He ran into history, and lived a life

      He was one of our "Cinderella" Knights, a significant one who made a run into history.
      For me, James Rice was the older kid who lived in the next block on Amherst Street in Sunset Acres, a nice guy, always friendly. And he could run fast.
      He was one of my heroes, like so many on those first two Woodlawn Knights football teams. But we especially loved our guys (and gals) from Sunset Acres.
      So it was with some sorrow when the well-after-the-fact news came -- from a couple of sources -- that James Dewayne Rice died October 23, 2018, at a nursing home in Shreveport, age 74.
      Had not seen an obit in the paper. What we did see, confirmation of his passing, was a "findagrave" post.
      James Rice -- football halfback and safety (even at 130 pounds), track sprinter, hard-working and dedicated in athletics and as a longtime hotel/motel employee and manager, responsible older brother, husband, father, grandfather ... friend.
      Another loss from "The Team Named Desire." Don't like those. That team, as a whole, was among the biggest winners we have ever known.
      And it is with some surprise to learn that James' life wasn't a Cinderella story, that what followed after the "Camelot" chapters was an often mixed journey.
      As with many of us, most of us, there was success and struggle. Happiness, and sad times. 
      Turmoil at home in his early life. Love, a lengthy marriage (to Phoebe), and divorce. Two children (a daughter and a son who is a Notre Dame graduate), and then estrangement. Good jobs, steady ones, and then failure. Several moves -- to points east. One grandson, and although there was distance, monthly financial aid almost to the end.
      In the last few years, there was dementia/Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, diabetes, alcohol, a move back to Shreveport, a place to live and with two women (his younger sister and her best friend) looking after him, stays in hospitals and nursing homes ... and the final decline.
      But our memories, and those of good friends, are sweet.
      "He was very reserved, quiet, and very smart," said Jerry Downing, one of his closest friends in the Sunset Acres years, a teammate on many athletics teams.
      "He was, to me, the golden boy," said Andra Wilson, who in high school dated James steadily for a year and then on-and-off after that. "He was supposed to have had a successful life, not only financially.
     "He was disciplined, made excellent grades ... worked a  parttime [filling station] job."
      Johnny Maxwell, a longtime hotel/restaurant operator in Ruston (and other places), was one of James' benefactors, and his longtime boss. 
     "I thought a lot of James," said Maxwell, 81, still a Ruston resident. "He was a good guy, a kind guy; he would do anything for anybody if he could.
     "I loved him like a brother. I tried to help him along."
     Connie Reed Roge' literally loved him like a brother. She was his youngest sister (nine years younger), a premature baby (1 1/4 pounds at birth), and so there was a bond.
     In Sunset Acres, their mother worked, the stepfather was in-and-out and difficult, and James often was in charge of the four younger children (whose last name was Reed).
     "He took care of all of us, babysat us all the time," Connie recalled. 
     She mentioned that the teenage James, while Mom worked, liked talking on the phone to his girlfriend, perhaps a little longer than what was acceptable.
     "Don't tell Mama, don't tell Mama," he instructed his siblings. But to be sure that would not happen, he promised to make oatmeal cookies for them. A bribe.
     He had the recipe, perhaps from home ec classes, and kept the recipe for years. "He could cook," Connie recalled.
     When their mother died in 1969, Connie was 16, James was working in Ruston, and he helped her move in with an aunt and checked on her often.
      "We were always close," Connie said, "but after a while, he moved away. So we kept in touch by phone, but didn't see each other much because of the distance."
      Her payback to him would come decades later.
---
     When we knew him, he had gone through Sunset Acres Elementary, then Midway Junior High, a sophomore year at Fair Park High and on to Woodlawn when it opened in the fall of 1960.
     Which brings us to football.   
     On October 19, 1960, junior halfback James Rice -- small, thin and fast -- made history: He ran 57 yards for the first varsity touchdown in Woodlawn history.
     After the Knights had been shut out in their first four games, James hit the end zone -- and he did it against the school that would become our arch-rival, Byrd, and against a Byrd team that was ranked No. 1 in the state and would go unbeaten that regular season. I won't bother to give you the score of that game, but Woodlawn had 6 points.
     (Bobby Glasgow, a sophomore that year, will tell you that he scored the first Woodlawn touchdown -- and he did ... but for the B-team a week earlier. It was a varsity game, but only for Haughton.)
      James had been a B-team back for Fair Park in 1959, then came to Woodlawn with a rag-tag bunch of players -- a few seniors, but a lot of juniors (transfers from Byrd, Fair Park and Greenwood) and sophomores fresh out of junior high.
     Wrote about that team in the first year of my blog, almost 6 1/2 years ago: http://nvanthyn.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-team-named-desire.html
     James started two seasons for Woodlawn -- the awful first season (0-9 record), the second (his senior year) a glorious, astounding district championship -- a 9-2 regular-season record in which they kept winning games with fourth-quarter heroics. The Knights' first playoff game followed.
     That very small physical team -- Rice at 140 by his senior year had lots of company in the "lightweight" category; an offensive guard weighed 145, a tackle 165. Only one starter, a tackle, had any real size (for then) -- 195 pounds.
     This was a quick, supremely conditioned, mentally tough -- and talented -- team. The Team Named Desire. The "Cinderella" Knights. A Cinderella story.
      There were a half dozen future college players -- some all-conference ones -- on this team. Not James (too small), but he was one of the top stars. Check the clippings. And he scored the final touchdown of the season -- in the state playoff game. 
      Downing was the 160-pound center on those teams (and the starting catcher in baseball), and always James' friend. He lived two blocks away on Sunnybrook, across from the well-known scout hut on the Sunset Acres Elementary grounds.
      "He was in my first wedding," Downing said, "and we each delivered newspapers, we had newspaper routes. We would go near the A&P store in the Sunset shopping center early in the mornings to pick up our papers, and vendors would leave us honeybuns and chocolate milk. The store manager was OK with that, as long as we cleaned up the area. We were barely teenagers.
     "We played on a lot of teams together. Everyone knew he was a fast runner."
     And in high school, they often joined with [end] Ted Bounds for, well, some joy rides in Ted's Rambler.
     Downing, too, was at Louisiana Tech at the same time as Rice, and "we had a great time playing flag football.
     "What a great loss, and I hope to see him again on the other side. ..."
      Ronnie Mercer, at 135 pounds, was James' partner at safety in football and also a good friend through the La. Tech years.
      "When we were in Ruston, we lived in a four-plex and James and Phoebe were our next-door neighbors," Mercer recalled. "I don't think I ever saw him angry, which was a complement to the angry person I was.
     "He deserves to be written about. He was a man of tremendous heart."
     Mercer remembered one football incident at State Fair Stadium (now Independence Stadium)
      "Don't remember who we were playing, but we were on defense and James made a tackle and it knocked him goofy," Mercer said. "He actually went and lined up in the other team's huddle. I don't think anyone noticed until they broke the huddle to run the play. Then one of the referees noticed. But I guess he was going to run the offensive play for the other team."
      In the long run, Woodlawn football was a memorable experience for James Rice, for all of us 1960s kids. The long run of his life -- a little more than 57 years after that 57-yard run -- was a bigger test.       
---
      College was in his plans, but money was short. His stepfather promised to pay to start his education ... if James would work at his filling station that summer. But the deal fell through, and helped was needed.
      It came from then-Woodlawn counselor Mary Higginbotham, who had Louisiana Tech and Ruston connections (and a year went to work at Tech).
     Mrs. Higginbotham called her friend Johnny Maxwell, recent new owner/operator of the Holiday Inn near the Tech campus, and asked if he could find James a job and a place to live.
     "I can do that," Maxwell told her. Some of us remember James working at the Holiday Inn during his college years and then becoming a fulltime employee, first as restaurant manager.
     He met Phoebe, married and soon they started a family.
     After some years, it was time to move on. After a job for a food company in Jackson, Miss., James knew Maxwell had bought the Holiday Inn in Oxford, Miss., and asked if he had a job for him there. He did: manager.
     He was a neat dresser and he learned to do the maintenance job required to keep a hotel/motel in top shape.
     From there, it was on to another hotel managing job in Augusta, Georgia -- home of the Masters golf tournament. One year Maxwell took his son and grandson to the tournament, and James arranged tickets and a place for them to stay.
     After the divorce, as Maxwell recalled, "he went off the radar for a number of years" and moved to Meridian, Mississippi. 
     Some years later, Connie got word that there were gaps in James' managing his life.
      She and husband Harold went to Meridian, packed up his belongings and brought him back to Shreveport. Contact with his ex-wife and children ended, but his grandson remained in his thoughts.
---
     He loved going to church, loved the dog "Lil' Man" he was given, took him for walks every day at the Southern Hills recreation park. He worked in gardens and tended to roses he planted.         
     Over the past couple of weeks, Connie and Shirley Weaver have put together memories of James for the memorial, which will happen two days before what would have been his 75th birthday.
     "I am glad that he did not suffer long," said Connie of the last part of James' life. 
     "He was such a kind, loving person," said Shirley, "... He was loved by many." 
      And in the final year, some old friends -- Maxwell, some of James' working employees, and a few Woodlawn buddies -- came to visit him.
      Long-ago girlfriend Andra Wilson, reflecting on James' final years, said the stories she heard "have kept me aware; I have had nightmares ... James was kind of a naive guy, but he was sweet."
      As Connie worked to arrange a memorial, she said, "Talking to all of ya'll [James' old friends] has helped me with closure about James."
      Because he loved the song The Rose, the Conway Twitty version, that will be part of his memorial.   
       He will be -- he is -- fondly remembered by many of us. He not only ran into history, he ran into a place in our hearts and memories.
---
     A memorial for James Rice (WHS Class of '62) is scheduled Saturday, January 19, 1 p.m., 11055 General Patton Avenue, Shreveport (Connie Roge's house). Please contact Connie at 318-453-4902 or 318-687-6369 if you plan to attend, and share your thoughts at the memorial.

So how important is football to you?

     Posed the question to my Facebook/e-mail friends Wednesday: Is football still as important to you as it ever was? Do you still live/die with your teams?
     Received several good answers, and will post them at the bottom of this blog piece.
     Timing this with this week's explosion of college football games, the full schedule, although we had a smattering of games last week (because it begins earlier each year).
     Here was my comment Wednesday: For some of us, interest has declined greatly, almost totally in the NFL (and for me, personally, it has nothing to do with the national anthem). Just don't like how much of our attention the NFL receives now.
     With my question, I attached an article by Tim Layden (Sports Illustrated writer) from a week ago, his perspective on what football means -- or should mean -- to our society today. (Link -- a long link -- posted below.)
     Not here to tell anyone what to think -- same as politics -- but what follows is my view on football today. 
     I still love it; I still care. The nervous feeling which hits a few weeks before every LSU season is there again. And I want Louisiana Tech to do well, always have. 
      (And what if LSU plays Louisiana Tech? That is going to happen again Sept. 22. That's a tough one.)
     Want "my teams" in several sports -- Yankees, Cowboys, Netherlands soccer, LSU, La. Tech -- to win big. The competitive streak in me has not faded. When it does ... uh-oh.
      I am sure that is it for you, too. We all feel better when our team wins. 
      We make it personal. Can't help it. Know damn well that what I think or say -- or yell -- is not going to make a bit of difference. But we get into it. Vow to be calmer, but then they start playing and ...
      It is the off-the-field crap that is so bothersome to me. And all the money coaches and NFL players make (and as an aside, I do not think college players should be paid more -- too many loopholes. Isn't a free college education enough?).
      Money makes the football world go 'round. 
      The seemingly increasing brutal nature of the game, the fatal injuries, the brain drain, the sexual assaults, "bullying" coaches, recruiting "verbal commitments" and National Signing Day and everyday analysis, speculation, Internet "talk" sites ... January through December.
      One big gripe: The over-emphasis on anything college football and NFL head coaches say or do. We treat them like gods. They're not. 
      Same for NFL owners. Please don't pay attention to what Jerry "Blabs" Jones says (that was a blog piece several ago).
      Personally I watch or read very little of what any head coach has to say. And when they lecture the media, as some are prone to do (Saban, Patterson) or act sanctimoniously (Urban Meyer, Hugh Freeze, the late Joe Paterno), it is beyond irritating.
      OK, enough of that. Here's the good part: Watching the games.
      Love it still -- at least college football. I, for one, don't like the high-scoring, wild offensive slugfests. Give me some defense and kicking game, please. But the game itself is still entertainment -- and competition -- for me.
      Probably watched fewer games last year -- not even LSU, live -- than ever before. Watched about 10 minutes of one NFL game (Cowboys). That was more than enough.
      Just don't want to spend hours and hours tied to the TV these days. Watched one game live (Louisiana Tech's bowl game, vs. SMU, in Frisco).
      The wife wants nothing to do with football, period. Does not want to hear my commentary, that's for sure. So recording games and watching them -- silently -- hours later when she's asleep is the better option.
      There are other TVs in the facility where we live. So I will be headed there Saturday -- and Sunday night.
      Looked at the TV game schedule for this week, noted the times and set up the recorder. There are teams I want to see, mostly in the SEC (the main interest for many of my friends, too).
      For instance, I will check on the Tennessee Vols because I know son-in-law cares ... a lot. And that matchup with West Virginia should be a good one.   
     (As for Alabama, no thank you. But I have to admit -- if LSU's program was as successful as Alabama has been, especially the last decade, would I care more for college football than I do now? Honest answer: yes.)
      So, the game I care most about -- LSU vs. Miami -- will be played in our neighborhood Sunday night. Our son and our nephew will be there at JerryWorld; I will watch on TV ... anxiously. I do care.
       As for LSU vs. Louisiana Tech in a few weeks, I will be rooting for the winner. That should satisfy all my friends who say I am a frontrunner.
       Have a nice season. It is important enough to me that I  will try to watch ... for a while, anyway.
---
https://www.si.com/nfl/2018/08/23/football-player-safety-jordan-mcnair-death-maryland-urban-meyer-zach-smith-ohio-state-punishment?utm_campaign=si-extra&utm_source=si.com&utm_medium=email&utm_content=2018082413PM&eminfo=%7b%22EMAIL%22%3a%22g%2fuGJg%2f6MqPr9L%2fN%2beR2ew%3d%3d%22%2c%22BRAND%22%3a%22SI%22%2c%22CONTENT%22%3a%22Newsletter%22%2c%22UID%22%3a%22SI_EXT_D84683FA-9C1F-4D44-99C4-043367C843CF%22%2c%22SUBID%22%3a%2299057493%22%2c%22JOBID%22%3a%22861658%22%2c%22NEWSLETTER%22%3a%22SI_EXTRA%22%2c%22ZIP%22%3a%22%22%2c%22COUNTRY%22%3a%22CAN%22%7d

What's in a nickname: Tech's Blond Bomber

     So, in case you were wondering 50 years later about the best of Terry Bradshaw's nicknames ...
     My old buddy, O.K. "Buddy" Davis, was wondering Saturday when he sent this text: "Can u give me background on when you, Paul Manasseh came up with the Blond Bomber nickname?
     "Can't recall my input, either," he added.
     So because it was yesterday -- well, 1968, actually -- this required a little research. Hello, microfilm on newspapers.com.
     It is not exactly what we have thought for decades.
     We always have given the credit to Paul Manasseh, the veteran sports publicist from Shreveport who that fall was the sports information director at Louisiana Tech University. 
     He had one student assistant (me, a senior at Tech) and one regular office visitor who helped us in SID work, Ruston Daily Leader sports editor Buddy Davis, a recent Tech graduate.

In 1967 and 1968, Terry Bradshaw still
had hair on top of his head, and it was
very blond ... so "The Blond Bomber."

     Bradshaw, everyone at Tech knew, was a huge talent, but going into that season had never started a college game. He did not have a nickname, as we remember it.  
      But soon his talent blossomed, and he was on his way to being the best quarter back in college football -- at any level (Tech was an NCAA Division II team, but Terry could have played for any "major"). Proof: In January 1970, he was the No. 1 pick in the NFL Draft. You likely know the rest.
     Oh, the nickname ...
     Manasseh -- wise media person, personable, guiding force for many budding sportswriters/broadcasters as, after nine months at Tech, he moved on to 14 years as SID at LSU -- loved Bradshaw's talent (heck, all of us at Tech did). Began writing and talking about it soon after he took the Tech job in July.
     Shortly into the season -- which began with Bradshaw, in his first start, starring in a victory against a "major," Mississippi State (albeit a weak one -- 0-8-2 -- that year), Manasseh tagged Terry with two nicknames: (1) "The Rifleman" and (2) "The Blond Bomber."
     Those references were made in releases sent out from the Tech SID office.
     For years -- and I noted this in an April 14, 2012, blog piece on Bradshaw -- Manasseh, Buddy and I have received credit for those nicknames. Thanks, but it ain't exactly so.
     Because Buddy and I have kidded each other for more than 50 years, I replied to his text Saturday by saying, "Think Manasseh came up with it and you took the credit." 
     Buddy's comeback: "We all did (football emoji) (smiley face)."
---
     Now the real kicker: Don't believe Manasseh was the originator, either. He adopted it, and adapted it.
     It was not original. Actually, it was a takeoff on "The Brown Bomber," longtime heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis in the 1940s.
      Looked this up: "Blond Bomber" was used -- several times -- by pro wrestlers, and by a body builder (Dave Draper) earlier in the 1960s, and there was a 1954 TV show, Adventures of the Falcon, with an episode titled "The Blond Bomber."
     And reading about a book a couple of years ago about Texas' football legends, we noted that Bobby Layne -- the 1940s University of Texas and then 1950s Detroit Lions' great quarterback -- was nicknamed, yes, "The Blond Bomber."
     In Louisiana, though, the first blond bomber reference -- note, it was lower case -- we could find in 1968 for Bradshaw was by sports editor/columnist Bill Carter of the Alexandria Town Talk in a Sept. 27 story (the week after the Mississippi State game). He had not used it in a column effusively touting Bradshaw's promise eight days earlier.
     So here is what I think happened (feel free to correct us, if you have a better version):
     Manasseh was very good friends with Carter, and saw his blond bomber reference in the Alexandria paper. Paul picked up on it for Tech releases, and changed it a bit: He upper-cased it.  
     Ah, from then on, Tech's Blond Bomber. It caught on.
     Buddy loved it, I loved it, and we began using it ... a lot ... for years and years.
     So did all the Louisiana sportswriters; it become commonplace. For instance, we found references in columns in the next month by The Shreveport Times' Larry Powell, Jim McLain and Bill McIntyre.
     McLain, in fact, doubled up, starting his post Tech-Northwestern State column -- the one after the Bradshaw-to-Ken Liberto, 82-yard winning TD pass with 13 seconds remaining -- by calling Terry "The Rifleman" and later "The Blond Bomber."
     (McLain, too, first used "The White Knight" nickname for Joe Ferguson -- like Bradshaw a star QB at Woodlawn High -- in 1967 because great offensive-line protection allowed Ferguson's white jersey, when his team wore white, to remain spotless through games.)
     "The Rifleman" nickname was a natural because of the very popular 1960s television series.Terry had the "rifle" right arm and he much resembled Chuck Connors, the 6-foot-6 baseball major leaguer-turned-actor who starred as Lucas McCain, with his ever-present, often-used rifle.
     "Blond Bomber," too, was a natural. Terry then still had hair growing on top of his head -- first a crewcut, then a little longer and combed over -- and that hair was more white than blond. Plus, he could throw long passes on target -- bombs -- as well as anyone we've seen.
     (By the way, we have seen it written often as Blonde Bomber. No, not for Terry. We are not grammar experts, but our understanding is that blond is masculine and blonde is feminine. So there.)
     In time, Bradshaw would become the Pittsburgh Steelers' "Blond Bomber." But I don't remember hearing him ever talk about nicknames. 
     To him, that was never as important as winning football games -- and he was very good at that, and nearly as good as he has been in his show business/football analyst career. 
     Outspoken, yes. Crazy, goofy, funny ... certainly. He has played those roles well. Also, a helluva lot smarter than we all realized. 
     Criticize him if you want, but that doesn't play well with me. He has represented Shreveport-Bossier and Louisiana Tech well through the years.
     Does not matter who gets credit for the nickname. It worked, and it remains a cherished part of a football legend. We were there for its genesis.
      Terry Bradshaw, The Blond Bomber. (How many times have we written that?)   
   

           
         

         

A great (and dumb) experience: first trip to Yankee Stadium

        This happened a long time ago -- 50 years -- and it was so embarrassing, so stupid, that I have never told the story in print.
       It has a happy ending; I did make it to Yankee Stadium -- the old, original, fabled Yankee Stadium, my field of dreams -- on August 18, 1967.
       And it has a sad ending. But you have to read this piece to get there.

Murray Pompeo

       It involves a neat, gentle kid -- Murray Pompeo -- from Paterson, N.J. (a key element to the story). He really is the hero of this adventure; he took me to the Big Stadium in the Bronx.
       But not before I messed up big-time. 
       Here is the confession, the major problem (and try not to think of me as a total idiot, just a partial one): I lost, or misplaced, and certainly did not have with me, Murray's contact information.
        Another key element: Murray and his mother lived with his stepfather, and I did not know his last name.
       So, no address, no phone number, no way to reach them. 
       But I knew Murray would pick me up at the airport -- Newark, close to where he lived -- and we would go to Yankee Stadium and then his parents' apartment in Paterson.
        Fine ... until my Delta flight from Atlanta was canceled. And then I had an issue. 
        I also had the makings of an adventure.
---
        I had been in Atlanta -- after my very first airplane trip, from Shreveport -- to spend a few days with my good friends, the Tuckers, who had moved there from Sunset Acres, our neighborhood, a few months earlier. 
        We had gone to some Atlanta Braves' games, and the second part of my vacation -- after a summer of covering American Legion baseball for The Times -- was the New York City area ... and Yankee Stadium. It was an awful Yankees team that season, but No. 7, Mickey Mantle, was still playing -- first base, on two bad legs. And I'd never seen him play in person.
        Murray Pompeo, his parents' only child, invited me to come up, stay with them, and go to Yankee Stadium.
        We had become friends in our second year at Louisiana Tech University, dormitory mates and he was going to be my roommate that fall. He was a big kid, built funny (big hips, big butt) because of glandular problems; he smoked constantly; and he was a late-night hanger-on in the dorm TV lounge area. That's where we began visiting. 
         I was there in a hopeless attempt to study -- I wasn't diligent, not with a TV and other people there -- and Murray, well, I never saw him study.
        He was likeable, and such a sports fan, a Tech fan (I was working in the sports information office) ... and a Yankees fan. Perfect.
         So I did have his address and phone number at one point, and we set up my trip. The schedule: an early Thursday flight from Atlanta to NYC, an afternoon game that day with the Baltimore Orioles and a Friday doubleheader with the Minnesota Twins.
          (Game tickets were easy, and free. Ballclubs then were very generous with "comp" tickets for sports newspaper departments, so I arranged them through The Times ... for the Braves' games and the Yankees' games.) 
          All set, and then the flight cancellation. I was re-booked on a United flight ... to JFK International. 
          I needed to let Murray know I wasn't going to be at Newark at the agreed time. Didn't have his contact info.
         Time to panic. I was 20, more naive than I am now, and dumb (d-u-m-b).
          Found a pay phone (this is three decades before cellphones), called home (collect, of course), and asked (told) Mom to find Murray's phone number or address.
          I had no idea where I had put it, nor had my parents thought to ask for it. I just assumed everything would work out well.
          Of course, Mom couldn't find the info. (I took that well.) Strike one.
          So, it was on to NYC/JFK on United, lots of time to think of what to do. 
          I knew the Thursday game at Yankee Stadium was a scratch, and I wondered what Murray must have been thinking when I didn't show up at Newark.
          Got to JFK, and got to a pay phone to call Louisiana Tech (because surely they had Murray's address and phone number). Charged the call to my parents' number (of course) and tried the admissions office where I knew Mrs. Patsy Lewis -- wife of Coach E.J. Lewis -- would help me.
          Patsy wasn't there. The girl who answered was not willing to help (likely couldn't give out that info anyway). So,  strike two.
           Asked for help at JFK. Someone suggested I go to Port Authority (by subway or bus) and then catch a bus for Paterson, N.J., and that's what I did. Port Authority was quite a trip; traffic and people everywhere, including one lonely, lost Louisiana kid.
           But not brainless; I did scramble well. Got to Paterson by early evening, found a hotel downtown and got a room, and had a plan.  
           In the morning, I would go to the Paterson newspaper office, where I knew -- this was from my experience at The Times -- they would have a city directory.
           Don't even remember the paper's name; only that it was downtown, not far from the hotel. So I went in, found people in the newsroom, told them my "problem," and they were very helpful. They were willing to dig into their files and/or call the authorities.
           I always have been lucky, so here was the best luck, as I remember it: Murray -- maybe because he was 21 -- was listed in the city directory as a student. Had his address and phone number.
           I called, and he was there in 10 minutes. Problem solved.
           It was midday; the Yankees' doubleheader was a twi-nighter, which meant -- I think -- about a 1 p.m. start for Game 1, about 4 p.m. for Game 2.  

           It was about a 30-minute drive to the stadium, and we arrived just after Game 1 had ended (a 1-0 Yankees victory in which Mantle had played first base and gone 1-for-2). 

This is about the angle we had during the first game
 I saw at the old Yankee Stadium.

           Quite a thrill walking up the tunnel to see the historic stadium for the first time. We had great seats, front row of the second level, just to the left of home plate, right behind the media area (which hung over the first deck). 

           (During Game 2, Joe Garagiola -- then one of the Yankees' broadcasters -- walked right in front of us, going to make a pit stop, probably. Someone behind us yelled, "Hey, Joe." Garagiola never looked up, kept walking and said, "Hey, guys, howya doing?")
           OK, Game 2 lineups went on the board, Yankees took the field. No Mantle.
           More luck. Tie game (2-2), bottom of the sixth inning, Yankees loaded the bases with one out. Ruben Amaro, a .227-hitting shortstop, due up. He went back in the dugout, and it was quiet for a moment ... and then the roar of the crowd (22,991 paid, plus us freebies) began to rise.
            They sensed what I did ... No. 7 was coming out of the dugout to pinch-hit.
            One of my great early life thrills. But not a good result. On the second pitch, batting right-handed against lefty Jim Merritt, Mickey hit a hard grounder to the third baseman, who stepped on the bag and easily threw to first for a double play.
            So much for the only time I was in a stadium -- the stadium -- when Mickey Mantle batted.
            The Twins won the game 4-3 when Rich Reese pinch-hit a ninth-inning, two-run homer. At the time it kept Minnesota -- with Zoilo Versalles, Tony Oliva, Harmon Killebrew, Bob Allison, the nucleus of the team that two years earlier had played in the World Series -- in first place of the American League. They were still first on the next-to-last day of the season.
           So ended my first Yankee Stadium visit (there have been three since, all to the renovated -- and now obsolete -- ballpark). 
           My trip wasn't a total disaster; the mistake really was harmless (I've made thousands that were more harmful to me and others). 
           It was an inconvenience, but it turned out to be a wonderful day, nonetheless, thanks mostly to my friend Murray. That night at his parents' apartment, they were so gracious and we had an Italian meal -- lasagna, which I think was a first for me. 
           Flew back to Shreveport the next day, no problems, and soon I was back at Louisiana Tech as fall football practice began.
           Now the sad part. Murray and I never roomed together at Tech. I cannot recall if he even came back to school (don't think he did). If he did, it wasn't for long.
           They found cancer -- leukemia I believe it was -- and he was gone in about six months. 
           I was grateful to have known him, and I never forgot how he helped me get to Yankee Stadium, although our visit was delayed a few hours.    
           It was a learning experience: If you are meeting someone, have their contact info -- always.

           

T-Willie found his calling in teaching and officiating

T-Willie Moore: A man in charge.
(photo by John James Marshall)

     His name is Clyde Oliver Moore, but few people know him by that. If you say T-Willie Moore, they'll know him.
      That is especially true in Shreveport-Bossier and across North Louisiana when it concerns high school football and any kind of baseball.
       For the past 45 years or so, T-Willie has been one of the most prominent, and most respected, football referees and baseball umpires in that area.
       He has worked hundreds of games; no, probably a thousand-plus. And he's still working -- at age 70, with no intention of stopping.
       Just last week he was umpiring baseball games in Jonesville, La., and Ruston, and this week he's off to DeQuincy. It's playoff time, so the games are taking a trusted veteran umpire a pretty good way out of Shreveport.
       But his life is much more than football or baseball, and always was. June and T-Willie, married since 1972, are the parents of two daughters and grandparents of seven (five girls, two boys). The kids and grandkids live in Texas and South Carolina, so there is time spent there by JuJu and PaPaT.
       And as long as he's been refereeing or umpiring, the

T-Willie, June -- and seven grandchilden

Moores have been teachers, and devoted to their religious beliefs and their community.
       For 40 1/2 years, until he retired in May 2012, he taught Algebra I and pre-algebra at one location. First it was Eden Gardens Junior High, then it became Caddo Middle Magnet in 1982.
       And Mr. Moore was one of the most popular teachers there. We know this, having asked some of his students -- anytime I meet someone who attended Caddo Middle Magnet, I ask -- and parents who had children at the school.
       Like T-Willie, June also taught math. But she eventually went into administration and retired in 2007 as an assistant principal at Caddo Magnet High School.
       Even now, T-Willie takes the occasional substitute teaching job, and he and June have a fulfilling commitment -- for more than 20 years, a couple of nights (or days) a week they have mentored students in math at church.
       "God is good. All the time," T-Willie says. "I have been really blessed to do what I love -- teaching kids and officiating. I knew the Lord wanted me working with kids. I hope to bring glory to Him in what I do and help others."
       Monday night, when I called, they were busy at LSU-S, helping serve a breakfast-type meal prepared by their church Sunday School class to Shreveport Baptist Collegiate Ministry students studying for finals.
       If you have known T-Willie for some time -- and we have been friends since the mid-1960s -- and you talk on the phone or meet, this is almost a certainty. He will end conversations with "love you, man." I am not the only one who has noticed that.
       Athletics -- baseball, really -- was how T-Willie Moore first became known in Shreveport, and how we met.
       He was a pitcher, an unusual one, in high school and American Legion baseball, and then -- surprisingly -- even in college at Louisiana Tech, where we arrived together as freshmen in the fall of 1965.
---
       He was the youngest of five brothers, all two years apart, who grew up on Leo Street (Broadmoor neighborhood) in Shreveport. Their father, Johnnie, was a salesman for a wholesale lumber company; mother Frances was a homemaker.
       Clyde came through the area schools -- A.C. Steere Elementary (grades 1-3), then Arthur Circle when it opened (grades 4-6), Youree Drive Junior High when it opened in 1959 and Byrd High School (1962-65).
       The nickname came from the kids he played baseball with in fifth grade, and from then on he was "T-Willie." Even his school teachers knew him by that name.

No fastball, but three years as a pitcher
at Louisiana Tech.

      At age 11, he began playing SPAR Midget ball for the Optimist Rebels as a pitcher-shortstop.
      By high school, it was evident that he was not going to be a fastball pitcher. But he could make a baseball spin and dance, and he was especially successful as a change-of-pace pitcher following the harder-throwing "aces" of the Byrd High and Cobbs Barbecue (American Legion) teams, Dale LaVigne and James Gillespie.
       "I couldn't break a window," he said, "but I tried to hit spots and change speeds -- slow, slower and slowest with the knuckle curve change-up -- almost like slowpitch softball," he said.
       It was Pete Barrouquere, a sportswriter for The Shreveport Times covering baseball at the time, who was impressed with T-Willie's "stuff" and began calling him "The Snake Doctor" in stories.
       T-Willie's best game, as he recalled, came in the Legion state semifinals in 1965 when he relieved LaVigne against the Lake Charles Stevedores, retired 24 of the 27 batters he faced and was the winning pitcher. He was supposed to start the next game, too, but after a rainout and a day's rest, Cobbs coach Woodrow McCullar decided to start LaVigne again.
        Later that summer, in a conversation at lunch one day at McCullar's drug store (right across the street from Byrd High), Mr. McCullar -- one of the best Legion coaches for a couple of decades in Shreveport and a good mentor of pitchers -- told T-Willie he would not pitch in college baseball.
        "He didn't know my heart," T-Willie said, reflecting on that.
        McCullar also didn't know that Pat Patterson, who was the Byrd baseball coach in Moore's junior and senior years, would begin his long tenure as baseball coach at Louisiana Tech in 1968 and '69.
        T-Willie did not make the Tech team as a freshman, but he was a big influence on a longtime teammate through their kid years.
       Glenn Theis had been the third baseman at Byrd when they were seniors, and after he struggled so badly at the plate, he was not going to play at Tech ... until "T-Willie invited me to go out with him and Jim King because practicing baseball was a lot of fun."
        Theis would develop into Tech's top hitter and an all-conference second baseman his last two seasons.
        "I owe so much to him, and I will never forget what he did for me," said Theis, who remained in Ruston to live and work after college.
        "Beside his helping me, I have great love and respect for T-Willie," he added. "... He worked hard to get where he got in every area of his life, and he made a difference in so many lives. He is always so much fun to be around.
        "... And he was a very smart pitcher who used his mind over any outstanding natural ability.
        "Best of all, he is such a great guy."
---
        It was at Tech in a math methods class that T-Willie met the pretty auburn-haired girl named June Flowers, and they dated his senior year.
       But after graduation, in 1970, T-Willie was drafted into the U.S. Army -- at the height of the Vietnam conflict. However, he got a slight break ... if a stint in the unforgiving cold of South Korea was a break (better than being shot at Vietnam).
       June began teaching math at Youree Drive in 1971. When T-Willie returned from Korea in January 1972, his military time done, he began teaching, too. They were married July 20, 1972. (I remember that date -- and always remind them that I do. I was at the wedding and still have the souvenir napkin with the date on it.)
       "She was a straight A student, and I was a P.E. major," T-Willie noted. "Just like you," he told me, "I married way above what I deserve. She is a wonderful wife, mother and grandmother. I have been truly blessed."
       June took a three-year maternity leave from teaching (1977-80), and Karen and Janet were born. By this time, T-Willie's officiating career was established.

T-Willie and Gene Johnson (background)
about to call a Louisiana Tech vs.
Grambling game at Fair Grounds Field.

       It had begun at Tech. A physical education course in officiating piqued his interest, he began calling intramural basketball games, and "Gravy" (Pat Patterson) arranged for T-Willie and (basketball player) Charles Deville to call a high school game while they were students.
     Back in Shreveport, longtime recreation department boss Chris Sidaris got him into baseball umpiring for SPAR games at the Anderson Island field in 1972 and then assigning him high school and Legion games.

       "Gene Johnson and I worked a lot of high school games together since we were teaching together," he recalled, "and I worked junior high basketball [for years] while teaching at Eden Gardens."

       Helped by Bob Molcany and Lloyd Boyce ("Sarge") -- two umps any Shreveport-Bossier baseball kid from the late 1950s through mid-1970s knew -- he began working college games at Centenary and East Texas Baptist in 1975. He called college ball for 37 years.

       (Eventually the Shreveport Regional Umpire Association was formed, and T-Willie assigned the Legion and college crews for games at North Louisiana schools and East Texas Baptist.)

       Two college baseball memories:

       "LSU played Northwestern State in Alexandria," he said, "and NSU had a lead going into the ninth inning when LSU tied it up on a close call at home plate. Dave Van Horn (then the NSU coach, now in his 15th year as the University of Arkansas coach) came out [and argued the call] and covered up home plate (with dirt, a la Billy Martin], saying I wanted them [LSU] to win. He got tossed. LSU won in the 12th inning. I thought to myself, I should have called [the runner] out, so I could get back to Shreveport earlier (and NSU would have won).

       "Pat Patterson, when I was a player at Tech, was ejected from a game at Nicholls State for taking his hat off and banging it against his leg while arguing a call. Years later I had a game at Tech and Pat came running out at me on a call. He took his hat off and started banging it against his leg, saying 'don't throw me out, don't throw me out, T. I'm just trying to fire them up.' It took all I had to keep from laughing at him. I didn't toss him, and they didn't win."

       As the assignment secretary for the Shreveport regional association, T-Willie said he would have "our members meet at my home and go over rules and mechanics. We did this before each college and Legion season."

       Even now -- as you will see -- that is part of his routine. When I called him early one evening in late February, he was at a scrimmage involving several teams at North Desoto High (near Shreveport) and he was evaluating and instructing young umpires on their mechanics.

---      

The football referee, since 1973

     T-Willie began officiating football in 1973, influenced by second-oldest brother Bobby, who was a high school official for years in Shreveport-Bossier. (In fact, his name was in a game story or two -- much to his dismay -- courtesy of a young sportswriter in Shreveport. That's all I can say about that.)

     "I was supposed to be the clock operator for Green Oaks vs. Mansfield," T-Willie recalled, "when Clark Matkins got sick, so they put me at the umpire position. Jack Ferrell was the referee and told me I needed to call something. In the second half, I [finally] threw a flag. Jack asked me what I had. I turned and saw the No. 52 green, so I called holding on him. I had no clue, but things kind of settled down a little.

       "I haven't umpired [in football] again in the last 45 years.

       "I started working on the end of the line and refereed four games the first year. I still didn't have much of a clue, but since I umpired baseball, they thought I knew football."

       Now he does.

       Mike Thibodeaux was a big-time college basketball official (Southeastern Conference group) for 27 years until hip injuries forced him to retire. He also has been the assigning secretary for high school officiating in Northwest Louisiana for football for three decades and baseball for four years. And he appreciates T-Willie Moore.

       "After 46 years in baseball and 44 in football, T-Willie still is excited about every game he works," Thibodeaux said. 

       "In baseball he treats every game the same, from Class 5A to Class C," he added. "He still works just as hard in every game.

       "I have worked baseball games with T-Willie at Fair Grounds Field where Centenary was playing LSU and there were 6,000 fans there and I have worked Class C games where there were 20 people there and he works just as hard no matter what level." 

       In football, Thibodeaux said, "He always has his crew of six officials prepared for the game. Even though he has the same crew for 10 weeks, T-Willie always has a solid pregame where his crew spends 30 minutes going over positioning, rules and at all times hustle. Nobody will outwork T-Willie on the field."

---
      Mike Suggs has been coaching football at Byrd for 26 years, the last 19 as head coach, and said, "Through the years, I've had T-Willie as an official many, many, many times, and seen him do football and baseball games often.
       "You know you're going to have a quality person, a nice guy and a professional."
       Suggs said that "no official is going to get all the calls right, and as a coach you're going to complain some. But you go back and look at the films and realize that sometimes when you complain, the official did get it right.
       "With T-Willie, year in and year out, he's going to do a consistent job. He's going to treat you right, treat the kids right. He's consistent and that's important to know. That's something you always want. You appreciate that as a coach."
---
       Glenn Maynor was a high school and college pitcher in the late 1980s/early 1990s when T-Willie umpired a few of his games and since 1995, he's been the Haughton High School baseball coach.
       "He's chatty," Maynor says. "He talks to everyone. He's vocal -- not in a bad way; he talks to players, coaches. He's cordial, very professional, and pretty fair."
       But there was one day, one game, a couple of years ago ...
       "He ejected me," Maynor said, "one of the two times I've been ejected as a coach. Granted, I deserved it; it was warranted. [In arguing a call] I said the wrong thing. He had made some pretty rough calls earlier in the game. I thought I had a valid point."
       Maynor said as the argument developed -- it was a bunt play and a throw to first which, as Moore recalled, hit the batter/runner who was well inside the baseball when the throw hit him in the back (an out) -- "he's looking at me and I knew I had screwed up. I could see by the look on his face, he's thinking, 'I'm going to have to eject him.'
       "Next time I saw him, when he had one of our games, I apologized," Maynor said, "and it was fine after that."
---

T-Willie Moore has made thousands of strike calls in his long
 baseball umpiring career. (Photo by John James Marshall)

       John James Marshall observed T-Willie's officiating as an athlete, sports writer/editor and as an American Legion baseball coach for a few summers.
       "He is just so fair," JJ said. "He's never putting on a show like some officials or umpires do. He's so level-headed.
       "[As a coach] I always felt obligated to ask about some calls because you had to stick up for your team," he added, "but he would explain it, and you knew he would be calm about it. Not like some of those umps you see on TV that start arguing with the other person."
       Doug Bland, a football and track star at Woodlawn High in the mid-1960s who went on to play football at LSU and is a longtime insurance agent in Shreveport, has been a football official for 27 years, 20 as a referee.
       "T-Willie, as you can probably guess, is highly thought of by all his fellow officiating team members," Bland said. "That also carries over to the coaches. I know coaches breathe a sigh of relief when he is assigned to their games.
       "He knows the rules and, more importantly, knows how and when to apply them. He does a great job of explaining them to coaches even though sometimes they don't agree. He is always willing to help new officials, which has improved the overall performance of our association. He works all levels of football -- middle school, jayvee, varsity -- which helps the young officials."
---
      The reward in officiating, says T-Willie, "is enjoying calling a game where both teams have an equal opportunity to win the game, and nobody noticed that we [the officials/umps] were there."
      The rewards are just as great in mentoring kids.
      "June and I started teaching preschoolers when our girls were young," he said. "When the girls moved up to the young department [at church], we did, too." They have continued working with middle and high school students at church.
      "We have a motto at our church that "every member is a missionary," T-Willie said. "It is such a blessing helping others and encouraging them."
      It is the same in athletics.

      "T-Willie, after all these years, still loves the game and the kids," said Thibodeaux. "He is still giving back to the game with his time and is still respected by coaches and officials every time he steps on the field.
       "The three most important things I can say about T-Willie," said Thibodeaux, "are (1) He is a dedicated Christian man; (2) a dedicated family man; and (3) a dedicated official.

       "I am happy to say he is my friend."
       Many of us share that feeling about Clyde Oliver ... T-Willie.

       Love you, man. 



This recent standoff with a Calvary baserunner heading for home plate did not
 go well for the umpire. The runner banged into T-Willie Moore and bowled him
 over. Playing to the spectators, T-Willie climbed to his knees and signaled "safe."