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By CHRISTIAN RED
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER

Sunday, April 1st 2007, 12:00 PM 
 
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DURHAM, N.C. - Once the trio passed the first hole at Hillandale Golf Club, out of eyesight from the clubhouse and away from any judgmental members, the black caddie and the two white golfers knew it was safe to bend the rules.

"I could play at two, three, four, five, six and seven. I couldn't play eight, nine or 10. But I could play 11 through 18," says that caddie, 66-year-old Paul Perry, over a half-century after he honed his golf skills in secret defiance of Durham's segregated ways. "If anyone (in the clubhouse) saw me playing, they would have run me off the course."

Perry was a teenager then, and the two gentlemen were club members who routinely asked him to be their caddie. During the first few outings on the all-white member course, Perry mustered the courage to joke with both men that he could "hit a better shot" than either of them.

"Okay, try," Perry says one of the golfers, Ed Zuckerman, told him.

"So I started playing them. I'd carry their bags, hit a ball, put both bags on my shoulders, go down the fairway. They would sometimes play me for my caddie fee. And I would often beat them by five or six (strokes) by the time we finished. My game was there," Perry continues, laughing at the memory.

That Perry can walk the greens and fairways at Hillandale today with impunity, where he coaches the North Carolina Central University men's golf team during their practice rounds, is a daily reminder to the Durham native of just how far the Southern college town has evolved, most noticably in the 10 years since Tiger Woods made history by winning The Masters.

"I marvel at that," he says.

Perry, an NCCU graduate who played running back for the Eagles until a car accident between his junior and senior years cut short his gridiron career, is in his first year as NCCU's golf coach. For someone who endured many nights in a Durham county jail protesting racial inequality during the civil rights movement, Perry's biggest challenges now are nurturing a mixed-race, six-man roster that includes five walk-ons, raising NCCU golf's profile and petitioning for the university's switch from Division II to Division I competition.

"We have an application to go to Division I," Perry says. "I'm sure that the university will be putting a little bit more money into the program, which will give us an opportunity to get better golfers here. My predecessor (Pete Hayes) has done one heck of a job, but at the same time, what really makes this program go is the zeal of these kids. They want to play. I don't ever have to ask them to come to practice."

Perry says the team chemistry is solid between the three white and three African-American players, who all hail from North Carolina with the exception of 18-year-old Prince George's County (Md.) product Antoine Johnson, a freshman.

"Maylon Fowler is my number one player," says Perry of the junior from Raleigh, who is white. "He's very much a Christian, while DeAndres (Royal, 22, an African-American sophomore from Fayetteville) is leaning toward becoming Muslim. They all get along very well and that's fantastic to see. I just simply try to guide. If people could do that around the country, accepting people for who they want to be, I tell you it would be a lot better."

Perry occasionally talks with his players about the discrimination and barriers he faced, how pioneers like Charlie Sifford, the first African-American on the PGA tour and a North Carolina native, were as important to the sport as Tiger Woods' titanic impact within the last decade.

"When Tiger came along and started playing, and put what we consider a black face into golf and was so good at it, it gave us somebody to cheer for," says Perry. "When I was a kid, that's what Willie Mays and Jackie Robinson did for me. They gave me somebody to cheer for. And Joe Louis and Charlie Sifford. Those were my athletic heroes, people I really looked up to and admired. It gave me somebody I wanted to be like. When I hear kids out there now saying, 'I'm Tiger Woods,' that means something to me. He puts a face on the game that people of color can understand."

Johnson, the NCCU freshman from Maryland, says he and his teammates, including the three white players, sometimes find it difficult to fathom the world in which their golf coach lived.

"I didn't really run into any roadblocks in terms of being accepted," says Johnson, whose sweet swing caught the attention of a white golf pro at Marlton Golf Club and resulted in free lessons. "People were excited to see me out there on the golf course. A lot of people (in Maryland) have given me a lot of opportunities."

Adds DeAndres Royal, the sophomore: "I can never say I had any obstacles or things like that. Even when I did start playing at courses, I never had any troubles."

Perry admits that it "is a little different" coaching his players on the Hillandale course that he was never officially allowed to play when he was a teenager.

"I can see the whole change in my mind when I'm out there," says Perry. "I never thought I would see the day when a black man and a woman would run for president. Just to think that either has the possibility of being president. ... That's tremendous, and I've lived long enough to see that change."

New York Daily News

NCCU Golf Home Page

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Paul Perry, and player Antoine Johnson in Durham, North Carolina.