referred to as an icon, architect, master motivator and father of the school by his former players and students, was chosen to be not only the first Burley head football coach, but the head basketball and baseball coach as well, in 1951.
For the remainder of the decade, Smith’s teams were nothing short of dominant in all three sports. One example is the record-setting 1956 football team that went unbeaten and un-scored upon.
Smith also discovered and launched the career of future NFL Hall of Famer Roosevelt “Rosey” Brown.
Jones took over as football head man for Smith, who went on to take the helm at St. Paul’s College in Lawrenceville in 1960. Jones, a Charlottesville native who passed away in 2006, made his own statement with a seven-year record of 102-8-7, including four Western District championships and two trips to the VIA state final.
Greene graduated from Washington, D.C.’s Phelps Vocational High School in 1953 and went on to letter in four sports at Delaware State (he was inducted into each school’s hall of fame) before serving as an assistant under Smith. He took over as basketball coach in ’57 and translated the same success on the hardwood until 1963, when he was beckoned to return to Phelps.
Greene, who referred to Friday’s gathering as one of the best things that has ever happened to him, is the only living member of the group, and explained how it was a chance for him to return to Burley to do something he’d been wanting to do for nearly 50 years.
“I left here 47 years ago… I hated to leave Burley, but I went back to my alma mater,” Greene explained, adding that he felt that the move was something he may not have wanted to do, but almost had to.
“One reason why I was thankful that I was given the chance today was to thank my co-workers and the students, and officially say, ‘I’m sorry I didn’t say goodbye.’”
Moore was an assistant football coach under Jones, his old coaching colleague from Campbell County, and succeeded Greene as basketball coach. Like Smith before him, Moore also assumed the head role on the baseball team. In his first year under Moore, the Bears went on to claim the district regular-season title in basketball, and in ’65, the baseball team won the league championship as well.
All four coaches were also described as tough disciplinarians who could get under your skin on the field or on the court. However, as DeBerry explained, if you looked beneath the surface, you’d see what a great person lies beneath.
Thanks to Hollins and the Burley family, the legend of these four outstanding men and their guidance both on and off the playing field will be recognized for generations to come.
Greene praised the Varsity Club for its efforts.
“My hat’s off to them, because they really put in a lot of work, a lot of sweat and tears and total dedication,” he said, adding that he agreed with Hollins that Smith, Jones and Moore were looking down from above at Friday’s ceremony and smiling. “They would have been overwhelmed like I am.”
Architects of success: Burley Varsity Club pays tribute to the school’s coaches
By Chip Knighton
Published: January 30, 2010
Updated: January 30, 2010
The case is built and the trophies are in place. Now the Burley Varsity Club is honoring the leaders that brought glory to their school.
Last month, the Albemarle County school board approved a plan to name the football field and basketball court at what is now Burley Middle School after four coaches that led state powers at Jackson P. Burley High School in the 1950s and 60s. The football field will be named after coaches Robert Smith and Clarence Jones, while the basketball court will honor hoops coaches A.P. Moore and Walter Greene — a group of leaders who influenced everything from athletic decisions to the school’s mascot.
“Those coaches played a very vital role in the whole history of Burley High School,” said Sherman White, a 1960 Burley graduate in charge of public relations for the Varsity Club. “Coach Smith originally was the basketball coach and the football coach. He came down from Morgan State University, where the mascot was the Bears. He used his influence to make the Burley mascot the Bears.”
The Varsity Club formed in 2007 with the purpose of replacing the school’s athletic trophies, some of which were lost after Burley closed in 1967. With that task completed, the club transitioned to a non-profit, tax-exempt 501(c) organization and shifted its focus to the coaches that brought the school so much success.
Unbeaten and unbowed
As the area’s black high school in the days of segregation, Burley was a Western District power, winning several district football championships and completing a remarkable season in 1956. The Bears were one of two Virginia Interscholastic Association schools to go undefeated and unscored upon that year, along with I.C. Norcom from Portsmouth.
Smith, who coached that team, left Burley in 1960 to coach football and basketball at St. Paul’s College in Lawrenceville. He handed the reins to Jones, one of his assistants, who kept the winning tradition alive, leading the Bears to a state runner-up finish in 1964.
“When I was a kid growing up, I couldn’t wait to be a Bear,” said Varsity Club president Jimmy Hollins, who graduated from Burley in 1965 and played football under Jones. “I think every kid in the city felt that way.”
Burley’s influence extended past the city borders, taking students from several counties as the result of the 1949 merger of Jefferson and Esmont high schools and the Albemarle Training School.
“When Burley existed, the powers that be in this community were right in the throes of segregation,” White said. “They wanted to keep the status quo.
“There were three black high schools and they saw integration looming, so they built this beautiful black high school and named it after a black man. But something they didn’t intend happened — it became a prize in the black community.”
Uncertain future
The school closed in 1967 but re-opened as the Jack Jouett Junior Annex before going back to its original name. Former principal Bernard Hairston advocated for the school during the transition, fighting to keep it in Albemarle County’s plans.
“The county had considered building a middle school to take its place,” Hollins said. “He told them that that building was so well-constructed that they could save money by adding on.”
Burley wasn’t alone in its new role — only a few former VIA schools remained open as high schools after merging with the Virginia High School League in 1969. I.C. Norcom, Armstrong in Richmond and Booker T. Washington in Norfolk are still in use, while Maggie Walker in Richmond reopened as a Governor’s School in the late 1990s. Others, such as Lucy Addison in Roanoke and Carter G. Woodson in Hopewell, followed Burley’s path and became middle schools.
Honoring the past
With Burley’s future secure, the Varsity Club is now doing everything it can to honor its past. The field and court will be dedicated on April 30, when Burley alumni will make their biennial return to the school.
To raise money, the Varsity Club is holding a Valentine’s Day dance on Feb. 13 and a golf tournament on April 22 at Old Trail Golf Course. Greene, the only living coach of the four being honored, will be on hand at the tournament to present the trophy.
Proceeds from both events will go to the cost of the plaques at the field and gym at Burley, helping to maintain the memories of the students, teachers and coaches that made the school so successful during its brief run.
“The Burley Varsity Club has led to a rebirth of the spirit that existed 42 years ago,” White said.
Bears Seen Loose on Rose Hill Drive…
By Sherman R. White, Sr.
Reports have reached this writer that Bears have been seen loose on Rose Hill Drive near Burley School. Chairman of the Burley Varsity Club, James Hollins, announced that some of the Burley Varsity Club members were cleaning up that area of the Drive near the school as assigned by the City of Charlottesville for clean up, 2009 - 2010.
Although all of the Club members were not in the work detail, all members agreed that this was a worthy task whose purpose is to keep the area surrounding the old alma mater from becoming an eye-sore. The clean up assignment entails four clean ups a year.
The lateness of the assignment this resulted in just two clean ups as opposed to the normal four assigned. Once this most recent clean up assignment was complete, those present adjourned to the Red Lobster restaurant to celebrate the birthday of varsity member, Nelson Jones, at a birthday luncheon. A good time was had by all…
–30–
The first stop on the trip was breakfast at the Golden Corral in Richmond. The event was a football game between Hampton University Pirates and the Norfolk State Spartans. All in attendance at the football game had a great time as Norfolk State was victorious. (Those who did not attend went shopping at MacArthur Mall).
After the game, participants boarded the Spirit of Norfolk for a sumptious dinner cruise . Gene and Katherine Burton were crowned King & Queen of the cruise. Everyone enjoyed a wonderful buffet dinner. Three additional persons joined the group for the cruise making a total of 33 persons in attenfance for the event.
Earlier this year the Burley Barsity Club traveled to the NFL Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. Other activities are planned for the next year . For further information , please contact James “Jimmy” Hollins at : 434.984.9659 or 434.825.6617 or just check back for more updates.
Three Trophies Replaced
By Sherman R. White, Sr.
Three members of the Burley Varsity Club, project leader William Redd, Chairman James “Jimmy” Hollins and Treasurer George Lindsay traveled to Bunkie Trinite Trophies in Richmond on September 11, 2009 . The Purpose of the trip was to replace three of the seven missing trophies from the glory years of Jackson Price Burley High School (1951-1967).
Those trophies replaced were: (1) 1954 State Championship football trophy; (2) 1957 Northern District Basketball Trophy and (3) 1955 Northern District Football Championship Trophy.
The four missing trophies will be replaced as more funds are raised from friends and alumni. All trophies may be viewed on the scrapbook section of the website: www.burleyvarsityclub.com
Please contact the chairman, James “Jimmy” Hollins for further information: 434-984-9659 or 434-825-6617.
Jimmy Hollins was one of the founders of the Burley Varsity Club and has been instrumental in a restoration project for the school.
By Ryan Yemen Daily Progress correspondent
Published: August 4, 2009
For 16 years the Burley Bears were the pride of Charlottesville’s black community. Before it was relegated to the middle school that most are familiar with today, Burley was the proud home of some of the best high school football teams in the state of Virginia. In a time before integration, the Bears gathered a slew of awards from Western District titles to state championships.
But over the years, those trophies were moved from one place to another, some going missing along the way. They wound up collecting dust in a storage closet at Charlottesville High until just a few years ago after being found and sent back to Burley.
As a defensive lineman for the Bears between 1961 and 1965, when Jimmy Hollins saw the awards on display, he was inspired to give them a proper home.
“These trophies were found at Charlottesville High School and sadly, they were about to be thrown away,” Hollins said. “Looking at them, I knew some were missing. So I wanted to try and get those replaced and get a cabinet to store them in.”
And so began the first major
calling of the Burley Varsity Club.
In 2007, Hollins started the Burley Varsity Club by throwing together a cookout for former Bears.
The response was strong, and in chatting with some of the alumni, Hollins was encouraged to tackle the task of finding a permanent home for the Bears’ accomplishments while refurbishing those awards that were damaged, and finding replicas to
replace those that were missing.
“It was about restoring the history and pride of Burley High School after a 42-year snooze,” Hollins said.
There is no shortage of history or pride for the Bears. In 1956, Burley went undefeated and did not have a single point scored on them — a record that still stands today — en route to a share of the state championship with I.C. Norcom. No title games were held at that time.
The strength of the program continued to the point where Burley and the University of Virginia were rumored to be putting together a scrimmage.
“There was a time back in the fifties where word was circulated throughout the community that the Bears were going to play Virginia,” said Sherman White, who graduated from Burley in 1960 and photographed and catalogued the football team’s success. “But the story goes that the Cavaliers didnt want any part of the Bears.”
Getting the trophies back and putting them on formal display is now a means of connecting generations, and those attended Burley when it was a high school from 1951 to 1967 have a strong sense of community.
“When it came to Burley, you had the black communities coming from Charlottesville, Albemarle County, Greene County, Nelson County, all over,” White said. “You had everyone coming together. The magic of that was there was such a bond, a fraternity, a sorority — that it didn’t matter where you were from, all you had to do was say Burley and nothing else mattered.”
Of course, there was another motivating factor for the restoration project — if it wasn’t done soon, the old alumni might never see it.
“When you’re young you don’t think about that kind of thing,” Hollins said. “You only think about that when you’re older. Once a certain group of people die out, that history is gone unless there is something there where people can see it and think about it. The last year at Burley [as a high school] was 1967, so those kids are now between 59 and 60 years old. That legacy —Burley’s legacy — is dying out real fast.”
So after forming the club, Hollins worked quickly collecting donations and this past May the Burley Varsity Club unveiled the new display case in lobby in front of the auditorium at Burley.
Now that the trophies have a safe new home, there are just five missing trophies, but the club is very close to finding replicas that best match what the lost trophies should have looked like.
“Hopefully this will show the young kids what we did in our time,” Hollins said.
In meeting and working with the current Burley classes, the nine current Burley Varsity Club members have been pleased to see the manner with which the students are taking an interest in the school’s history.
“The pride that we
exuded here at the high school, now the kids at the middle seem to have that same passion,” White said. “It’s great to see.”
Though it’s been just two years, the Burley Varsity Club, now a non-profit charitable trust, has come a long way from a community cookout.
For its next project, the club wants to help the current students put together a museum that will require removing a set of lockers inside the school.
For more information about the Burley Varsity Club, or to make a donation visit the web site http://www.burleyvarsityclub.com.
Published: August 4, 2009
For 16 years the Burley Bears were the pride of Charlottesville’s black community. Before it was relegated to the middle school that most are familiar with today, Burley was the proud home of some of the best high school football teams in the state of Virginia. In a time before integration, the Bears gathered a slew of awards from Western District titles to state championships.
But over the years, those trophies were moved from one place to another, some going missing along the way. They wound up collecting dust in a storage closet at Charlottesville High until just a few years ago after being found and sent back to Burley.
As a defensive lineman for the Bears between 1961 and 1965, when Jimmy Hollins saw the awards on display, he was inspired to give them a proper home.
“These trophies were found at Charlottesville High School and sadly, they were about to be thrown away,” Hollins said. “Looking at them, I knew some were missing. So I wanted to try and get those replaced and get a cabinet to store them in.”
And so began the first major
calling of the Burley Varsity Club.
In 2007, Hollins started the Burley Varsity Club by throwing together a cookout for former Bears.
The response was strong, and in chatting with some of the alumni, Hollins was encouraged to tackle the task of finding a permanent home for the Bears’ accomplishments while refurbishing those awards that were damaged, and finding replicas to
replace those that were missing.
“It was about restoring the history and pride of Burley High School after a 42-year snooze,” Hollins said.
There is no shortage of history or pride for the Bears. In 1956, Burley went undefeated and did not have a single point scored on them — a record that still stands today — en route to a share of the state championship with I.C. Norcom. No title games were held at that time.
The strength of the program continued to the point where Burley and the University of Virginia were rumored to be putting together a scrimmage.
“There was a time back in the fifties where word was circulated throughout the community that the Bears were going to play Virginia,” said Sherman White, who graduated from Burley in 1960 and photographed and catalogued the football team’s success. “But the story goes that the Cavaliers didnt want any part of the Bears.”
Getting the trophies back and putting them on formal display is now a means of connecting generations, and those attended Burley when it was a high school from 1951 to 1967 have a strong sense of community.
“When it came to Burley, you had the black communities coming from Charlottesville, Albemarle County, Greene County, Nelson County, all over,” White said. “You had everyone coming together. The magic of that was there was such a bond, a fraternity, a sorority — that it didn’t matter where you were from, all you had to do was say Burley and nothing else mattered.”
Of course, there was another motivating factor for the restoration project — if it wasn’t done soon, the old alumni might never see it.
“When you’re young you don’t think about that kind of thing,” Hollins said. “You only think about that when you’re older. Once a certain group of people die out, that history is gone unless there is something there where people can see it and think about it. The last year at Burley [as a high school] was 1967, so those kids are now between 59 and 60 years old. That legacy —Burley’s legacy — is dying out real fast.”
So after forming the club, Hollins worked quickly collecting donations and this past May the Burley Varsity Club unveiled the new display case in lobby in front of the auditorium at Burley.
Now that the trophies have a safe new home, there are just five missing trophies, but the club is very close to finding replicas that best match what the lost trophies should have looked like.
“Hopefully this will show the young kids what we did in our time,” Hollins said.
In meeting and working with the current Burley classes, the nine current Burley Varsity Club members have been pleased to see the manner with which the students are taking an interest in the school’s history.
“The pride that we
exuded here at the high school, now the kids at the middle seem to have that same passion,” White said. “It’s great to see.”
Though it’s been just two years, the Burley Varsity Club, now a non-profit charitable trust, has come a long way from a community cookout.
For its next project, the club wants to help the current students put together a museum that will require removing a set of lockers inside the school.
For more information about the Burley Varsity Club, or to make a donation visit the web site http://www.burleyvarsityclub.com.
FACETIME- 42-year snooze: Burley Bears wake from hibernation
By LISA PROVENCE
Published May 21, 2009 in issue 0820 of the Hook
PHOTO BY JEN FARIELLO
As an African-American kid growing up in the 1950s, Jimmy Hollins couldn’t wait to attend Jackson P. Burley High School. Sure it was segregated, and sure it was built by the Albemarle School Board to prevent integration, and sure by 1961, the year he started, Charlottesville’s Lane High School, had already been integrated.
So what was the big appeal?
“When I was a young kid, Burley football games were on the radio,” says Hollins, 61, recalling that the Bears were undefeated in 1956. “Guys playing pick up games imagined they were a Burley player. I couldn’t wait to get here to be on the football team.”
Play football he did. His 1964 team was state runner-up.
Students from Charlottesville and Albemarle’s three separate Negro schools, as they were then called, plus Greene and Nelson county students came to Burley, some traveling over an hour to get to the school.
“The minute you became a member, it was like being in a fraternity or sorority,” says Sherman White, class of ‘60. “It didn’t matter where you were from. You’d just say ‘Burley,’ and there was a spirit of community.”
In the course of remembering 50th anniversaries of Brown v. Board and other civil rights landmarks, it’s easy to overlook how a school like Burley was the center of a community and the pride of its students then and today, more than 50 years later.
It wasn’t all smiles. Hollins recalls the odd feeling of knowing he might not be welcome at Lane. And two years after he graduated as a proud member of the class of ‘65, Burley closed. Today, it’s an Albemarle County middle school, despite its location on Rose Hill Drive in the middle of Charlottesville.
Hollins went to trade school in SouthCarolina, got drafted, and worked for Amtrak for 30 years before retiring with a permanent disability. After a long hibernation, a few of the mighty BurleyBearsfootball players got together last summer and toyed with an idea.
“Why don’t we get all the athletes together?” recounts Hollins. Thus was born the nonprofit, Burley Varsity Clubwith Hollins as president and White as publicist.
Currently, the club has nine members, but Hollins says it’s open to anyone who was a Burley athlete. That includes the women’s basketball and tennis teams– and the cheerleaders.
The Club’s first initiative is donating a trophy case to the school. They’ll conduct a small ceremony May 28, and all Burley alums are invited. Next they want to replace the trophies won by the champion Bears. “Anyone can contribute,” reminds Hollins. “It’s tax deductible.”
One thing he won’t be able to replace: the Burley Bears kelly green and old gold colors. “They’re the Henley colors now,” Hollins notes.
New Trophy Case for Burley High School
Posted: May 28, 2009 04:08 PM EDT Updated: May 28, 2009 04:53 PM EDT
A new trophy case is helping keep alive the legacy of Burley High School.
Alumni and Varsity Club members from the once all-black school presented the now middle school with a new trophy case Thursday. The awards had been sitting on a shelf in the school, but needed to be protected to be preserved.
The Varsity Club plans to continue fundraising to help restore the trophies.
Reported by Jenn McDaniel
