What a year it's been ... (un)forgettable

      We are all more than happy to bid the year 2020 farewell. Go away. 

      It has been a year we'd all like to forget. But, loss of memory excepted -- and we hope that's not anyone's fate -- it will stick with us forever.

     Been here 73-plus years, and many years had moments we suffered, but overall nothing like this.

     C'mon, 2021 ... and a vaccine that will make the pandemic -- the COVID-19 horror -- a (sorry) thing of the past.

     So many families have been touched by this, many tragically. We've had our cases -- our son, our son-in-law -- and they weren't severe, but they were worrisome. (They are OK now.)

     Personally, there was that little heart problem in May. Well, not so little (a triple bypass). But I am fine now (I think). Thanks for asking, and thanks for caring.

     It left plenty of time for reflection, for gratitude (as written in my daily gratitude journal), for the blessings I and my family have had ... and plenty of time to read and research.

     Spent much of the year working on ON TRACK, the book pieced together on the updated history of high school outdoor track and field in Louisiana. 

     So, hours of looking back in newspaper files online and searching the Internet and Facebook for names and records, hours of typing in all the results from Jerry Byrd Sr.'s 2004 book being updated, researching for and then writing sketches on teams and individuals, and then -- trial-and-error, mostly error -- formatting pages (346 of them).

     It was, on and off, a two-year project, but the bulk of the work came from June to November. Still not done entirely; still making corrections and updating, and hoping that someone will publish the book (at an affordable cost). So far, no luck, other than a do-it-myself method.

     Sports history and records always have been a hobby, or maybe -- as my roommate of 44 years suggests often -- an obsession.

     (If one has obsessive-compulsive tendencies, and I might, it's not always a positive. Caused us and others trouble and pain, and I apologize -- again.)

     Had to laugh when a sportswriter friend, mentioning the book, referred to me as "a track enthusiast." Well, not exactly.

     I'm OK with the sport -- my Dad loved it -- and I covered it some, but I always preferred baseball, basketball, soccer and football (not necessarily in that order).

     Anyway, the Louisiana track and field high school records, results and history needed updating ... and so it's done. Hopefully, 2021 will mean my work needs updating. 

     I know the book won't have wide appeal or even have moderate sales (if and when it's printed), but getting it done was important to me.

---

     Speaking of sports ...

     It is amazing how much was achieved for much of 2020 despite the pandemic. There was a long pause beginning near the last portion of basketball season, then so darned many postponements/cancellations ... most of them necessary and the safe choices. 

     Dang, what a scheduling hassle this has been (and still is).

     But through much travail and many stops-and-starts, games were played, and championships decided.

LSU's national champions: If this had been the 
last game  of 2020, that would have been fine. 

     One championship made my year: On January 13, LSU whipped Clemson to win the College Football Playoff championship and complete the perfect season. 

      It was the greatest LSU team ever, one of the greatest, period. Not much in my sports world tops that.

     (Confession: I did not watch that game live. Recorded it, watched it late at night, not knowing the result. In fact, I did not watch many of LSU's games last season live.)

     What I found early last football season (2019) was that watching games as they were happening -- for any of "my" teams -- was causing too much stress. I could feel the tenseness in my body.  

     (What I didn't know then was that my heart arteries were severly blocked. Somehow I survived -- even watching recorded version of the games and taking many too-long daily walks).

     Better now, but I still don't watch all that many sports events live. My roommate does not care to watch (or care about the results at all), or have it on TV live, when she's in the room. So if I watch, it is mid-to-late evening -- sometimes live but usually recorded and games are long finished.

     Keeping up with scores on the phone or computer as games are being played still is tense enough for me. 

     Hate watching my teams lose or even play badly or sloppily in victories. And not many of those teams did all that well in 2020; my baseball team, in fact, underachieved and -- oh, gosh -- choked much of the season. 

     Here is something else: I don't like the thought of being old-school or old-fashioned, not don't like idea of "it was a lot better in 'our day,' " but when it comes to sports these days, I am ... well, old school.

     I don't like many of today's trends in sports (this is a separate blog).  Way too much money involved, in every way. Games take far too long. Rules are altered regularly. Hence, I don't enjoy watching all that much.

     Still very interested, but it's not my life as it was when I was younger. And it's no longer my work (but I loved it).

      What made sports in 2020 so odd, most of all, were the "bubbles," and even more, no fans in the stands, or a limited amount of fans. Awful. (But ticket prices, when tickets are available ... out of sight.) 

---

     We all suffered too many losses, of people, in 2020. So much suffering, so much sadness.

     Reviewing the year, it is unbelievable how many nationally known and my personal connections, in some way, we lost. More than I can remember in any one calendar year. 

     Here at our facility, we lost 47 residents  (though only one that we know of from coronavirus complications). Especially cruel was the loss of an outgoing, funny, delightful, at times bawdy 86-year-old woman to Lou Gehrig's Disease, ALS. Oh, Carol. She didn't have to suffer too long, but it hurt us.

      We lost friends, pals and neighbors -- too many to name.

      Losses in the sports world were profound. Kobe Bryant (and his daughter) so early in the year, so tragically. Baseball was rocked by seven Hall of Famers lost -- Bob Gibson, Lou Brock, Tom Seaver, Al Kaline, "Little" Joe Morgan, Phil Niekro, Whitey Ford. And other greats, such as Dick Allen and Johnny Antonelli, Jimmy Wynn ("The Toy  Cannon") ... Joe Morgan's cohort with the early Houston Astros.

     So many Yankees connections: Don Larsen, Phil Linz, Lindy McDaniel, Horace Clarke, Damaso Garcia, Jay Johnstone, Jimmy Wynn, (general manager) Bob Watson, Hank Steinbrenner.

     And our old Shreveport Sports or Braves: Jay Hankins, Dan Pfister, Oscar Brown, Remy "Angel" Hermoso.

     On a personal level, sadness about two newspaper sports department buddies named Steve -- Oakey (leukemia) and Schroats (massive heart attack). They were my good friends who helped make me a better journalist and better person. Miss those guys, and always will.

---

   It was a horrible year for politics, for social issues. Think most people would agree, unless they were not paying attention. This great divide in our country -- maybe in the world -- isn't likely to subside; we are all so dug in to our beliefs.

     It is so difficult to see and hear -- on TV, on Facebook and Twitter -- the harsh and empty rhetoric, the name-calling, the blaming, the conspiracy theories, the excuses, the blind belief.

     Have to say that it has caused me to break with some people. I think about my late friend Dr./Coach James Farrar's logic about friends and acquaintances, and where that line is.

     Everyone is entitled to their opinions. What is unacceptable to me is when I am told what to think or how to act. I try not to reciprocate. You live your life and believe what you want; I will do the same. Don't cross my line; I'll try not to cross yours.

     (I did cross the line with one political post this year, and was told by a half dozen people they didn't want that ... at all. It was not repeated.)

     If you posted something online or to me directly that I found objectionable, it likely means we no longer are connected. That is kind of sad, but too bad.

     Among my goals are to be civil, not use foul language -- another reason not to watch sports events live -- and not be directly critical personally of people I respect. If you find any of my language foul in the blogs or online, let me know. 

     The biggest goals for 2021 are to be the best I can be, keep exercising (strength-training and yoga here or at the YMCA, daily walks, although I have to cut back because of the wear and tear on my legs and feet), and just be nice and helpful to people. Sports, politics and social issues will take care of themselves; I have no control over them (but I do have opinions). 

     Beatrice and I wish you a Happy New Year, but mostly we wish you a healthy new year. Stay safe. 

Danny Hodge was our "good guy" in wrestling

An anonymous baseball name from the past

         Johnnie Dawson was a catcher in professional baseball in the 1930s and 1940s, and he was from rural Caddo Parish who became, for a time, a Shreveport resident.

      Or maybe his name is Johnny Dawson. We're not sure which spelling is correct.

Reno newspaper
July 25, 1941
(clipping provided by
Dr. Margaret Gripshover)

     You will not find him in all the Shreveport area pro baseball material that we published in 2019 and early 2020 because -- frankly -- we had never heard of him until a couple of months ago.

     In all our research back to 1895 -- of the early Shreveport teams and then the Gassers, Sports, Braves, Captains, etc., and players from Northwest Louisiana that played pro ball -- he was anonymous.

     It was an avid baseball researcher who found Dawson for us and identified him as a Negro Leagues player.

     Dr. Margaret M. Gripshover -- whose informal name is Peggy -- is a professor of geography at Western Kentucky University. That field also includes environmental studies.

    Originally from Cincinnati, she has been at Western Kentucky for 11 years after previous faculty stops at Marshall University and the University of Tennessee.

     So geography is her j-o-b. But she's also passionate about -- and has researched and written on -- horses, the thoroughbred racing industry, mules (yes, mules) ... and baseball.

     Pertaining to the great game, she is partial to the Chicago Cubs and the Wrigley Field area, and her current project -- which brings her to us and Mr. Dawson -- is research on African American contributions to baseball.

     She is a member of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) and is contributing a chapter on Dawson to a book on the 1942 Kanas City Monarchs, a combined writing project for numerous SABR members.

     So Dawson was a missing piece and, having seen some of our work online, she wrote us seeking what information we had on him. Which was ... none.

--- 

     Here is what we did find on Dawson from a, well, sometimes-not-sure source, Wikipedia:

     Johnnie Dawson (November 8, 1914 – August 6, 1984) was an American Negro league catcher between 1938 and 1942.

     A native of Shreveport, Louisiana, Dawson made his Negro leagues debut in 1938 with the Kansas City Monarchs and played with the Chicago American Giants and Memphis Red Sox in 1940. He returned to the Monarchs during their 1942 Negro World Series championship season. It was Dawson's final season in baseball. He died in Los Angeles, California, in 1984, at age 69.

Negro league baseball debut — 1938, for the Kansas City Monarchs

Last appearance — 1942, for the Kansas City Monarchs

Teams — Kansas City Monarchs (1938); Chicago American Giants (1940); Memphis Red

Sox (1940); Birmingham Black Barons (1942); Kansas City Monarchs (1942)

     And from the Baseball Reference web site, here is a link to the scant Negro Leagues statistics on Dawson:

     https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=dawson003joh

--- 

     Going to let Dr. Gripshover -- "Peggy" -- take it from here. Following are parts of what she wrote to us in mid-October:

    "Dawson’s baseball career mirrors that of many second-string players in the Negro Leagues of his day. His life off the field was no walk in the park either. I am pretty sure that it wasn’t easy  to be an African American man in “Bloody Caddo.”

      Dawson’s immediate family was fractured and unstable from the get-go. He and his brother (Kemp Dawson) were raised in rural Caddo by different sets of aunts and uncles in the Greenwood and Flournoy communities. His father, also named John Dawson, vanished from the picture by 1920 and his mother remarried and moved to Shreveport.

      Johnny and Kemp had their scrapes with the law in Shreveport, but nothing major (mostly gambling). Kemp left Shreveport before Johnny did and moved to Los Angeles where he had a brief career as a boxer.

     The Dawson boys were just two of the many African Americans who left Shreveport for LA during the “Second Great Migration.” One article I read claimed that there were so many former Shreveport residents in LA, that there was a neighborhood that was informally called “Little Shreveport.”

     Johnny ended up in LA after his service in World War II. Dawson continued to play baseball in the burgeoning post-WWII semipro leagues in California, along with some other former Negro League players. He played semipro baseball for a variety of teams until around 1949. 

    After that, I lose track of Johnny and his brother Kemp until their deaths in the 1980s. Kemp died in San Francisco in 1983, and Johnny passed away a year later in LA. I have a few documents that indicate that both brothers were probably married at least once (maybe twice), but no records of any known children.

     I am fairly experienced with doing African American genealogy, but the Dawson family has been a real challenge. Endlessly interesting, but a challenge nonetheless. 

     … There were a few bright spots in the Dawson family story. The uncles who raised the Dawson brothers were fairly successful farmers in Caddo Parish, and one of the uncles was a  regular exhibitor (and winner) at the Louisiana State Fair in the 1910s. Fast forward to the 1990s, and you will find Johnny’s cousin, Matel “Mat” Dawson (1921-2002), a Detroit autoworker turned philanthropist who endowed a scholarship at LSU-Shreveport."

—- 

     And there you have it --  the story of Johnny (or Johnnie) Dawson, as we have it. A small, previously unknown — and somewhat sad — segment in Shreveport baseball history uncovered by Dr. Margaret “Peggy” Gripshover (photos left and below).

    And we thank her. 

ON TRACK cover story: "Mondo" the magnificent and the vaulting Duplantis family

 

ON TRACK -- the book on Louisiana high school outdoor track and field

     This has been a two-year project, updating what Jerry Byrd Sr. had in a 2004 book on Louisiana high school track and field. This is a 346-page book, with some feature material and mostly pages of state-meet champions, plus state records and honors.

     Would like to put this into a bound book or booklet, but that has not happened -- yet. Hopefully, it can be produced in the near future.    

      If you want a link to download the book online -- you will need to download the file -- please give me your e-mail address and I will forward the link ...

      

 

  

A tough, old Marine: a story to be told

          I was asked to write this for Veterans Day, and it was my pleasure. This is a man who much deserves to be recognized. Art is a 97-year-old, 30-year Marine (WW II, Korea, Vietnam). Great life, wonderful story. 

Wendell was the best, and so was our boss

"The best newspaper boss I worked for was the last newspaper boss I worked for." 

-- Wendell Barnhouse, about Celeste Williams (Fort Worth Star-Telegram sports editor, 1999-2017).

---

     One of the great pleasures of 45 years in the newspaper business was working with dedicated and talented journalists, and good people. 

     It happened at every stop, but it was especially true in the last decade at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. 

     Some were more outstanding than others. Wendell

Barnhouse was one.

     I am writing here what I told many people many times: We had the best college football and basketball writer in the country. Wendell proved it every year, darned near every day when he wrote.

     We had a terrific staff in almost every area -- inside (the "desk" people, in newspaper terms -- editors, designers, copy editors) and outside (the writers that the public knew).

     This was all put together by Celeste Williams, the S-T's sports editor for 18 years until cancer took her from us three years ago. Beloved is the best way to put how we all felt about her.

     See Wendell's quote to start this piece. Me, too.

     Just so happens that last Friday -- Oct. 1 -- on Celeste's birthdate, I received from a friend a link to two columns that an 88-year-old ex-sports editor in Columbia, Missouri, wrote about the young Wendell Barnhouse. 

     Our mutual friend, Joel Bierig (whose own productive sportswriting career began at the Shreveport Journal in May 1975), also sent a link to an autobiography that Wendell has written in the past few months to stay busy during the pandemic-restricted months.

     (I am sharing the book link at the bottom of this piece. I recommend it to my journalism friends.)

     The autobiography is very, very detailed, covering every aspect of Wendell's life -- he's 66 1/2  now -- and his career, and there's plenty of commentary because Wendell is never without opinions (what did you expect from a journalist?).

     It is, as with everything he writes, an interesting, complete and well-done effort.

     We were not, I must say, close friends. I knew of Wendell  and had met him a couple of times before I joined the Star-Telegram staff as a sports copy editor in late December 2001.

      Our careers had many similarities. Started at a medium-sized paper writing about kids' stuff (writing our stories long-hand at first, until we were taught better), covering American Legion baseball (loved it!), covering high school athletics, working "inside" as  designers/layout and copy editors, sports editor positions, lots of writing and editing. Moved around -- a lot (Wendell worked in Missouri, Illinois, Arizona, Atlanta and settled in Texas). We were high-strung (you know that), teed off people and got teed off. 

     (See photos of the young Wendell at the bottom of this blog.)

     Big difference: Wendell was a big-time writer covering all the major college sports events (and many others), winning national awards. Me, not so much.

     So we were on the same staff for about 6 1/2 years until Wendell -- sensing that the S-T layoffs which had begun in April 2008 -- were going to keep happening. He took a buyout, ending his 25-year stay at the S-T. This was his last newspaper stop.

      He had come to the Metroplex in 1981, with The Dallas Morning News. There he was a desk man -- a very skilled designer, then a section editor. 

     The DMN, starting in about 1980, had one of the nation's best -- and most respected -- sports sections. After two years of "meat grinder" work, he turned down a chance to become Sunday section editor -- an important role there, an almost-sure step to bigger and better jobs. That led to another move. 

     Through his connection with Bud Kennedy, he joined  the Star-Telegram; Fort Worth's gain, no question. Began as a desk man, became an assistant sports editor, then turned to writing fulltime in 1986 (when the NCAA Tournament Final Four was in Dallas). 

      Among our many talented writers, Wendell was so knowledgeable, so thorough, productive and reliable,  and -- in all my years in newspapers -- the very best "on deadline" (only Mike Strange at the Knoxville News-Sentinel was his deadline equal, in my experience).

      And Wendell's writing was just darned interesting, factual ... and when needed, opinionated. 

     He was, in editing terms, a "clean" read, an easy assignment for us. Few mistakes ... and if you caught him in one, he was appreciative (not all writers were; some would argue almost every word or fact you suggested changing).

      He covered all the major college football and basketball events, and wrote about the newsmakers, trends and controversies. (He did NOT love Bobby Knight ... who the hell did?).      

Wendell with ESPN college
basketball analyst Jay Bilas.

     He especially loved college basketball and here is his tally of NCAA Tournament coverage: 343 games, 26 Final Fours, two women's Final Fours (and one more championship game).

     This is where he really shined. On NCAA Tournament Selection Sunday, every year we had a special section -- 8-10 pages, breaking down all the regions, with analysis, featured players, and sketches on all 64 (or 68) teams. Wendell each year wrote just about every word in those sections. 

     And did the bulk of it "on deadline," in a space of 2-3 hours after the late-afternoon tournament bracket announcement show. 

     It was a tribute to his organization, preparation and work ethic. Can you imagine how hard that was to do?

      He never failed, and it was damn impressive.

      We didn't see a lot of Wendell; he worked from home ... or from all parts of the country. On his office visits -- or on the phone -- was he was very business-like, not chatty, not a BSer (a lot of sports people specialized in those areas). 

      He was, in baseball terms, a "tough out." That could be interpreted as criticism, and to some, it seemed he was standoffish or aloof. But if you knew a little of Wendell's background, a hard-knock early life with challenges, you could understand why he was tough. Plus, he was just a busy guy -- in stressful circumstances. 

       But also, if he had time and you hit on the right subject, he would ease up and talk away. And we knew he was a devoted husband and father ... and a dedicated worker.

      He was only fired once, from the job that followed his Star-Telegram time, as a writer/TV-video host for the Big 12 Conference for seven years. (We could talk about being fired, but we're not going to do that.) 

      Here is how Wendell -- unemployed in 2015 for the first time in 43 years and trying to find ways to find jobs --  described his work attributes on his LinkedIn page:

     "Exceptional writing, editing and time management skills. Thorough researcher, inquisitive interviewer. Organized multi-tasker and task-oriented. Delivers before deadline. Understands importance of collaboration, but can work independently. Keen eye for logic, facts and flow when editing. Customer oriented (the reader being the customer). Innovative problem solver. Understands changing media landscape with experience in social media and video production."

     Yes, indeed. I could not describe it better; no one could.

     Nominally, Wendell is now retired. But I suspect that if he was asked to write an in-depth feature or an analysis or a guest column for a newspaper or web site, he could do it ... today.

---

      Back to Wendell's autobiography. The chapter that most interested me is Chapter Eight, titled "The Best of Times." It is about the 2000s decade at the Star-Telegram and, like Wendell, like all of us who were there, we were proud of our section. 

      We were, in short, as good as anyone in the country, including our Metroplex buddies, the DMN.

     In this chapter, he writes about the D-FW newspaper battles; interesting stuff. With Wendell's permission, I am borrowing much of it in this blog. Because we lived some of it with Wendell.

---

    The Best of Times

     The best newspaper boss I worked for was the last newspaper boss I worked for. ...

      Ellen Alfano was promoted to assistant managing editor and was still overseeing sports. In May of 1999 she hired Celeste Williams to be Senior Editor for sports. For the next nine years under Celeste's leadership, we kicked ass.

     Knight-Ridder owned several outstanding newspapers around the country. When the Morning News opened its Arlington edition in 1996, it laid down a gauntlet. When K-R took ownership of the Star-Telegram, its main goal was to establish the paper’s superiority in Tarrant County and to beat back the challenger from the East. The home office gave the Star-Telegram the resources and marching orders to be the best. We had the right leadership to make that happen.

     Arlington and the areas northeast of Fort Worth were booming in terms of business and population. The Star-Telegram had for years produced zoned editions, with pages of the paper produced for specific suburbs. To combat the DMN, that strategy was placed on steroids. The paper opened and staffed bureaus for Arlington and Northeast zoned editions. Those bureaus included about two dozen writers and editors that focused only on their editions.

     The seriousness of our intentions was displayed in 1998 when the Star-Telegram hired Randy Galloway, the Morning News’ top sports columnist. Galloway had become a major player in the sports scene since becoming a columnist at the DMN in 1982 and then adding a nightly sports talk radio show on WBAP, a 50,000-watt AM station. Galloway was having a dispute with DMN management when Jim Witt, the Star-Telegram’s executive editor, offered him a five-year, $1.5 million deal.

     Damn right we were serious.

     I had known Randy during my time at the Morning News. He had been promoted to columnist from the Rangers beat when the Times Herald shocked the Dallas media world by hiring Skip Bayless, the DMN’s “star” columnist, at the height of the newspaper war. While Bayless was a flake and a jerk, Galloway was a Texan and a newspaper man with no ego. Despite his huge contract, he didn’t “big time” the Star-Telegram staff. He always treated me as an equal and tipped well when I delivered his dry cleaning. (Just kidding.)

     Once Celeste came on board as editor we had the perfect person to guide and direct us. She had the experience and understanding of how a sports department needed to function. She loved great writing and she supported the folks who labored on the desk. Trust me, that’s a rare combo.

     Here’s what Galloway said about Celeste: “The bottom line is she was not just a damn good newspaperwoman, but just a damn good person. There were many times in my column writing that I made some people mad, some people in high positions, ownership positions — I can think of Rangers owners in particular — and Celeste would have to meet with those angry Rangers people.

     “I never asked what went on in the meeting, but Celeste would call, she would say they explained their side, we explained our side, and by the way, I loved the column. That was Celeste.”

     Celeste also loved college sports. It soon became evident to me that starting with college football media days in July, I was going to be going balls to the wall covering the sport. Once the season started, we would meet in her office each Monday to talk about upcoming coverage. Celeste was great with ideas, but she also listened and collaborated. I had learned how to look ahead and plan so that whatever road trips I made produced the most bang for the buck.

     Ellen and Celeste had worked together before and they made a good team. We were probably the only newspaper in the country with two females overseeing a sports department. While there might have been some resentment from a few males on the staff, Ellen and Celeste knew what they were doing, and they were empowered by management to “go for the gold.” They were respected and they earned that respect.

     From 1999 to 2008, we did something I never thought would be possible. We were the equal if not superior to the Dallas Morning News. The work produced by our sports staff – writers, page designers, editors – was prolific and stunning.

     Ellen and Celeste decided that in the annual Associated Press Sports Editors contests for best writing and best sections, we would “play up” and compete in the largest circulation category even though we were eligible to stay in the category that was a step lower. From 2001 through 2007, the Star-Telegram earned Top 10 status six times for its daily sports section, five times for special sections and twice, in 2002 and 2005, it won Triple Crown recognition for daily, special sections and Sunday section.

     Celeste was supportive of my ideas no matter how crazy. Crazy like attending and covering two football games featuring four top-10 teams in cities 475 miles apart.

     (Note: First Saturday in November 2000, No. 2 Virginia Tech at No. 3 Miami, noon EST; No. 10 Clemson at No. 3 Florida State in Tallahassee at 7:30 p.m. EST.)

     For Monday’s paper, I wrote a “tick tock” story that recounted the events and observations of covering two games in one day. Those were the type of unique stories that Celeste craved and helped make us a great sports section.

     Those self-made challenges/assignments that I  concocted during my newspaper career were probably what it’s like for the adrenaline junkies who skydive, scuba, climb mountains or street race. I enjoyed the planning and the challenge of executing the plan. It was exciting but typically left me telling myself: “That was fun, but let’s not do that again."

     During each football season, the quantity and quality of what the department produced was arugably the best in the country. Ellen and Celeste understood how important football was and the weekends in September, October and November revolved around the sport.

     In addition to producing a daily sports section that was often 16 to 20 pages, four days a week the Star-Telegram produced bonus sections.

     Friday was an 8-page weekend kickoff section previewing high school, college and NFL games. Typically, that would include a feature story from me on that weekend’s big college game or a hot-topic trend piece.

     Saturday was an 8-page section devoted to Friday night high school football coverage. And in Saturday’s main sports section, I had a full-page on college football – a column on the big game that day or a trending topic, a 400-word spotlight feature on a player, plus quotes and notes. My guesstimate is that I wrote between 3,000 to 3,500 words for that page each Saturday during the season.

     Sunday was an 8-page section covering Saturday’s college football action. That typically featured game reports on TCU, top Big 12 games, SMU, North Texas and my story from the biggest national game.

     Monday was an 8-page section with stories on the Cowboys game and wrapping up the NFL.

     Considering the incredible shrinking newspapers that exist in 2020, it’s hard to believe that just two decades ago the Star-Telegram sports department basically produced 11 sections a week. The combined page counts of those four days of double sections would almost be equal to the weekday total page count printed now.

     I often wonder if subscribers who enjoyed reading about sports wonder what happened to all the sports coverage.

     Knight-Ridder was a company and companies have stockholders. In the mid-2000s, the rise of digital publishing started to overtake print. While major newspapers around the country remained highly profitable, their profit margins started to shrink. That meant newspaper companies had to start cutting corners. Eventually, K-R couldn’t tighten its belt anymore.

     In 2006, a small fish swallowed a whale. McClatchy bought Knight-Ridder, taking on debt and selling off several newspapers. The Star-Telegram was among the papers it kept. However, it soon became obvious that McClatchy not only cared more about the bottom line than about bylines and deadlines but it also bit off more than it could chew.

     The writing was on the wall. Wes Turner left as publisher. Ellen and Celeste continued trying to fight the good fight, but we had less space for stories and a tighter travel budget. The Bowl Championship Series title game for the 2007 season was in New Orleans, a cheap and easy trip. When I was told that only Gil Lebreton, one of our columnists, would be going to the game and that I would miss my first national championship game since the 1994 season, I started to strap on my parachute."

---

     In our exchange of e-mails the past few days, I told Wendell that I planned to write this piece, use his chapter on the S-T glory days, and that I considered him the best college sports writer in the country. Here is a bit of his reply:

     "Dude, your compliments are humbling. Particularly during that time from 2000 through 2008 when the section was kicking ass. I had the opportunity to work my ass off alongside other folks who were just as talented and hard-working. 

     "You know the old saying that it's hard to fly like an eagle when you work with a bunch of turkeys. ... We were all eagles. It was a rare and memorable time."

---

https://wendellbarnhousebook.pressbooks.com/ 

  

Stewart Blue, track and field: a love story

         No one we know loves the sport of track and field more than Stewart Blue. He might have his equals, but no one loves it more.

       And it's been that way for almost 60 years.

       He was a standout high school track guy and even better in college ... and he has remained involved with the sport ever since, for decades now as a meet official, a timer, overseeing an event, as an umpire or as a referee. 

       So he knows the rules, he has to OK the disqualifications and he has to care ... and he does. 

       The tall man loves him some track and field, and appreciates its athletes.

       If there is a meet at Texas A&M, he will be there. If there is a meet at LSU, count on Stu. The Louisiana high school state meets? He's missed only two since 1972, only because they conflicted with college conference championship meets to which he was committed.     

Stewart, with daughter
Jamie and wife Karen.

     (In one of those, his daughter was running as a quartermiler for Louisiana-Lafayette, the school that when Stewart was competing -- also as a quartermiler -- was known as the University of Southwestern Louisiana.)

      He loves his wife and his daughter, son-in-law and two grandkids, and he has a life. But track and field is, a part of his being.

      A number of recent bouts with prostate and brain cancer have been hurdles to clear. But he's been hurdling since those early 1960s days at Byrd High School in Shreveport.

     As a Byrd senior in 1965, he was part of the last state championship team for Coach Woodrow Turner, the last of nine top-class titles in a 12-year span. Blue finished second in both the high and low hurdles at the state meet.

     He was a popular figure with competitors, open and friendly and garrulous, easy to spot (he's 6-foot-4) ... and talented.  

     He lives now, as he has for years, in Lafayette. But he also spends much time in Cut Off (deep on the bayou in southeast Louisiana; home of LSU head football coach Ed Orgeron). That's where daughter Jamie Blue Guidry lives with her family.

      She is marketing director for the company that owned the plane that crashed in Lafayette last December on the day of the LSU-Oklahoma national semifinals football game, and Stu and his wife Karen have been in Cutoff to help with the two grandchildren.

      And this year -- as with everyone else -- Stewart's track-field schedule was rudely interrupted. It ended with the SEC Indoor Championships before the pandemic hit.

     But he’s looking ahead to 2021. 

     On the schedule — if conditions permit — are the SEC and NCAA indoor meets at Arkansas, the completion of his 45th year of meets at LSU, the Olympic Trials next summer as an umpire, and the referee job at the SEC Outdoor Championships at College Station in May.

      For this article, however, we reflect and take a long look back.

---

     Stewart credits Woodrow Turner and Scotty Robertson, two of his Byrd coaches — legends both — for giving him his greatest career boosts and motivation.

     First, though, came a Robertson evaluation. After a week of basketball "games" and drills in a P.E. class as a sophomore in 1962, Stewart heard that basketball wasn't a fit.

     Scotty's bad news: “He said that I couldn't walk and chew gum at the same time," Stu remembers. "The good news (for him) was that I would not a basketball player; that my name would be ’floor’ if I tried because I couldn’t jump off the floor.”

     But Woodrow Turner, listening to that conversation, called Stu over to his desk.

     “He started to flatter me, which was his norm,” he recalled. “Since I had thrown the discus at Youree Drive [Junior High] and won consistently he said to go out and work with Jack Pyburn -- his 170-foot [state-record] discus ace -- in his sixth-period track class.”

       So he became a discus thrower at Byrd and also a hurdler, although his junior high coach didn't think that would happen. But Turner had a vision.

      “As I look back, he was a unique individual," Stu says. "He

Stewart Blue, Byrd High hurdler

had a knack for looking at a kid and dreaming of what [track or field] event that kid could do...and then he would sell it to him.”

      And Turner “flattered me by saying that I looked like a fine future hurdler....who could also throw the discus....and if I walked the way he said walk, talk the way he said talk, stay away from booze, cigarettes and girls, and remove the word ‘can't’ from my vocabulary, that he'd get me a scholarship in two years. At 6-4, 148 pounds, and nerdy, I bought into it.

     “Then the unthinkable happened. I would win both hurdles races and the discus, a triple that was unheard of in track and field. As promised, two years later the [college] coaches started coming.”

     That included majors (such as LSU, Tennessee, Baylor, Houston, Tulane), most of the state schools [then-Division II]  and even the U.S. Military Academy was a possibility.

       He made a last-minute decision to attend USL, not the usual call for a North Louisiana athlete or Byrd graduates, not what his family or friends recommended or wanted.

       But he liked Lafayette from competing in the Southwestern Relays and he eventually found the area to his liking ... for good.

       At USL, after a rough start and thoughts of transferring, he surprisingly began running the 440-yard dash and sprint relays, events he had not run at Byrd.

      “Scared to death,” he recalled. “I began working under a grad assistant whose philosophy was that everyone is a quarter miler until they prove they can run something else.”

       Another surprise: He adjusted quickly, setting a USL school record on his first try … at home in the Shreveport Relays college division on the Byrd track and beating ex-Byrd teammates Greg Falk and Jimmy Hughes, both All-Staters at Byrd who finished first and fourth in the state meet and were now at Northeast Louisiana.

     It was especially a surprise for Coach Turner and Hughes, who “laughed at me” when he said he would run the 440 (because the hurdles field was filled). They weren’t laughing after the race.

     That spring, he won the Gulf States Conference 440-yard title, again beating Hughes and Falk. (He won the event again as a senior in 1969.)

     He settled in at USL after a rough start and thoughts of transferring, picked up a nickname “Bluebird,” and became the school's best quartermiler to that point.

      And he built a good relationship with Bob Cole, the USL coach who put together a squad that won conference titles in Blue’s first three years there.

    “After I graduated I traveled with Cole to all of the meets and helped him at home [meets],” Stu said of his start in officiating. “We fished constantly at his Toledo Bend camp after he retired in 1984 and when he was in town, I wined and dined him … still.

      “He turned out to be my best man when I married and I took care of him while he fought cancer and until he died in 2007. I was honored when his children asked me to deliver his eulogy. Coaches called him my ‘daddy.’

       “He had the personality of a brick wall. But he knew how to communicate and motivate and he knew how to love people, if not show it. John McDonnell (who came from Ireland to run distance races at USL in the mid-1960s), as the most prolific track coach in the NCAA of any sport, gave Cole credit for all of his successes and for teaching him how to motivate athletes.”

       After graduation, Stu's goal was to be with the FBI, but it did not develop. What did after a few weeks of waiting was a position with a drug company in New Orleans. He went into sales and left in 1993 as Pfizer’s Houston-New Orleans district manager, starting his own consulting company with two former teammates.

       Meanwhile, his track and field world expanded. He began helping USL conduct its home meets, expanded his area high school connections and when Pat Henry became the LSU coach in 1988, he found a champion.

     Henry's LSU teams won 27 national championships until Texas A&M hired him away after the 2004 season, and he's added nine with the Aggies. And Stewart Blue is a believer.

       “He has built the overall finest facilities in the world in College Station,” Stewart opines, “$100 million worth. Oregon will open its world’s finest outdoor facility next spring and I am anxious to be there working the [Olympic] Trials.”

     He works meets at ULL, LSU and Arkansas, but with any conflict, his first allegiance is to A&M, no matter that it’s a five-hour trip.

       “They do everything right,” he says, “and gave Pat a venue that has made track and field better.”

      Stewart can (and does) name-drop many of the greats — athletes and coaches — he’s met, a who’s who of American track and field. Good story about one of them: Carl Lewis.

     Lewis was helping coach at his alma mater, University of Houston, and as a meet referee, Stu had to ask him to leave the competition area during the long jump. Gist of story: He had to tell the gold-medal, prima donna (“Do you know who I am?”) to return to the coaching area in the stands.

     Lewis finally did. As he walked away, Stu thought to himself, “Did I just say that to Carl Lewis?”

---

     His Shreveport roots -- and plaudits -- return to two names.

Jerry Byrd Jr., Byrd assistant
principal, and Stewart Blue
show off the 2017 Class 5A
girls state championship
trophy, the first in track and 
field for Byrd since Blue's 
senior year (1965).

     One that those of us in sportswriting can appreciate: “Jerry Byrd was a great man whose [Shreveport Journal] articles were a factor in me getting the attention I did. I am eternally grateful to him and his memory will always be with me.”

     The second was Scotty Robertson. The bearer of bad news one day in the fall of 1962 gave him a moment to remember in 1974.

    On one of Stewart’s working trips to Ruston, in Robertson's last year as basketball coach at Louisiana Tech, they had lunch and when he had to leave to get back home to help officiate a track meet, Scotty offered advice.

     "He told me to get back to Lafayette and leave the sport better than I found (as an official)," Stu recalled.  "He reminded me that I had competed at meets that didn't have many officials and that everything in my life -- jobs, people, relationships -- would be connected to and made possible by the free education I received because of track ... and I should give back to what has turned out to be a great life, as he predicted.

    "And he was right.

    “It's 50 years later, and I'm still trying,” he added. “I've been all over the country with the sport and have developed some great friendships with talented people. And it's been a labor of love for those friends and the sport.”

      But the finish line is ahead. "The years to do that stuff are getting shorter," he says. "I'll go as long as my wife lets me, which might be 1-2-3 more years at most.

    “I've been extremely blessed and remember my roots, and those who "brung" me.”

     So he thanks the sport, and he's done his best to make it  better.