Making the calls: basketball's striped shirts

      (Part II of series)
       Robert "Tony" Rhodes of Shreveport officiated a thousand-plus basketball games in 32 years. Two stand out.

Tony Rhodes, left, makes a call late in the 1980 NCAA men's Final
Four semifinal between UCLA (in blue) and Purdue.
(photo taken from official NCAA Final Four film, off YouTube)

       In March 1980, in Indianapolis, Rhodes -- for decades a high school coach in Northwest Louisiana -- was one of the officials in the NCAA Tournament's men's Final Four.
      Yes, the big show.
      He was one of three men calling the second semifinal, UCLA vs. Purdue. (UCLA, coached by Larry Brown, won to advance to the championship game vs. Louisville). Two days later, Tony helped call the third-place game: Purdue vs. Iowa.
      Known for his cool demeanor, good judgment, hustle, and strong mechanics, Rhodes was the epitome of the many college basketball officials from the area.
      He followed in the tradition of the area's most familiar  tandem of the 1950s and early 1960s, K.P. "Frenchy" Arceneaux and Alaric Smith, although they were better known as baseball umpires.
      And Tony preceded and overlapped with another prominent big-time Shreveport-Bossier college basketball referee: Mike Thibodeaux.

Mike Thibodeaux watches carefully

      Thibodeaux never got to the Final Four, but he got as close as a couple of Elite Eight assignments and his credentials are strong: 36 seasons, 27 in the Southeastern Conference, 14 NCAA Tournaments.       
      He left the floor for good just a couple of years ago -- after two hip replacements -- but remains deeply involved in officiating in Northwest Louisiana, although -- in a twist -- not in basketball.
       He is in his 28th year as the football assigning secretary for Louisiana High School Athletic Association area schools, and also has assigned baseball officials the past four years.
       Those positions might be as difficult as officiating games themselves.
       And Thibodeaux came away with a surprising connection ... ready? He has a friendship (of sorts) with Bobby Knight. Is that possible? Read on.
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       Among others from the Shreveport-Bossier area who officiated college basketball:
       -- Carl Pierson, the tall, lean junior high coach who became longtime athletic director for Caddo Parish schools. He called Southwestern Athletic Conference games for men and women for years (and also officiated football).
       -- Ed Hearron, coach-turned school administrator who was a Southland Conference referee for two decades (also worked in the Trans America and American South conferences) and called in a Final Four of the NCAA Division II championships.
       -- Danny Walker, whose two decades included games in the SEC among several conferences. (More on him below.)
       -- Billy Grisham, later a ref-turned-softball coach, was a confident referee in local high school gyms and officiated in the old Trans America Athletic Conference.
       -- Ron Payne, of nearby Plain Dealing, who had time in the Southland Conference. So did the late Mark Hensley of Haughton.
       All of them, plus Rhodes and Thibodeaux, got their starts at the local level and, for a couple, the experience grew with games in the very competitive East Texas junior college circuit -- Tyler, Kilgore, etc.
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Tony Rhodes today

       For most of three decades, Tony Rhodes was a high school coach -- football in late summer and fall, baseball or football in the spring. 
       First, in the early 1960s, he was an assistant at DeSoto (Mansfield), where he helped two future major-league pitchers, Vida Blue and Jesse Hudson, get started in baseball (they were football standouts, too). Then he moved as head coach to Walnut Hill, one of the smaller all-black schools on the outskirts of southwest Shreveport. He was there five years.
       When Caddo Parish schools integrated in January 1970, and Walnut Hill was phased out, Rhodes became a football assistant/head baseball coach at first-year Southwood High.
      Through the integration merging, black head coaches who had been moved to assistant jobs at previously all-white schools, were promised head coaching jobs when they came open. That happened for Tony in 1973 when Huntington High School opened in far west Shreveport.
       He was the Raiders' head coach for 18 football seasons. There wasn't overwhelming success, but the highlights were four district championships in a six-year span (1980, 1983-85) and five playoff teams, and a stretch of nine seasons in 10 with .500 or better records.

Another view, another call: Tony Rhodes, Final Four, 1980

       He was as well-known, though, for his "second job" -- basketball referee.
       It was not only a supplemental income, it kept him on the road each winter from 1965 to '97.
       At times, he called games in the Metro Conference, the Southland, SWAC, TAAC, and Big State (Texas schools), plus games for smaller schools in East Texas. 
       The NBA took a look, too -- in 1969, he called an exhibition game.
       There was more time for officiating after he left coaching following the 1980 season, a half year after his NCAA Final Four assignments. He moved into school administration for a short time, then taught ninth-grade math until retirement. And he officiated for another dozen years.
       He turned 77 earlier this month and still lives in Shreveport.
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       Mike Thibodeaux, 61, living in Princeton (rural Bossier Parish), was an athlete of sorts (basketball-baseball) at Southwood High and then Baptist Christian College in Shreveport. 
       Employed by Kansas City Southern railroad while living in Baton Rouge in 1980, he saw ads advertising for prospective officials for basketball and baseball, and joined up. Working games and then attending summer officiating camps, he grew more experienced and more interested.
       It was with the help of Mac Chauvin, an SEC referee and top Louisiana high school official from Baton Rouge (he later became assistant commissioner of the Louisiana High School Athletic Association in charge of officiating), that Thibodeaux broke into college basketball.
       By 1986, he was calling Southland, Sun Belt and TAAC games, the SEC spot opened in 1989, and Conference USA and the Southwest Conference (later the Big 12) picked him up, too.
       Back in Shreveport, he retired as a data processor with KCS in 2000, having often worked midnight shifts to create more time for officiating in the winter. 
       All the running took its toll, and his hips gave out. "A hundred games a year will do that to you," he said.
       In the Big 12 Conference, from 2001 to 2008, he occasionally refereed games involving Texas Tech and head coach Bob Knight -- the notorious one, never hesitant to rudely blast refs or anyone who displeased him. 
       "We hit it off well," said Thibodeaux. (Not making this up). In fact, he worked one of Knight's monumental victories, the one which broke Dean Smith's record for most wins by a men's college head coach.
       A photograph caught Knight pointedly talking to Thibodeaux -- wonder what he was saying? -- and the coach signed a copy of it for the ref. 
       When Dr. Billy Bundrick, North Louisiana's foremost orthopedic surgeon involved in athletics, saw the photo, he asked Thibodeaux for a copy. So did Northwest Louisiana Fellowship of Christian Athletics director Terry Slack, who wanted it for an FCA auction.
       "That won't bring you anything," Thibodeaux joked. A Knight fan bought the copy for $2,000.
       As much "stuff" as Thibodeaux caught from coaches and fans during his officiating days, he has found the football assigning secretary role almost as controversial.
       "You have to defend actions by others [officials] every Saturday," he said of coaches calling to complain about crews in their games. "That is difficult because I haven't seen the games or the tapes. When I was officiating on the basketball floor, I was in charge for 40 minutes and knew how to handle myself."
         Thibodeaux stayed in the game and proved for 3 1/2 decades he could handle the heat.
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         Those who know Danny Walker know he is multi-talented (ordained minister, college sociology professor, sports radio play-by-play announcer, political consultant, successful owner/operator of Texas hospice facilities) and an upbeat, funny teller of tales.
         He was a demon basketball and tennis player at Fair Park High, chasing down opponents and smashes with abandon, and leaving lots of laughs as he played.
         Not as demonstrative as an official as when he played, he didn't mind the spotlight. He called SEC games, the Southland, TAAC, Metro, Sun Belt and other leagues.
        Two games he refereed at Centenary College's Gold Dome stand out:
         -- Nationally ranked University of Houston's one-point victory over Centenary in the 1972-73 season finale when Gents' freshman 7-foot center Robert Parish (No. 00) missed two free throws with 0:00 showing on the clock (and no one else on the playing floor).
         -- Indiana State's January 1977 three-point victory -- a last-minute comeback -- when its top player was a super-talented and relatively unknown 6-8 sophomore forward, Larry Bird ("he scored 28 points," Walker remembers). 
         What he remembers, too, is "I must have called a thousand games with Tony Rhodes."
         Good times. Good calls.