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.
 

Legion ball, part 2: On the road to the majors

Seth Morehead, his last year
in the majors -- 1961

      Seth Morehead might have laughed at this description, but it's my opinion: He was an icon of baseball in Shreveport, La.
      In 1952, he was the star pitcher -- a hard-throwing left-hander -- for the Seven-Up Bottlers, the only Shreveport team to win the Louisiana state championship in American Legion junior baseball.
      Five years later, he became the first Shreveport Legion baseball player to reach the major leagues.
      He wasn't a star in his five-year MLB career; it wasn't easy to star in those years (1957-60) for the Phillies and Cubs and he got in only 12 games for the '61 Braves. But he was an example -- you could be a major leaguer -- for the kids that followed him in Shreveport's Legion program.
      One of those kids, just four years behind Seth, was another Byrd High School pitcher, Dick Hughes. He, too, was the star of a state championship team -- the 1956 Byrd Yellow Jackets.
      Like Morehead, Hughes also pitched in the majors. It took him longer to get there (eight years) and he stayed only three years (1966-68) with the St. Louis Cardinals before a torn rotator cuff injury ended his career. But he was a star, at least in 1967.
      On a Cardinals team that won the World Series, he was the top winning pitcher -- 16 regular-season wins ... more than Steve Carlton and Nelson Briles (14 each) and even Bob Gibson (injured much of that season, 13-7 record, but Series wins in Games 1, 4 and 7).
      Morehead and Hughes -- from the Shreveport (and Bossier City) Legion program to the majors. But, as I noted in the previous blog, the last ones to make that jump for 23 years.

World Series champion, 1967

     (That's an unofficial count. If you're reading this, and you know better, let me know.)
      If I have this correct, the only player in that time to play Legion ball for a Fourth District (Northwest Louisiana) team and make the majors was Lee Smith -- who came out of tiny Castor, La., about 35 miles from Shreveport, and pitched only a couple of games for the Minden team in 1975 before he was drafted into pro baseball by the Chicago Cubs.
       You might've heard of him. When he finished his 18-year major-league career -- he got to the Cubs in 1980 -- he was the all-time saves leader (478). And he's still No. 3, and still waiting for his Hall of Fame call.
        Another pitcher from North Louisiana -- and Legion baseball -- who reached the majors played in the Fifth District (Monroe area). George Stone was the stylish left-hander from Ruston High and the T.L. James Contractors, the star of two Legion teams that came close to state championships. He went on to Louisiana Tech and then to the Atlanta Braves and New York Mets (and the 1973 World Series).
        An infielder from Monroe, Wayne Causey, came out of Neville High and Legion ball as a "bonus baby" to make the majors at age 18 and had an 11-year career with five teams.
         But some explanation is needed here. There were several players from North Louisiana who made the big leagues, but did not play Legion ball.
        One was Cecil Upshaw, George Stone's cousin, who grew up in Spearsville, moved to Bossier City and starred in basketball and baseball for Bossier High and Centenary College. However, Bossier did not have a Legion team at the time; most of Cecil's development as a pitcher came at Centenary and on area semipro teams.
        Then there was this: segregation. Black players could not play Legion ball in the 1960s. So that wasn't a step to the majors for outfielder John Jeter (Coushatta and Shreveport ties, Grambling College), third baseman/pinch runner deluxe Matt Alexander (Bethune High), the National League batting champion and blazing "Roadrunner," outfielder Ralph Garr (Ruston, Lincoln High, Grambling), and some North Louisiana pitchers you might know -- Vida Blue (DeSoto High, Mansfield), James Rodney Richard (Vienna, near Ruston, Lincoln High) and Don Wilson (Monroe) -- and one who made one September appearance for the 1969 World Series champion Mets, Jesse Hudson, who was Blue's teammate at DeSoto.
         When schools and Legion ball integrated in 1970, first baseman Wayne Cage went from Ruston High and the T.L. James Contractors to an MLB career.
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         Another to reach the top level of professional sports was the coach of the 1952 Seven-Up Bottlers: the then-young Scotty Robertson. If you are familiar with North Louisiana sports, you most associate him with basketball.
         For almost 25 years, after he left as basketball coach at Louisiana Tech, Scotty coached (or scouted) in the NBA. But he was a baseball man, too. 
        Scotty played high school and college baseball, played a year of pro ball, and began coaching Legion ball -- the Byrd-based Bottlers -- when he was the Vivian (La.) High School basketball coach, even before he returned to his alma mater (Byrd) as the basketball coach/football assistant in 1955.
         At a time when Shreveport had only two Legion teams -- Seven-Up and the Fair Park-based Waltrip Tire/Optimist Club (because I don't have the records/research I had access to decades ago, I'm not sure of the sponsorships) -- Scotty had many competitive teams.
         And if you knew him, and knew how competitive and driven/detail-oriented he was, you knew those teams were well-coached. But the 1952 team succeeded like no other.
         I don't remember much about the team, but it won the best-of-three state championship series, and I think it also won the regional tournament to reach the Legion World Series. There, it lost its first two games in the double-elimination tournament, one as I recall to a Sumter, S.C., team whose shortstop was Bobby Richardson (in a few years, a star second baseman for great New York Yankees teams).
         Even Seth Morehead couldn't get the Bottlers through in the nationals.
         Scotty coached Seven-Up through the 1950s, but then left baseball coaching. And as he left, Shreveport's Legion program began to change.
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          In the 1950s, the Byrd players were on one team, the Fair Park players were on a team, and the private-school St. John's High players good enough for Legion went with the team in the district where they lived.
         Shreveport teams did well in high school ball; the Byrd '56 and Fair Park 1957 teams won Class AAA state titles; the St. John's 1957 team was the state runner-up in a hard-fought Class AA best-of-three series. The 1960 Fair Park team was maybe the best team of the decade; it got a raw deal in the playoffs (long story).
         But in Legion ball, except for 1952, the Shreveport Legion teams could not top the traditionally strong New Orleans Catholic-based Legion teams, and occasionally a strong team from Baton Rouge.
         Then, and for the next few decades, there was a distinct difference: In New Orleans, the high school baseball coaches -- in most cases -- were also the Legion coaches; their teams were much the same. Maybe that was true in the Baton Rouge area, too. Not in Shreveport.
         That began to make even more of a difference when, beginning in 1961, I believe, the Shreveport program expanded from two teams to eight. The Legion teams were based not only the high schools, but on the junior high districts.
         That gave many more kids a chance to play, but it also watered down the teams. Byrd players made up three teams (Broadmoor, Youree Drive, Hamilton Terrace); Fair Park had three teams (Lakeshore, Midway, Linwood-Caddo Heights area); and Woodlawn, opened in the fall of 1960, had two (Oak Terrace, Linwood-Cedar Grove area).
         Fair Park won Class AAA state high school titles in 1963, 1965 and 1970, and the '64 team made the semifinals. If those teams had stayed together to make up one Legion team -- especially the 1963 team -- they might've dominated the state; there was that much talent.
        Jesuit won Class AA in 1964; four of its best players played for one of the Woodlawn teams (Industrial Sheet Metal).   
         As it was -- and as I recall -- the 1962 Royal Crown Cola team (Fair Park/Midway) was the state runner-up; the 1963 Optimist Club team (Fair Park/Lakeshore), the 1964 Industrial team; and the 1965 Cobbs Barbecue team (Byrd/Youree Drive) all made strong challenges for state titles.
         But no Shreveport-Bossier teams got close again until the 1977 Bossier team lost in the state-finals series, and another mid-1980s Bossier team also was the state runner-up.
         As new high schools began opening, Legion franchises in Shreveport-Bossier began shifting districts and changing sponsors in the late 1960s/early 1970s when I covered the program. Integration meant a couple of teams for black players, and Jesuit High finally got its own team (sponsored by Ricou-Brewster).
         But I have spent much of these two blog pieces telling you how good the baseball was for all those kids, and I'll stick to that. I was told that by the mid-1980s, Legion ball had become bigger than high school baseball ... at least for a time.
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         There were talented Legion players from Shreveport who went into pro ball after Morehead and Hughes, and some got close to the majors. Among those getting to Triple-A: third baseman Bill Hancock (Byrd '60/Seven-Up/Texas A&M); infielder Buddy Nelson (Fair Park '64/Optimist); first baseman Wayne Burney (Fair Park '66/RC Cola/Northeast Louisiana University); and two Northwestern State pitchers Don Shields (Woodlawn '66/Industrial) and Jimmy Stewart (Doyline '67/Minden Legion team).
         Another Triple-A player who wrecked a knee on the night he got a major-league call-up was Ike Futch, the "man who never struck out" out of Spearsville, La., who played for a Legion team in nearby Farmerville.
         One of Shreveport's great 1950s high school athletes (Fair Park) and later a longtime coach there, Jimmy Orton, was an infielder for five years in the loaded New York Yankees farm system.
         The gap of MLB players who came from the Shreveport Legion program ran from 1966 (Dick Hughes) to 1989. That's when outfielder Albert "Joey" Belle (Huntington High/LSU) began his tempestuous but highly successful career in the majors; he is, in my estimation, the best player to come out of Shreveport-Bossier. We're not talking attitude.
         For second-best, an old-time choice would be Willard Brown, the Negro League outfielder/slugger who played briefly in the majors (St. Louis Browns) in 1947. He's in the Baseball Hall of Fame. The modern-day choice is second baseman Todd Walker (Airline High '91/LSU), now the baseball coach at Calvary Baptist. He got to the majors in 1996 and, like Belle, was a 12-year player.
        In the last 26 years, by my count, nine Shreveport-Bossier high school players have gone on to the major leagues.
        Other than Belle and Walker, here's the list (with high school/college and team-year  they reached the majors:
       -- outfielder Shawn Jeter (Woodlawn '85, White Sox '92)
       -- third baseman Josh Booty (Evangel '94, Marlins '96)
       -- pitcher B.J. Ryan (Airline '94, Reds '99)
       -- pitcher Scott Baker (Captain Shreve '00/Oklahoma State, '03, Twins '05)
       -- first baseman Michael Aubrey (Southwood '00/Tulane '03, Indians '08)
       -- pitcher Sean West (Captain Shreve '05, Marlins '09)
       -- pitcher Josh Stinson (Northwood '06, Mets '11).
         I know that Belle, Walker and Jeter came through the Legion program. Not sure about the others.
         Seth Morehead, an affable man who returned to Shreveport and had a 36-year career in banking, died in 2006 at age 71. He always enjoyed coming to the ballpark and he would have been proud of these young men who followed his path.
        Like me, he would have said that Legion baseball was a part of his life he treasured.
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        (Thanks to John James Marshall -- former Legion player, coach, sportswriter -- for providing information for this blog.)

Legion baseball was our foundation

     It is the last weekend in May and my thoughts turn back to a few decades ago when this was the start of the American Legion baseball season.
     For 12 years (1963-75), that was a big deal to me. It was worth waiting for, that first Saturday of games -- four games at old SPAR Stadium in Shreveport.
     Man, those were fun years.
     This topic might not interest many of my blog readers. You can stop here. But looking at my mailing list and Facebook friends list, I know there are about 100 once-young men who might like this brief history of junior baseball in Shreveport-Bossier and North Louisiana.
     I was involved as a scorekeeper, public-address announcer, newspaper writer, foul-ball chaser. For more than half of those 13 seasons, I was in charge of Legion ball coverage -- in the Fourth District league -- for The Shreveport Times. 
     So I saw, easy estimate, more than a thousand kids play baseball in the summer. Saw some darned good players and great games. Saw some mediocre players and badly played games.
     For some players, it was part of the road to college scholarships and/or pro contracts. For most, it was just a chance to keep playing a game they'd played for years.
     For me, in the summer of 1963, it was the start of a career in newspapering. And I actually got paid to do it. (It also was the start, I was reminded this week, for several others who wrote sports in Shreveport.)
     Loved it all. In the neighborhood, we played wiffle ball in the heat of the day. At night, for me, it was off to cover doubleheaders at SPAR Stadium or Centenary Park, Cherokee Park,  Blanchard, or one game at an out-of-town location (Mooringsport, Minden, Springhill, Homer, Ruston).
     Except on Saturdays. Then it was that four games-in-a-day fiesta at SPAR Stadium ... at least in the mid-'60s years when there was no pro baseball in town. Long days, great days.
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      Here are two facts that might surprise those who followed Legion baseball in Shreveport-Bossier:
      (1) The only team from our twin cities to win a Legion state championship was in 1952 -- the Seven-Up Bottlers (the Byrd High team);
      (2) to the best of my knowledge, no Shreveport-Bossier Legion player from 1957 through the mid-1970s -- in other words, no one in the time I was involved -- played in major- league baseball. There were a couple of area kids who made it (I'll get to that).
       Amazing, because we had a very competitive eight-team league in Shreveport, and some talented players and teams.
      Shreveport-Bossier has had a dozen kids make the majors in the past three decades, So maybe the game -- and the opportunities -- improved, and the interest in baseball -- which some people think has declined over the years -- is still there.
      As I was thinking of writing this piece, I was wondering: Do they still play Legion baseball? Because I haven't seen anything on it in years. Had to Google it.
       The answer is yes -- nationally. They still play for state championships, and the champions go to regional tournaments, and those eight winners go to the Legion World Series, which has been played annually since 1928 and after being moved around the country from year to year has been based in Shelby, N.C., for several years.
       The answer is also yes for South Louisiana, the Baton Rouge and New Orleans areas.  In fact, a New Orleans team won the national championship in 2012 (another won in 2006).
       However, a sportswriter friend from there told me that the league is not nearly as competitive as it was decades ago. Many coaches -- who also coach the high school teams -- now choose not to play seniors (who just graduated from high school), preferring to play the kids who will return to high school this fall.  
       But, no, they don't play Legion ball in North Louisiana anymore. Interest waned in the early 2000s, and the program folded 6-7 years ago.
       That's not necessarily a negative. There are plenty of baseball chances for kids these days -- the Dixie Seniors program (which always existed in Bossier City), select teams, travel teams. If parents are willing to pay, and kids are willing to invest their time, they can play a lot.
       For at least half a decade, Shreveport's program was backed by the American Legion post -- Lowe-McFarland Post No. 14 -- which underwrote the program (with the various team sponsors). I only knew a few of the veterans at that Legion post near Cross Lake, but I thank all the men there for their service, period, and their service to baseball (and many other ventures).
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     I already loved baseball when I saw my first Legion game in late summer 1962 -- Royal Crown Cola, the Shreveport city champion and one of the Fair Park High-based teams, vs. the Tulane Shirts, the Jesuit of New Orleans-based team that two years earlier (with a lineup that included Rusty Staub and future LSU quarterback Pat Screen) had won the Legion national championship.
      I went with Dad to SPAR Stadium to watch the first game of a best-of-three series for the state championship. R.C. Cola won that night -- fireballing Tommy Chiles pitched and big Frank Neel hit a home run, which was incredible to me, that a high school kid could hit one over the right-field fence (hey, I was 15, a little naive). But Tulane won the two games in New Orleans and advanced to the regional tournament.
      The next summer, after my sophomore year in high school, I was the scorekeeper for Industrial Sheet Metal -- one of the two Woodlawn High-based teams (the Linwood Junior High district), but not the team based on my junior high (Oak Terrace).
      Explanation: The Industrial coach was a Legion legend of sorts, a somewhat crochety, wrinkled, older man -- Milo Whitecotton, who came to every Woodlawn home game and some practices to scout his potential players. He also talked the scorekeeper into joining his team. 
      (He also "recruited" the sophomore Woodlawn catcher, who like me lived in the Oak Terrace-based district, to play for his team that summer. Not sure how that worked, but I saw a box score on a clipping I saved and the Industrial lineup had "Prather CF." Trey Prather was in the outfield because the Woodlawn football coaches -- thinking of their starting quarterback that fall -- preferred that he not catch that summer.)
      Milo was known among Legion followers to some as "the sage of Cedar Grove." The kids also called him -- not to his face -- "Limo Quiterotten." He loved his ball; he enjoyed working with the kids, and he coached some wonderful teams.
      Guarantee you that if I asked my friends from that time and that area what they remember about Legion baseball, the first thing they will say is "Milo Whitecotton."
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     Over the years, I learned to appreciate the other dedicated Legion coaches in the city; they all worked at regular jobs, but summer baseball was their passion.
     Woodrow McCullar became "the dean" of Shreveport Legion coaches and the most successful of my era (five city championships). He had the Broadmoor/Byrd-based B&N Barbers for a few years, then switched to the Youree Drive/Byrd (later Captain Shreve)-based Cobbs Barbecue team and then used his own company's money, Glenwood Drug Store, as a sponsor.
     Other Legion coaches with a good number of years in the program: Bill Zeigler (Optimist Club, the Lakeshore/Fair Park team), my Shreveport newspaper artist buddy Ron Rice (Cobbs, then B&N in a swap with Mr. McCullar); Gene Stevens (Kay's Cookies, the Linwood/Fair Park-based team); Don Farrar (R.C. Cola); Harvey Johnson (the Oak Terrace/Woodlawn team); Pat Looney (the Hamilton Terrace/Byrd team); Butch Williams in Minden; Matt Martin in Homer.
      Some of them -- Coach Zeigler, Stevens, Farrar -- won city titles. Ron Rice was the organizer of one city playoff championship team.
       It was really neat for me to see some of the players I had covered later coach teams, guys such as Ronnie Warren, Sonny Moss, Don Birkelbach and Perry Peyton.
      But the most successful Legion coach in North Louisiana -- and the most successful team -- was Billy Henderson and the T.L. James Contractors of Ruston. The James Co. sponsored that Fifth District team (Monroe area) for 19 years and was a state-championship contenders often, finally winning in 1972 -- only the second North Louisiana to do so. Ruston was the spoiler for several Shreveport contenders.
     The umpires became familiar to all of us, too: Bob Molcany, Lloyd Boyce ("Sarge"), Jack Ferrell (the Colonel), Phil Risher, Bob Brittner, Alex Huhn and, starting in the 1970s, my good friends John W. Marshall III and Clyde Oliver "T-Willie" Moore (the "snake doctor" pitcher for Cobbs when we were in high school). Also, Mike Bonner and Jerry Carlisle -- two North Caddo High athletes of the '60s.
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      But perhaps the most legendary Legion figure of the 1950s and '60s was the man in charge. Most everyone who ever played or coached a kids' sport in Shreveport knew him: Marvin "Hoot" Gibson. He was the commissioner of baseball in the Fourth District.
      Hoot was a small man, white-haired by the time we knew him, wore thick glasses because he had terrible eyesight, and had a nasally, high-pitched voice that was widely imitated.
      He had been a team manager at Centenary College in the 1930s when Centenary was a football power, and had been the head of the Shreveport Parks and Recreation (SPAR) department for a couple of decades.
      He had officiated some sports, which left many people wondering because he clearly couldn't see clearly, and so he was always protective of the referees, umpires and officials who worked games. Don't know if he was an American Legion member, but he represented Lowe-McFarland in the sport and he was proud -- and rightly so -- of the Legion baseball program.
       His "Recreation Ramblings" column was a Sunday sports staple in The Times, and I can tell you that Hoot was good to a young sportswriter, who after some years even dared to offer mild criticism. Don't think he was too fond of me suggesting that the Legion program be integrated once the area high school integrated in 1970.
       But we all should have gratitude for the job Hoot did all those years.
      And once he retired, Russell Neely (who was a Legion member) and then J.R. Heflin did fine jobs as the Fourth District baseball commissioners.
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       I mentioned Phil Risher in the umpires listing above. He had another distinction: He was an infielder on the 1952 Seven-Up Bottlers, the state Legion champions. And in Part 2 of my mini-history, I will begin with two legendary names linked to that team: Seth Morehead and Scotty Robertson.