Sometimes the choices we make have an impact far beyond our expectations. Take the case of Dean Wild. As the coach at then-segregated Frederick High School in 1955, Wild wanted to field a competitive track team, but knew his runners couldn’t compete with the nearby Lawton Wolverines.
 
“I was kind of selfish,” Wild, now 98, admits. He knew students from Frederick’s all-black Boyd High School were fast runners, so he looked beyond their skin color and recruited them to be on his team. The students were hesitant at first. At the time, Frederick was a completely segregated community with blacks on one side of town and whites on the other. But their principal encouraged them to join the track team and they began practicing.
 
“I didn’t know how it would turn out,” Wild said. But during the first competition in Lawton, the Frederick Bombers won the meet. Black and white headlines in the Lawton paper announced the win and the composition of Wild’s team to the southwest Oklahoma community and Wild’s superintendent.
 
“I had to explain to him what I’d done,” Wild said. But the superintendent didn’t object and the boys continued running and winning together. Wild served as track coach, football coach, basketball coach, and taught both driver’s education and math.
 
As football season approached, Wild saw the opportunity to build on the track team’s success and recruited a dozen black students to play on Frederick’s football team.
 
Wild forged a stellar team, and the Frederick Bombers soared, finishing their season 14-0, and won the state championship. Perhaps more important than the team’s record were the relationships built and attitudes changed.
 
“Most of our practice was one on one,” Wild said. “There was never any fuss.” Wild treated all of his players the same, respecting them and teaching them to respect one another.
 
“They played together, ate together, and got well acquainted,” he said. But eating together was sometimes a challenge. When the team had an away game, Wild always wanted them to have a meal before returning home. The bus would pull into a café and Wild would go inside to talk with the manager.
 
“I’d say, ‘I want to feed my team,’” he explained. Universally, the response was, “Bring them in.” But when Wild told them there were blacks on the team, some rescinded the invitation.
 
“I’d tell them, we run together, we play together, we’re gonna eat together,” Wild said. Often before he’d get out the door, the manager would change his mind and let the team dine. If not, Wild would return to the bus and they would move on to another restaurant. “The kids never knew. I never told them.”
 
Wild spent 10 years coaching at Frederick and finished up his career in education as the assistant principal at Putnam City West. The same principles guided him throughout his career. “I’ve learned so much by dealing with kids,” Wild said. “All kids have about the same problems… most of them, all they want to do is talk to you and if you listen, you can do them a lot of good.”
 
Wild was honored recently with a Humanitarian Award by the Respect Diversity Foundation. An Oklahoma City non-profit organization, Respect Diversity seeks to help people of all ages live, learn, and work in our increasingly diverse society. Each year the group sponsors an Art and Poetry Contest. This year’s theme was All Colors Shine. The winning entries in this collaborative contest are shown on the following page. Learn more about the contest and the organization at www.RespectDiversity.org.

Gayleen Rabakukk is a freelance writer who spends her time in Oklahoma City keeping up with her teenage and preschool daughters. She holds a BA in journalism from the University of Central Oklahoma and is a regular contributor to MetroFamily Magazine.