A look back on a special Danville softball team will happen this Friday (July 26th) when author Phyllis Smith will be at the Danville Public Library for an afternoon book signing. Smith’s book “Black Diamond, Black Gold; the Danville Lady Tomahawks” will look at a team of African American young ladies that her father, Wilbur Atkinson, created in the early 60s over at Lincoln Park. They immediately set up shop at Carver Park, where a field now sits named after Wilber Atkinson.
As Phyllis Smith recalls, Jake Butler was coaching a softball team called the UAW CIO Local 579 Whippets. Atkinson was a co-worker of Butler’s at the GM Foundry, and one year he decided to form a new team for those that came up short of making Butler’s team. Smith says that as a former Negro Leagues player, her father wanted youngsters to have the chance to play.
Audio PlayerAUDIO: He saw a need for the young ladies in Danville to have some kind of outlet; the African American girls. So, he started working with Jake Butler; learning how the Philly League worked.
Smith says the Lady Tomahawks had about sixty girls try out right off that bat; and they were then in existence all the way up to 1990, when Atkinson suffered a stroke. Phyllis Smith recalls that her dad took the team on the road a lot, playing in the mentioned Philly League. And they changed their style of play in the mid-70s.
Audio PlayerAUDIO: We went from slow-pitch to fast-pitch in 1976. And we traveled Danville, Illinois; and the small towns; Indiana, Tennessee.
Right around 1970 or so, Phyllis Smith turned 12 and was old enough, after working out at practices for a couple years, to finally play on the team herself. When the Whippets ceased to exist in the early 70s after Jake Butler passed away, some of their players became Lady Tomahawks.
All these memories and more about the Danville Lady Tomahawks softball team will be shared during Friday’s 2 to 4 PM book signing, at the Danville Public Library.
