Ross and Edwin: forever friends

  ...

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    From their time in third grade together to lives in their early 70s, Ross Oglesby and Edwin Tubbs were best friends.

       Not inseparable -- because they had their own lives and families -- but darned near.

       They were my friends, too, because Sunset Acres (in southwest Shreveport) was that kind of neighborhood in the late 1950s and through the 1960s.  

     And -- heck, yes, I'm partial to them -- they were among the best people and the best athletes to come out of Sunset Acres. Especially together.

       It so happened that their third-grade year (fall 1957) began a couple of months after the Van Thyn family moved into the neighborhood.

       Over the next few years, those of us participating in schoolground touch football games and makeshift track meets on our streets learned this: Ross and Edwin were the fastest runners in our area.

       If you competed against them, you had no chance. Only Edwin could catch Ross; only Ross could catch Edwin. 

     When they were teammates -- as they soon would be at Oak Terrace Junior High and Woodlawn High School -- they were stars ... and winners.

        And they were great kids -- even-tempered, reliable, funny, not argumentative like some (guess who?), no trouble for teachers or parents.

       They would be that way, always. And always loyal to each other. 

       My opinion: Ross Oglesby was the best athlete ever to come out of Sunset Acres, high school All-State in two sports (football, track), a college football player. He was "Ross The Hoss."

       Edwin Tubbs was a terrific high school football player, a medal winner in Vietnam, one of the thousands of American unsung heroes in that woebegone war. 

       They would become husbands and fathers and grandfathers, working hard to support their families. It didn't always work out for them, and there were health and mental issues. They weren't especially book-smart, but they were smart, gentle and kind.

       It was a beautiful friendship.

       And I was proud to call them my friends forever, although the years and time separated us. 

      Because I was two years older, they were sort of like little brothers for me, and I was so proud that they were two of the biggest stars on the teams representing our schools. They were "my guys."

      Here is how close together we lived: First, both Ross and Edwin lived almost directly across from the Sunset Acres Elementary School grounds; all they had to do was walk across the street.

      On the blocks in the square around the
school:  Ross' family lived on West Canal (east side of the school); Edwin's family lived on Sunnybrook (north side); our close friends Johnny and Terry Tucker lived on Burke (west side, their backyard fence bordered the school); we lived on Amherst (south side). Ross' house was a half-block away from us. Visited there often.

       Lots of good times with those boys. Lots of laughs, lots of stories (a couple mildly x-rated). Lots of memories.

       We don't exactly have a happy ending here, except to say Ross and Edwin lived long, happy, productive lives. But ...

       Ross Oglesby, 74, died last Thursday after dealing with cancer -- and other ailments -- for several years. 

       Edwin doesn't know his best pal is gone. 

       For years, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after Vietnam made his life, and his family's life, hell at times. More recently, dementia set in. 

        He is now in a veterans' home in Bossier City, well-cared for, still -- as his wife Kathie and their three daughters will say -- the sweet guy they adore. 

       But the PTSD has kicked in stronger than ever, and hospitalization and changes in medicine have been required lately. 

       Edwin's travails were not a subject Ross, in his final year and dealing with illnesses, could discuss. 

       Edwin and Kathie spent 44 years living in Southern Hills, which in the 1960s was Woodlawn territory. They then moved to Haughton -- which is where Ross has lived for years. (Haughton, for those who might not know, is in rural Bossier Parish, and it's the home of Dallas Cowboys QB Dak Prescott).

     Ross, in a marriage and re-marriage, had two sons and a daughter and now four grandsons and six granddaughters. Edwin and Kathie have seven grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

        "They loved each other like brothers," Kathie Pollard Tubbs says of our guys. "Ross became one of our family; he spent a lot of time here with our grandkids. He'd come over 3-4 times a week, and he'd go to the refrigerator and grab some cake or a soft drink."

     And, of course, there was lots of discussion of old times, of Sunset Acres and Woodlawn ... and stories.

       There was this interplay: "Ross was the aggravator," Kathie said, "and Edwin loved to be aggravated. It was a game they played, and they need an audience." 

       It was a battle of teasing appreciated by a closely knit group of Woodlawn football players who were seniors on the 1966 team, a dozen-plus who have stayed in contact through the years. They were all familiar with the Ross-Edwin dynamic.

     Size-wise, they were different. Oglesby, as a high school senior, was a muscular 6-foot-2, 200 pounds. Tubbs was compact, listed on the 1966 All-City team at 5-7 (he actually was 5-9) and 170 pounds. His strides were nothing like Ross', but he too could move. 

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      Many of the '66 football seniors also were together in junior high at Oak Terrace, where as eighth-graders in track-and-field in 1963 they won that school's first city championship of any kind. Tubbs and Oglesby were key runners on the relay teams. They were ninth-grade champs the next year, with Tubbs winning both sprints (100 and 220 yards, plus two relays) and Oglesby on all three relay units.  

      In junior high, Tubbs was the star running back; Oglesby was an end. 

     At Woodlawn, running back was a position deep in talent, so Tubbs -- speedy and aggressive -- became a perfect fit at linebacker in defensive coach Jerry Adams' gambling/blitzing scheme. He was part of a junior-filled unit that struggled early, then became tough enough to balance a QB Terry Bradshaw/WR Tommy Spinks-led offense.

     That team, after mid-season struggles, walloped Byrd 39-0, Woodlawn's first-ever victory over the arch-rivals in six tries. It didn't lose again -- with one close escape at Neville (a 9-7 victory on a final half-minute field goal) -- until the Class 3A state-championship game. Sulphur won 12-9 in a hard rain at State Fair Stadium.

     So the defense was especially seasoned for the 1966 season, and the linemen -- offense and defense -- were the biggest physically Woodlawn had had in its seven years. The result was the best Knights' team ever -- a 10-0 regular season and a defense which had six shutouts and gave up only four TDs.

    Plus, a punishing running game on offense, led by Oglesby, who -- after tries at end and tackle, found the position he loved.

     Powerfully, he could run through tacklers or, with his long strides and speed, beat them to the outside. Three other backs also could play. 

     Twice both Oglesby and Tubbs were the "players of the week" selected by The Shreveport Times.

     Ross, with 1,308 yards rushing (5.2 per carry) -- 528 more than anyone else in Shreveport-Bossier -- became Woodlawn's first first-team All-State running back (Tommy Linder had been a second-team choice in 1962). 

     Edwin, shooting gaps and chasing down opposing QBs and RBs, was the Shreveport-Bossier "Defensive Player of the Year," chosen by the Shreveport Touchdown Club. He was second-team All-State -- the highest honor ever then for a Woodlawn defensive player. 

     The only preseason question marks for the '66 team were quarterback and one cornerback.

      The QB spot was filled by a promising, poised sophomore -- Joe Ferguson. The cornerback spot was filled by a transfer from North Caddo, Ronnie Alexander.

    Ferguson was steady, but not the passer he would become. In the next two seasons, he was the best high school football player -- passer -- many of us have ever seen. Turned out he was the real deal; he went on to 19 years in the NFL.

      A dozen of the players on the 1966 team would play college football, some at major schools. Alexander, All-City at cornerback, became a small-college All-American linebacker at Louisiana Tech and then was one of North Louisiana's best-ever defensive coaches (college and high school).

      But the 1966 Knights were the best Woodlawn team not to win the state championship. After a playoff-opening victory, disaster came in a lengthy trip to Bogalusa (345 miles, 6 1/2 hours one way). The trip back was longer.

     Bogalusa would haunt us forever. Ross and Edwin -- all of us -- often talked about it, ruefully.

     The score was 18-14, the Lumberjacks scoring the game-winning TD with about 5 minutes remaining after a long drive against a proud Woodlawn defense that wasn't the same as it had been.

     One major reason: two injured leaders. Tubbs had injured a calf early that week in practice. He played, but he limped at about half-speed, unable to do what he had done all season. And Alexander, a ferocious hitter and cover corner, left the game in the first quarter with an injured leg.

    Another factor: Bogalusa's junior quarterback. Terry Davis cut up the Knights' defense with 258 passing yards and another 59 rushing as he turned corners that Tubbs and Alexander might have filled. Davis also was for real; a couple of years later he started at QB for Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant at Alabama. 

    (Ironic, because Edwin Tubbs for life was an Alabama fan.)

     Oglesby, though, had a productive game with 112 yards rushing on 22 carries. But Woodlawn that night could not quite control the ball -- or game -- as it had all year.

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    Ross, in the spring of their senior year, was one of the state's outstanding hurdlers -- the Class 3A state champion in the 120 highs (14.1) and second in the 180 lows (18.9), close to the best times ever in Louisiana, and All-State in both events. He was bigger than most hurdlers, but speed and athletic ability is what it is.

      He signed to play football at Louisiana Tech, and stayed two years, but played sparingly, not used to a new coaching staff there which was louder, more aggressive than the highly regarded Woodlawn staff that had nurtured him. He transferred to play two good seasons at Southern (Ark.) State in Magnolia.

     He would go into coaching -- a couple of

times -- and worked several other jobs, including truck driving, so he got to see much of the country. 

      He also gained much weight, almost double the 200 from high school, to an unhealthy point that affected his breathing. Urged to lose weight, he did -- but still was around 250. A hernia bothered him for years; when finally he submitted to an operation, cancer was found in his intestines. 

     Two rounds of chemo followed, until he had had enough. He had hospice care the last couple of months. 

       His great friend never knew. 

       Edwin wasn't college material, so he joined the U.S. Army right out of Woodlawn, and was patrolling in Vietnam a few months later. He survived it, but paid a price.

     He came home to marry Kathie on June 2, 1969, and they lived out his Army days at Fort Polk, La. Back in Shreveport, he began his own construction company and, for years, worked projects in town and throughout the Southeast as they raised their family. 

     "He was our hero," says Kathie. "He had all these medals for his military service, but he never showed them off. He was so humble. He wouldn't talk about it." But the PTSD at times made life more difficult.

      Ross helped him deal, too. How close were they? Each was the best man in the other's wedding. 

      "They stuck together all those years," Kathie says. 

       It all began in our beloved Sunset Acres days.