Professor Roger Groves

Innocence In The
Red Zone

Why can African American players be team leaders and “coaches on the field” but not coaches on the sideline?

This is the most in-depth story of an African American coach fired from the highest level of college football ever published in the century-old history of the sport. Bobby Williams was an oddity, being only one of four African American head coaches on the sidelines at that level in America. He innocently wanted to coach for all the right reasons, for the love of the game and the kids who play it. But what started as a fire of passion and success, winning a New Year’s Day bowl game against Florida, ended in ashes just a few years later. Yet, from those ashes is a story rarely told from lessons he learned coaching at the most pressurized level in college football—the Red Zone.

Innocence in the Red Zone website

About Roger Groves

Sometimes referred to as a Renaissance Man, Groves is also an accomplished jazz pianist, having played for Magic Johnson's wedding, and was opening act for the likes of Stevie Wonder, War, The Main Ingredient, and jazz great Clark Terry. He has performed at an eclectic Portland restaurant, H20, on weekends during the "professional hours," and has written a book teaching people to play piano by ear, with a soulful style.

Biography

E-mail: rgroves@lclark.edu
Phone: 503-768-6864
Campus Mail: Mailstop 51
Office: 321 Law School