Cannon's friend, but not Captain Shreve's

Bobby Olah, with his Louisiana High
School Sports Hall of Fame plaque
(Livington Parish News photo)
July 2018

     One name in the book on Billy Cannon -- subject of a blog piece a couple of months ago -- caught my attention:
     Bobby Olah.
     We remember that guy, and not fondly. Hint: He was a basketball referee.
     Olah's connection to Cannon was as a longtime friend. But they first were competitors, not in football, but in basketball.
     Olah was from Albany, La., a small place near Hammond about 40 miles directly east from Baton Rouge, and we think he still lives there. Olah was an All-State guard at Albany, a Class B (non-football) school which in 1956 played against Class AAA giant Istrouma (BR), for whom Cannon was a roughhouse forward.
      Albany was a power in its class and came to Baton Rouge to play in the prestigious Wedge Kyes tournament. Cannon was into basketball season after a sensational senior season leading Istrouma to the state football championship.
      Istrouma's basketball players had gone to a game to scout Albany and Olah, and knew Olah was the go-to player, top scorer and ballhandler.
       Cannon decided the way to guard Olah was to be physical with him, at every chance. So as the story in the book on Cannon relates, that is exactly what happened.
      And Billy apparently roughed up Olah. He admits to it, with emphasis, in the book. And Olah's memory: "I distinctly recall looking up at him from my back on the floor. He was standing over me, grinning."
     Albany did win the game, 45-43, and the tournament championship. It later advanced to the Class B state semifinals for the first time in school history.
     Olah was also a standout baseball player and signed to play two sports at McNeese State, but circumstances led to his winding up at then-Southeastern Louisiana College (near his hometown), where he was mostly a reserve in basketball. 
    Officiating basketball for fun was something he liked, and  in 1959 -- while in college -- he signed up to call area high school games. 
     His reputation grew into playoff-level assignments and he eventually moved into college games -- and stayed for 35 years, including being on the Southeastern, Southwest, Southland and Gulf States (all-Louisiana) conference crews. 
     But we remember him most for one state tournament, the "Top Twenty," and primarily for one -- infamous -- call.
     In 1970, he made the charging call that (arguably) kept Captain Shreve's team -- one of the greatest Shreveport-Bossier teams in history -- from winning the Class AAA state championship.
     It played in one of the most dramatic state finals ever. One reason: A titanic matchup -- Brother Martin (New Orleans) was 35-0, Captain Shreve was 35-1, with a 34-game winning streak.

     Second reason: There were nearly 16,000 fans packed into 12,000-seat Rapides Coliseum in Alexandria. No room to move anywhere. 

      The Louisiana High School Athletic Association did not have a workable ticket plan, no reserved, assigned seating. Had never needed it. So tickets were sold to anyone who could cram into the place. It was hard to breathe.
     (Official attendance for the night session was 15,676. Obviously, the fire marshals were no factor.)
     Shreve was so much better earlier in the game. Led by 16 at one point in the first, and still by 12 at halftime. One huge problem: foul trouble.  

     Olah and his officiating partner called it closer and closer until Shreve's team -- admittedly with little depth; only six players had most of the playing time -- had to bench its star players, All-Staters Mike Harrell and Jeff Sudds, or risk them fouling out. 
    Olah and partner then loosened up. They allowed Brother Martin's pressing defense enough contact to force turnovers, kill Shreve's momentum, and the Crusaders warmed up to make it a back-and-forth game for the last quarter.
     It was tied in the final minute. With time running down, Captain Shreve had the ball. The Gators set up a play, but the ball went out of bounds. Still Shreve's possession, 0:09 remaining.
    The ball went in to guard and floor leader Shelby Houston, whose drive on the right baseline was stopped by contact with a Brother Martin defender. 
      Olah's call: Charge!
      Damn. Might not have been the worst call in state-tournament history, but it's the one we remember most. 
      Easily could have called a foul on Brother Martin for blocking. But in front of Brother Martin's large, loud student cheering section -- the all-boys Catholic schools from New Orleans always had great followings -- Olah made what we thought was a South Louisiana decision, just as he and his partner had for most of the second half.
      So Houston, a cool team leader, never got a chance for free throws. When Brother Martin missed a last-second shot, the game went to overtime.
       And quickly in OT, Captain Shreve's two super big men, Harrell and Sudds, fouled out -- and Brother Martin won the overtime by an astounding 16-0. (Four Gators ended up fouling out; only one Crusader did so.)
      After the game, in the front lobby of Rapides Coliseum, Olah was out there talking and laughing with friends. Two sportswriters from Shreveport -- a young one (from The Times) writing this blog and the other one, the very large and imposing Jerry Byrd (the Journal) --  were there standing several feet away.
      Byrd stared down Bobby Olah for what seemed like a full five minutes. Never took his eyes off him. Never said a word.
      Not sure that Olah noticed; he was too busy cajoling with his friends. But if [Byrd's] looks could have killed, Bobby had just officiated his final game.
      One thing for sure: He never lacked confidence in his own ability. He had a swagger.
---
     Maybe Bobby was tired that day. It was his second game of the day; he had called the Class C final that opened the Saturday card -- the memorable Ebarb-Pleasant Hill matchup, two district rivals from Sabine Parish playing each other for the 11th time that year.
     Ebarb featured the all-time leading high school career scorer, Greg Procell, but it was his longtime teammate Walter "Tootsie Roll" Meshell who made a hurried 15-foot jumper at the buzzer -- or as the Pleasant Hill folks forever claimed, after the buzzer -- to give Ebarb a one-point victory.
     Rapides was already packed for that game (attendance was listed as 11,545). But that night, about 4,000 more people paid their way in.     
     Olah officiated one game too many that day, and made one too many charging calls.
     In the Livingston Parish News story I saw, Olah said that afterward then-LHSAA commissioner T.H. "Muddy" Waters "told me that I was the best official to ever work a state tournament." 
     Oh, geez, did I miss something?
     And Waters, who made his home in nearby Hammond (regional prejudice?), then recommended Olah to the SEC. 
     He did officiate in the SEC for a long time, worked games in some of the country's biggest arena and largest crowds, and I am sure that some people -- maybe even coaches -- considered him a competent official. 

     To be fair, I did not know Bobby Olah at all. And he has had a good life. Sadly, his wife June passed away in late August (cancer). Sorry to hear that.
      Saw in the Livingston Parish News story that Bobby, now about 79, (1) was a junior high coach in Albany, then worked in the Louisiana Department of Education for a couple of decades and (2) he was inducted into the Louisiana High School Sports Hall of Fame this past April. 
     Good for him. We did not get a vote. But we are sure he got a lot of support from the Brother Martin crowd.
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https://www.livingstonparishnews.com/sports/basketball-albany-s-bobby-olah-comes-full-circle-with-induction/article_d49485bc-8918-11e8-91ba-af58d2066723.html

The book on LSU's No. 20: Billy Cannon

     Finally, after a delay of three years or 10 months (take your pick), I read the book on Billy Cannon ... and I enjoyed it; I would recommend it to longtime LSU fans.
     As Jerry Byrd Sr. would have said: What took you so long?
     OK, I had two other lengthy reads I wanted to finish -- The Right Stuff (by Thomas Wolfe) and The Best and The Brightest (by David Halberstam), plus my other writing/research projects, a major move in our lives, and just everyday things to do.
     How is that for an explanation/escuses?
     Knew I would like reading about Billy Cannon because -- like most anyone who jumped on the LSU football bandwagon in 1958 -- he was a hero beyond compare.
     A Facebook friend from Shreveport -- Richard Thompson (Fair Park High 1967 graduate) -- sent me the book, and I thank him. I am grateful.
     Not long after the book was published, in 2015, I looked for it here (in Fort Worth bookstores). No luck. Billy Cannon is not a hero in Texas. 
     Never had a chance to look for it, or neglected to do so,  on visits to Shreveport. My bad.
      Anyway, Richard Thompson to the rescue. The book came in the mail ... and sat here for 10 months. Meanwhile, Billy Cannon left us (died May 20 at age 80).

The LSU sports information web site cover page in late May 2018.

      Many know the gist of Cannon's life: high school superstar at Istrouma (Baton Rouge), state champion running back in football, and in the 100-yard dash and shot put, and -- yes -- reputation as "a thug," LSU All-American and Heisman Trophy winner, the legendary 89-yard punt return on Halloween Night 1959 against Ole Miss, 10-year pro football career, then a career in dentistry (first as an  orthodonist, especially for children), the ill-fated counterfeiting involvement, conviction and prison term, and then the long rehabilitation, the two decades as dentist at the Angola State Prison, and the reunion with the LSU community and re-establishment as the state's biggest football star of all time.
      What a life. What a story. 
      And before I read the book came Cannon's death and the many, many tributes to him. 
      So last week was my time to read the book, and it took only 3-4 days (some 225 pages). I was that interested.
      Appropriate that Richard be the one to send it. He is more responsible than anyone for the book being written, except for Cannon himself and the author (Charles N. deGravelles).
      Here is why (excerpts from the book's prologue):
      In spite of Cannon's well-known reticence, one man refused to give up on the idea of a Billy Cannon biography. Richard Thompson remembers how, after LSU's 1958 national championship season, Cannon visited his middle school in Shreveport. For Thompson and his fellow students, Cannon was a celebrity of the caliber of Elvis. Thompson got to shake the hand of his hero. He never forgot the moment.
     Thompson spent much of his career in Louisiana government, including as an undersecretary in the Department of Corrections and Public Safety. He worked closely with Burl Cain. For years, he and Cain approached Cannon about a book -- and met rejection -- again and again. Last year, in 2014, Thompson's persistence was finally rewarded when Cannon agreed to a book -- with one stipulation. The biography had to include the innovative improvements Warden Cain had instituted at the Angola Prison -- changes that Billy Cannon had personally witnessed and of which he was a part. ...
     Thompson mentioned a little-known writer who was differerent from others; in addition to experience as a journalist and writer, he had been a volunteer chaplain at Louisiana State Penitentiary, generally known as Angola, for 25 years, three of those as a spiritual advisor for a death-row inmate.
---               
     So that is how deGravelles was picked as the writer, and the book's acknowledgments begin with, "Thanks to Richard Thompson for initiating and putting the pieces of this project together and for support along the way." 
     My opinion: deGravelles did a fine job of research, and of putting the words, the story, together.
     The book does not hide from the flawed character that Cannon was, from his early days and his family's poor, hardscrabble existence in rural Mississippi, to his emergence in athletics and a sometimes prima donna, hard-to-handle attitude, his off-the-field gang-like status, his college recruiting tales, pro football adventures and, well, his money-making schemes.
     Billy often was not one to play by the rules.
     Easy to perceive that the several references to Cannon's selling of LSU football game tickets he collected came from Billy himself. Let's say, it was a quite lucrative venture for him, from his high school days through his LSU career.
     And obviously, he also did quite well financially in the summer jobs provided for him by LSU boosters. 
     If I have a quibble, it is that there is a read-between-the-lines element of the "incentives" for a superstar player of his caliber. No doubt, he and the Cannon family were provided "anything you need,"  as promised by the car dealer who sealed Billy's commitment to attend LSU.
      Based on what I have read or heard about the college  recruiting inducements for gifted, prominent North Louisiana athletes in the same era -- John David Crow (Springhill) and Kenneth Beck (Minden) in football, Jackie Moreland (Minden) in basketball -- you can assume Cannon was in that same realm.
---
      There are multiple North Louisiana ties to Cannon mentioned in the book, most prominently eight reference to Tommy Davis.
      Crow, the Heisman Trophy winner (at Texas A&M) two years before Cannon, is on pages 3 and 10. 
      Two Northwestern State athletes, Charley Hennigan (wide receiver from Minden) and Charlie Tolar (running back from Natchitoches), were Cannon's teammates with the Houston Oilers in the brand-new American Football League (1960-63), league champs the first two years and overtime losers in the third year.
      Cannon's final high school game, the 1955 state championship against Fair Park in Shreveport, is covered in a lengthy paragraph on page 76. 
     When he died in May, I posted two clippings from that game. Had about two dozen people tell me they were at State Fair Stadium that night.
      It was a 40-6 Istrouma romp in which Fair Park, like many other teams, hardly could tackle Cannon. He ran 16 times for 169 yards and his third touchdown was an 83-yard pass play (referenced in the book) with which he ran the last 60 yards. And he finished the season with a state-record 229 points.
     Speaking of Fair Park ... back to Tommy Davis.
     He was Cannon's teammate at LSU in 1958, a fullback and, more importantly, the Tigers' superb punter and placekicker, a huge factor in the perfect season.
       Davis was the star player on Fair Park's 1952 team, the only one in school history to win the state championship. My opinion (and that of many others), he was Shreveport's most accomplished football player of the 1950s and early 1960s.
       After two years at LSU and a U.S. Army (and service football) stint, he was back at LSU for a crucial role in the 1958 national championship. He was part of the all-offense Go (short for Gold) team, which alternated with the all-defense Chinese Bandits in that era of platoon substitution.
     But it was his kicking that is remembered by those who know -- two late-game winning kicks (a field goal in a 10-7 victory against Florida, the winning PAT to edge Mississippi State 7-6), and his punting. As book notes, "many considered [him] the best collegiate kicker in the country ..."
     In the mid-1960s, Cannon -- by then a tight end with the Oakland Raiders -- and Davis, a rare pro punter and placekicking specialist for the San Francisco 49ers who twice made the Pro Bowl -- renewed their friendship in the Bay Area. After his decade in the NFL, Davis' career punting average was the second-best ever behind Sammy Baugh.
      One more North Louisiana tie: Murrell "Boots" Garland, who struck up a friendship with Cannon on a track/field trip in 1957 and as the dorm proctor at Broussard Hall, LSU's athletic dorm, where he and Billy spent hours being pals. As  the book notes, he was "garrulous and funny" like Billy, and just as much of a storyteller, upbeat and full of mischief. A character who, for example, played Pistol Pete Maravich's high school coach in a movie. 
      Boots was from Shreveport, a Byrd High and LSU graduate, and early in his long, winding coaching career was George Nattin Jr.'s assistant in basketball at Bossier High (1962-64).
      He would become almost legendary -- Boots would laugh and agree -- as a track and field coach. His 1969 Baton Rouge High team won a state championship; he was head coach at LSU one year, and a longtime assistant there, known primarily as a "speed coach." His speciality was working with athletes in any sport, any level -- high school, college, pros -- to improve their running techniques and maximize their "speed" abilities. 
     Billy Cannon would not have needed help in that department. But of all his buddies, Boots Garland -- as the book makes clear -- was the most involved in his rehab after prison, a frequent visitor to Cannon's dentist office at Angola and eventually the go-between contact for Billy's return to involvement with LSU football. 
     Boots, who died in January 2016, played an important role in Cannon's later life. Good for him. 
---       
     On the book's next-to-last page, there is a paragraph about the (LSU-themed periodical) Tiger Rag's 2010 list of "The Top 150 Most Influential People in LSU Athletics History." No. 1 on that list? Is there any doubt?

Richard Thompson and wife Blanca at the
recent LSU-Southeastern Louisiana game at
Tiger Stadium (he is an SLU graduate).

      Richard Thompson now lives in Baton Rouge and in Puerto Rico (home of his wife Blanca). "I go back and forth; I have business in both places," he said. And, yes, they were in Puerto Rico a year when it was devastated by Hurricane Maria.
     We'll leave the last word on the book to him because he said he sat in on 40 hours of interviews with Cannon and Charles deGravelles.
     "Billy was a hood, even at our Fair Park standards," Richard wrote me. "It would have been a bad influence on anyone back then.
     "After he served his time [in prison], his fake self-esteem went from 110 to zero. All the bad things he did as a young man, he made up with goodness in his later life. Working on inmates at Angola was not for his paycheck, but it was his redemption."
     If you read the book, you will appreciate that.
     In the end, he was -- as LSU radio announcer J.C. Politz said at the end of the 89-yard punt return on Halloween Night 1959, a legendary and best-ever LSU football memory -- "Billy Cannon. Great All-American."