Long Island High School Alumni Recall Connection to the Confederate Flag
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By Andy Newman
JUNE 26, 2015
The high school team was called the Rebels. Their logo, a Confederate battle flag and a rifle-toting soldier.
The school’s location might be surprising: not the land of cotton, but a manicured New York City suburb, a good 120 miles from the Mason-Dixon line.This is the story of the Great Neck South High School Rebels of Long Island, and how a moment of soul-searching over the Confederate flag played out more than 30 years ago. Great Neck South had opened its doors in 1958 and adopted the Rebel name early on, a simple nod to South being the “southern” school in town.
In the early ’80s, Great Neck South alumni said, Rebel mania was strong. “That flag was on our school ring burned into the metal,” recalled David Gurfein, the school’s quarterback from 1980 to ‘82, who recently unearthed a picture of himself with a Confederate-flag hand towel tucked into his uniform. “We wore it on our jackets. We would go down to Middle Neck Road waving these Confederate flags. We had so much team spirit, so much unity, so much energy.”No one at the school saw anything troubling about it, said the co-editor in those days of The Southerner, the school paper. This was, after all, the era when the airwaves were ruled by “The Dukes of Hazzard,” with Bo and Luke behind the wheel of their battle-flag-emblazoned car, the General Lee. “The idea of the Confederacy was ubiquitous and completely benign to us,” said the former editor, Roy Niederhoffer, who went on to become a successful hedge-fund manager. Benign, too, for the football team’s half-dozen African-American players, said Kenneth Brown, who was one of them. “We were proud of the flag because it was our mascot,” he said. “We had no idea that it represented hate and racism.”One of his black teammates, Quinn Early, a wide receiver who went on to play in the N.F.L., said that he seldom encountered racism growing up. “I grew up with Asian and Jewish and Native American,” Mr. Early said, “and we were all just buddies and none of us even saw color.” As Mr. Brown, who now runs a catering company, put it: “We were kind of in a Great Neck bubble.” So robust was the bubble that one of the black players’ mothers sewed Confederate-flag patches onto the players’ jerseys, several of them said. But the larger world intruded. In March 1981, a black man in Alabama was lynched by the Ku Klux Klan. David Gurfein remembered reading about the lynching with horror. But somehow he avoided making the flag connection. Then one day during the 1981-82 school year, he said, he saw a newspaper article about a Klan paramilitary camp in Alabama. The photo showed men in camouflage gathered around a fire. Behind them hung a Confederate flag. “I said to my father, ‘Dad, why is this flag in this picture? Why are these Klansmen standing in front of that flag?’” “And he said, ‘That’s what this flag stands for.’” Mr. Gurfein — now retired Marine Lt. Col. Gurfein, 50 — decided that it was time to change the logo. He said he approached the principal, who told him that others before him had tried to get rid of the flag, but the student body would not stand for it. Mr. Gurfein was quarterback for the school's football team from 1980 to ‘82.Mr. Gurfein figured he needed to offer a more appealing alternative. He considered the concept of the rebel and landed in 1776. “I thought, ‘We had these rebels who fought against tyranny. We can have a positive rebellious spirit, not a negative one.’”
Mr. Gurfein was also the graphics editor of the school paper. He sketched a Yankee soldier, sleeves rolled up, in front of a Spirit of ’76 flag. His classmates rallied to the cause. Mr. Brown said he was one of hundreds to sign a petition. Soon the Confederate flag had been banished. A mural of the Yankee soldier still adorns a wall outside the principal’s office; it was painted by Mr. Gurfein, who told his story in a widely shared Facebook post this week. In the last few days, as the nation debated the meaning of the Confederate flag, the principal of Great Neck South, Susan Elliott, said she was contacted by several older alumni who wanted to know if the Rebels still flew it. Not for 30 years, she told them.
“They were very happy,” she said. Mr. Brown said he was moved to dig out his varsity jacket with the Confederate flag on the back. “I’m going to keep it,” he said. “That’s a part of our team, and it was a fun time for me.” But would he wear it out of the house? “Not now,” said Mr. Brown.
By Andy Newman
JUNE 26, 2015
The high school team was called the Rebels. Their logo, a Confederate battle flag and a rifle-toting soldier.
The school’s location might be surprising: not the land of cotton, but a manicured New York City suburb, a good 120 miles from the Mason-Dixon line.This is the story of the Great Neck South High School Rebels of Long Island, and how a moment of soul-searching over the Confederate flag played out more than 30 years ago. Great Neck South had opened its doors in 1958 and adopted the Rebel name early on, a simple nod to South being the “southern” school in town.
In the early ’80s, Great Neck South alumni said, Rebel mania was strong. “That flag was on our school ring burned into the metal,” recalled David Gurfein, the school’s quarterback from 1980 to ‘82, who recently unearthed a picture of himself with a Confederate-flag hand towel tucked into his uniform. “We wore it on our jackets. We would go down to Middle Neck Road waving these Confederate flags. We had so much team spirit, so much unity, so much energy.”No one at the school saw anything troubling about it, said the co-editor in those days of The Southerner, the school paper. This was, after all, the era when the airwaves were ruled by “The Dukes of Hazzard,” with Bo and Luke behind the wheel of their battle-flag-emblazoned car, the General Lee. “The idea of the Confederacy was ubiquitous and completely benign to us,” said the former editor, Roy Niederhoffer, who went on to become a successful hedge-fund manager. Benign, too, for the football team’s half-dozen African-American players, said Kenneth Brown, who was one of them. “We were proud of the flag because it was our mascot,” he said. “We had no idea that it represented hate and racism.”One of his black teammates, Quinn Early, a wide receiver who went on to play in the N.F.L., said that he seldom encountered racism growing up. “I grew up with Asian and Jewish and Native American,” Mr. Early said, “and we were all just buddies and none of us even saw color.” As Mr. Brown, who now runs a catering company, put it: “We were kind of in a Great Neck bubble.” So robust was the bubble that one of the black players’ mothers sewed Confederate-flag patches onto the players’ jerseys, several of them said. But the larger world intruded. In March 1981, a black man in Alabama was lynched by the Ku Klux Klan. David Gurfein remembered reading about the lynching with horror. But somehow he avoided making the flag connection. Then one day during the 1981-82 school year, he said, he saw a newspaper article about a Klan paramilitary camp in Alabama. The photo showed men in camouflage gathered around a fire. Behind them hung a Confederate flag. “I said to my father, ‘Dad, why is this flag in this picture? Why are these Klansmen standing in front of that flag?’” “And he said, ‘That’s what this flag stands for.’” Mr. Gurfein — now retired Marine Lt. Col. Gurfein, 50 — decided that it was time to change the logo. He said he approached the principal, who told him that others before him had tried to get rid of the flag, but the student body would not stand for it. Mr. Gurfein was quarterback for the school's football team from 1980 to ‘82.Mr. Gurfein figured he needed to offer a more appealing alternative. He considered the concept of the rebel and landed in 1776. “I thought, ‘We had these rebels who fought against tyranny. We can have a positive rebellious spirit, not a negative one.’”
Mr. Gurfein was also the graphics editor of the school paper. He sketched a Yankee soldier, sleeves rolled up, in front of a Spirit of ’76 flag. His classmates rallied to the cause. Mr. Brown said he was one of hundreds to sign a petition. Soon the Confederate flag had been banished. A mural of the Yankee soldier still adorns a wall outside the principal’s office; it was painted by Mr. Gurfein, who told his story in a widely shared Facebook post this week. In the last few days, as the nation debated the meaning of the Confederate flag, the principal of Great Neck South, Susan Elliott, said she was contacted by several older alumni who wanted to know if the Rebels still flew it. Not for 30 years, she told them.
“They were very happy,” she said. Mr. Brown said he was moved to dig out his varsity jacket with the Confederate flag on the back. “I’m going to keep it,” he said. “That’s a part of our team, and it was a fun time for me.” But would he wear it out of the house? “Not now,” said Mr. Brown.