Showing posts with label Shreveport. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Shreveport. Show all posts
Thursday, January 6, 2022
Monday, May 24, 2021
'Country Joe' West: We remember him when ...
Joe West -- umpire, football star.
Not a pretty sight ... ever.
But the TV crew focused on Mr. West for a full inning -- and more -- because he is about to become the umpire who has called more major-league games than anyone in history.
The focus was on him Monday night because -- stationed at first base -- he was calling his 5,375th regular-season MLB game, tying Bill Klem's all-time record. Tuesday night he will break that record.
Bill Klem was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Joe West a Hall of Famer? C'mon ... be serious.
He has proven that arrogance (always) and incompetence (often) is acceptable in Major League Baseball.
You might have guessed that Joe West is not my favorite umpire. He would rank near the least favorite.
But at least as long as Angel Hernandez and C.B. Bucknor are calling games, West won't be the worst umpire in the big leagues. Nor the most arrogant; Hernandez locks that up every night he steps on the field. That, and most incompetent.
Actually, Joe West is a good umpire when he doesn't doze off and turn lazy. But when he's challenged on a call, he is insufferable, and has been for years.
He's been chosen -- in frequent managers/players polls -- as among the worst umps in the big leagues. To be fair, some voted him as among the best.
Klem umpired in the National League for 37 years, retiring in 1941.
West first umpired in the NL in 1976 and became a fulltime MLB ump in '78. His 43 years is the longest ever for an umpire.
He's worked too many World Series and league playoff games, and he's often been -- willingly -- the center of attention/controversy.
He's known as "Country Joe" or "Cowboy Joe" because, in addition to messing up baseball, he's a country-western singer-songwriter, with a couple of recorded albums.
But we don't sing his praises. No, thank you.
He's 68 and he has said that he will retire after this season. Not soon enough.
However, we have one soft spot for Joe West. Because -- of course -- he has a Shreveport connection.
---
It was Saturday afternoon, December 8, 1973. The NAIA national championship game.
He was not the best QB in the game, however.
Joe was Elon's alternate quarterback and he was a passing sensation once he entered the game. But his team was far behind.
Elon was the No. 1-ranked NAIA team. But No. 3-ranked Abilene Christian, with two stars who would make headlines in the NFL in the near future, routed Elon 42-14 before only 4,162 fans in a 33,000-seat stadium.
Entering the fourth quarter -- when West put on his show -- Elon was behind 28-0.
ACC -- now ACU -- was far too good because (1) its quarterback, Clint Longley, passed for 341 yards and three touchdowns in the game and (2) its star running back, freshman Wilbert Montgomery, ran for 159 yards and caught four passes for 79 yards.
You might have heard of them.
That season, before this game, Longley had passed for 2,826 yards and Montgomery had run for 1,022 yards, and combined they had accounted for 61 touchdowns.
They were NAIA All-Americans. Another NAIA All-American running back that year was Walter Payton of Jackson State. You might have heard of him, too.
So Elon was no match for an Abilene Christian program that only two years earlier had left the Southland Conference, unable to fund its scholarships that league required. The Lone Star Conference was more affordable for ACC, but it obviously had some recruiting attraction.
Longley would become a Dallas Cowboys QB, famous for his 1974 Thanksgiving Day TD heave to Drew Pearson to beat the hated Washington Redskins and infamous for his locker-room, sucker-punch of Cowboys starting QB and superhero Roger Staubach that was Clint's goodbye to the team.
Montgomery would help run the 1980 Philadelphia Eagles past the Cowboys in the NFC title game and into the Super Bowl.
And Joe West? He left football behind because he also liked baseball and found a role in it.
Many a manager and player has told him -- and told the world -- how much they dislike his umpiring. He doesn't care. He's convinced he's never missed a call.
And we can't get him off our television screen.
But, although few will remember, he had one good afternoon in Shreveport. Of course, he played on the losing side. So there.
Tuesday, January 12, 2021
So long ago, but still so sweet
The dates January 7 and January 12 are special to our family, and will be for as long as we're here.
Those dates, in 1956, were monumental for us.
January 7, a Saturday, we were on the boat sailing into New York City -- immigrants to the United States.
January 12, a Thursday, the train pulled into Union Station in Shreveport, Louisiana, at 7 a.m. The sun was just coming up, and for us, the Van Thyn family of four, it really was a new day.
New day, new country, new life. Forever grateful.
It was, as I recall, a bright day. It was clear, the high was 58; the low the night before and that night was right at freezing (32). (Guarantee you it was colder in Amsterdam, and probably snowy.)
At 8 years old, I don't recall being intimidated or terrified, but "unsettled" might best describe it. Same for Dad and Mom, and little Elsa (who was 4). Just trying to figure out what was going on and how to adapt, what to do next. For us, it was totally different. Shreveport was different. It wasn't Amsterdam, that's for sure.
The only Dutch we could speak was at our house; no one else could understand us. We had to learn to speak and understand English; that was a challenge. It took a while, and for Mom and Dad, months of lessons helped. Don't know how Elsa did it so easily -- she wasn't in school yet, like I was -- but she did ... and even now she remembers more Dutch than I do.
Now we had a President (Dwight D. Eisenhower) instead of a Queen (Juliana). "Ike" would be re-elected later that year, again beating Democratic nominee Adlai Stevenson, just as in 1952.
We had a Congress, not a Parliament. We had a Louisiana governor (Robert Kennon, although five days later Earl K. Long -- the crazy man -- would be elected to his second full term, beating New Orleans mayor Chep Morrison.)
Elvis, with his rock 'n roll and his hips and his sideburns, was the big show in entertainment and on The Ed Sullivan Show.
It was Elvis' biggest year to date -- he was everywhere -- and that March he would end his useful and popular association with the Louisiana Hayride in Shreveport.
But seeing him on television? Not us.
TV? A phone? We never had those in The Netherlands.
But Elsa remembers that Mom and Dad brought about $200 with them -- converted from guilders -- and one of the first U.S. purchases was a television (black-and-white, of course; a color TV was a decade away for us). They thought the TV might help us learn English more quickly, and maybe that is how Elsa learned it.
Don't think we had a phone until we moved to Sunset Acres on July 4, 1957. It was a party line at first -- that wasn't fun -- and the number was 64122 (soon to be ME1-4122, ME for Melrose, if I remember correctly).
Instead of streetcars, trams -- Dad had been a tram conductor in Amsterdam all my life (1947-55) -- we now traveled by bus and the memorable trolleys.
No car for a few months; Dad had a tough time getting a driver's license in Holland (the tests were difficult; the people giving them very strict), and it would be a few months before he got a license -- and a (company) car -- in Shreveport.
James C. Gardner, at age 31, was the youngest mayor in Shreveport history. His four-year term (1954-58) interrupted the two long stays (1946-70) of Clyde E. Fant in that job.
Shreveport, like all the South, was so segregated, two separate worlds that rarely mixed. That was very different for the Van Thyns; I don't remember race being any kind of consideration in The Netherlands. Maybe I was too young to notice.
Instead of going to the outdoor market, to which we walked with Mom a few blocks from our tiny, cold, two-story house just about every day in Amsterdam, we now walked a few blocks in Shreveport to a grocery store (A&P). The shelves and bins were full of items we'd never seen, and many of our favorite Dutch items were only a memory.
I knew nothing about American sports (yeah, just refrain from any smart remarks here). I only knew voetbal, Dutch soccer. And I loved it.
Not until 1954 did soccer become a professional sport in Holland; until then, teams were semipro or amateur.
Didn't take long to learn that U.S. sports were serious business. But it took me a few months to find my favorite team ... and the New York Yankees weren't even the defending World Series champions then.
For the only time in history, the Brooklyn Dodgers were, having beaten the Yankees in the 1955 World Series -- the only time that happened in the seven Yankees-Brooklyn Dodgers World Series matchups. By that October (1956), the result was more acceptable; it was the first of 11 times I've experienced the Yankees winning the Series (plus eight times they lost it).
Which brings another memory. Although Mom, Dad and I were not far along in reading or speaking English, I know we already were subscribing to the afternoon newspaper (Shreveport Journal) because I distinctly remember coming home from school and seeing the result of the (Monday) October 8 World Series game -- Game 5 -- that same day. The headline said Yankees pitcher Don Larsen had pitched the first perfect game in Series history. Perfect game? What was that?
(Games in those days began at noon, Eastern time; so 11 a.m. Shreveport time. This game took 2 hours, 6 minutes, so it ended at 1:06 p.m., plenty of time for the Journal to get the whole story into its city/home edition.)
In American sports, the Cleveland Browns were the reigning NFL champions, the powerhouse franchise -- led by QB Otto Graham and coach Paul Brown -- that had played in seven consecutive NFL title games, every year since they had joined the league.
Oklahoma was king of college football, the Bud Wilkinson-coached dynasty in the middle of its record 47-game winning streak.
San Francisco -- the Dons -- was the NCAA basketball champions, about to win its second consecutive title led by a shot-blocking big guy, Bill Russell, and defensive expert guard K.C. Jones.
The Boston Celtics had never won an NBA championship (but they soon would win 11 with Russell at center). The reigning NBA champs were the Syracuse Nationals; the Philadelphia Warriors won in 1956.
The NHL champions were the Detroit Red Wings. But in 1956, the dynastic Montreal Canadiens would rule again.
The big names in golf were Sam Snead, Ben Hogan (of Fort Worth), and Byron Nelson (who was about to retire). But Hogan's star was beginning to fade; in 1955, he had been runner-up in the Masters (to Dr. Cary Middlecoff) and the U.S. Open (in a playoff loss to little-heralded Jack Fleck in one of golf's greatest upsets).
Arnold Palmer was the 1954 U.S. Amateur champion who had turned pro and, in 1955, played in his first Masters (finished 10th), made the U.S. Open cut for the first time and finished 21st. Jack Nicklaus was about to turn 16, a chubby kid in Ohio with a lot of golfing promise.
And, back to baseball ... the Shreveport Sports were the reigning Texas League champions. Knowing their manager, Mel McGaha, and their ballpark were in my future.
I had never heard of any of them. But I knew about Abe Lenstra, Faas Wilkes, Wim Van Est, Kees Broekman, Jan Klaasens and Coen Dillen.
Sunset Acres was a fairly new neighborhood in southwest Shreveport; the elementary school was in its second year. My future best friend, Casey Baker, and my future classmates, were in the third grade, and -- beginning on the afternoon of January 12 -- so was I, at Line Avenue Elementary across town. Good memories there, too.
(For my Woodlawn connections: In January 1956, Lee Hedges was an assistant coach at Fair Park High. Jack Rowan, eight days before we arrived, had resigned as head coach at Byrd High. Three months later, Hedges -- at age 26 -- was named the Byrd head coach, a job for which he had not applied. Meanwhile, A.L. Williams was preparing for his senior season as a Louisiana Tech halfback, and Jerry Adams also was a senior at Tech, his college time interrupted by service time, his football career limited by a very damaged knee. But those young men -- Hedges, Williams, Adams -- learned a lot about football and leading/teaching young people and in a few years, many Woodlawn Knights would benefit greatly.)
For us, Sunset Acres -- and owning a home -- was not even a thought. Could not have imagined Oak Terrace Junior High (where my path to keeping stats for athletic teams and newspapering began), "Camelot" at Woodlawn, going to college (Louisiana Tech), a journalism degree, a start at The Shreveport Times, the Journal and a career full of other newspapers.
Shreveport was home for me for 30 years -- Sunset Acres for a glorious 10-year period -- and more than 50 years for Mom and Dad, including 40-plus in the house in South Broadmoor.
For me, there was Beatrice and Jason, then Rachel, then in-law kids and four spectactular grandchildren, a helluva lot of mistakes, misdeeds and moves, too many great times to count but blessed to remember. Fort Worth became the greatest place in the world to live, and specifically, Trinity Terrace.
It all began January 12, 1956. It was a bright day, and it was clear. But clearly we couldn't look too far ahead.
---
Two related blog pieces (from 2012):
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/5125402567351329247/1373025344885949427
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/5125402567351329247/8935378780711618213
Friday, September 18, 2020
Always time for nostalgia
Let's start with this: People love nostalgia.
I am one of those people, although I'd like to think that I very much am a "today" person. The great majority of my blogs have been nostalgic pieces.
This week we posted another Bo Campbell photo, taking the baton from Byrd High teammate Pat Studstill for the last leg of a 1957 mile relay. Both went from there to football stardom in college and, for Studstill, a 12-year NFL stay as a punter and wide receiver. For Campbell, a very successful business career, primarily in banking in Shreveport.
-- On August 30 (again found while looking for track stuff), I came across the clippings of Terry Bradshaw and Tommy Spinks -- our great QB/receiver team signing their scholarships to Louisiana Tech, with Coach Lee Hedges (one of our all-time favorites) in both photos.
There are a couple of reasons why I send out (by e-mail or posts on Facebook) many photos and/or clippings from the past:
(1) People like them, and will react to them;
(2) I either "share" many that are posted on my Facebook feed or that I find in researching newspaper files.
Speaking of research, this blog has been dormant for three months, and here's why: Much of my time since mid-June has been spent working on my latest "project," which -- I hope -- will turn into a book or booklet.
The subject matter -- Louisiana high school outdoor track and field records/results/history -- is going to interest only a certain segment. Picking up from 2004, when Jerry Byrd Sr. (Shreveport) did a book on it, and updating those records (2005-2020) plus going back in time to fill in many missing names has taken hours and hours.
So not much time for blogging. In fact, I am interrupting the designing of pages, working (struggling) with Word and Publisher programs, to write this blog and another one that is a continuation/addition to my Dad's story (and related to the Holocaust).
To be honest, I also have not felt much like writing about today's sports world (baseball, NFL, college football, NBA, NHL, college football, college basketball, golf). Figure there are enough opinions out there to satisfy readers' needs; you don't need or want my opinion. (And, surprise, I do have a lot of opinions.)
You sure as heck don't want or need my opinions on politics and social issues; more than enough of that out there ... every day, every hour, every minute.
Sorry, fed up with all of it. From all sides, incidentally.
Tried that once a couple of months ago, with an out-of-character political opinion that, through e-mail and Facebook, was met with more than several critical "please don't do that again" messages.
So there. Keep your opinions to yourself. Just go vote.
OK, back to nostalgia. I can post stuff -- stories/columns, photos, etc. -- from today's world, mostly sports but also on a variety of things, such recent posts on eating fried catfish and doing a Trinity River trash pickup. Reaction to most of those is good but not resounding.
Well, there is one element that is gratifying. Get the most response if I post old or new Van Thyn family photos or photos of the four spectacular grandchildren.
But what I find gets the most reaction is photos from the Shreveport high school sports heroes of the 1950s and 1960s and some into the 1970s. My Facebook and e-mail friends really do love those.
Most of them are aimed at Louisiana readers, and many are -- of course -- Woodlawn related. But we try to mix in some Byrd, Fair Park, Bossier, Jesuit and others.
One popular recent post: photos of four of Louisiana's best 1950s high school athletes: Billy Cannon, Bo Campbell, Charles "Cotton" Nash and Jerry Dyes.
People liked seeing this photo.
I'm frequently asked where I find these clippings. Easy answer: newspapers.com. Having access to many Louisiana paper files (other cities/states, too) is a big plus for research, and what's helped even more recently is having temporary access to the Baton Rouge Morning Advocate and New Orleans Times-Picayne files (thanks to the East Baton Rouge Parish library).
So while I'm researching track and field, I happen to come across some clippings and photos I think people might enjoy seeing again.
(For much of two years, as I researched Shreveport and Northwest Louisiana pro baseball, I would post stories and photos tying into those teams and players. That material went into a book form -- That's The Old Ballgame Shreveport -- that is available online.)
But it is the Woodlawn posts, because so many of my old friends are from 1960s school days, that prove most popular.
Two examples:
-- On August 30 (again found while looking for track stuff), I came across the clippings of Terry Bradshaw and Tommy Spinks -- our great QB/receiver team signing their scholarships to Louisiana Tech, with Coach Lee Hedges (one of our all-time favorites) in both photos.
-- On July 1, we posted a photo of Bradshaw with Coach A.L. Williams (another all-time favorite) in a posed shot on the Woodlawn track during the national-record javelin throw spring of 1966 for Terry. That photo keeps repeating on my Facebook news feed because it is so popular.
Who knows what I'll find next. But if the Facebook and e-mail friends keep liking them, I'll keep trying ... if you don't mind.
Thursday, March 12, 2020
When the state's basketball eyes were on Shreveport
(Second of three parts)
From Jim Dawson's column, The Shreveport Times, on the Top Twenty's first day (March 9, 1961):
Louisiana is fortunate to have an arena such as the 10,500-seat Youth Center in which to stage its "Top Twenty." This cavernous auditorium on the State Fair Grounds isn't likely to be taxed to capacity during the inaugural "Top Twenty," but stranger things have happened. North Louisiana has its usual strong semifinals contingent and appears likely to cart away three of the five championships.
(Three North Louisiana champs, indeed -- AA, Ruston; B, Ringgold; C, Athens.)
From the start, the tournament format/schedule was Thursday and Friday, two sessions a day -- two afternoon games (1:30 start), clear the place, three night games (starting at 6); Saturday -- five championship games, two sessions -- Classes C and B in the afternoon; Class A, AA and AAA at night.
No way the tournament made money the first year. Ticket prices -- each session -- were $1.50 for adults, $1 for students, 50 cents for children under 12. Ah, 1961 prices.
The Times sports pages on opening day included all the team rosters, a capsule look at the tournament's top players, a list of previous state champions, and -- through the week's buildup -- various team photos. My opinion: impressive coverage for four days.
(A personal note: In Jim Dawson's column, a section titled "Tourney Potpourri" included this note: "LOGANSPORT HAS THE YOUNGEST player, 13-year-old Kenneth Harvey, an eighth-grader." That Kenneth Harvey, the once-young man who was the subject of my blog's nine-part series in 2013.)
One giant (and strange) LHSAA mistake the first year: The scheduling of the tournament's biggest attraction, Shreveport's Byrd Yellow Jackets.
They were in the Class AAA semifinals, and their game vs. Baton Rouge High (the eventual champion) was scheduled at 1:30 p.m. on Friday; yes, a weekday afternoon game, instead of one of the featured slots, the wrapup game on one of the first two nights.
So the per-session average attendance the first year was 2,159 -- OK, but not exactly a success. Still, the LHSAA approved a second year for Shreveport ... and later, two more two-year deals.
In the third year (1963), a big break and a step up for the tournament: Fair Park, Byrd's top rival, emerged as the final hope in what was one of the best Shreveport-Bossier seasons ever for high school basketball. Wisely, the LHSAA scheduled the Indians for a Class AAA semifinal vs. Fortier (New Orleans) in the 8:40 p.m. Friday wrapup game.
Fair Park breezed to a 62-33 victory and the next night, before the first almost capacity crowd in tournament history, beat Lafayette for the state title and helped give the attendance total a 5,800 boost over the previous year.
And by then, the thrill of reaching the Top Twenty and playing at Hirsch had set in for all the schools, small and large. Even the New Orleans teams and their fans did not mind making the trip.
Plus, it was a meeting place for the state's coaches and for the college recruiters scouting -- and pursuing -- many of the state's top prospects.
(Also in 1963, the girls state tournament -- the "Sweet Sixteen," four teams in four classes -- began in Pineville. It, too, has carried on; the 58th annual was played last week in Lake Charles.)
Top Twenty tournament attendance (with one small exception) and revenue grew with each year. But in 1966, Shreveport and Hirsch's host time ran out.
Alexandria, with its 1-year-old Rapides Coliseum (which seated near 10,000), and -- most importantly -- its central location (thus shortening the trip for South Louisiana schools) made the LHSAA a financial offer that Shreveport did not match.
So starting in 1967, Rapides -- on Highway 28 West -- was the basketball mecca.
---
As a high school sophomore, I first attended Shreveport's Top Twenty in Fair Park's title year (1963) and most games of the 1964 and '65 tournaments ... in '65, on media row, thanks to my Times connections.
One '65 memory (thanks to a reminder from longtime Louisiana sports writer/editor Bob Tompkins about a team from his school): The "Century Club" Jesuit (New Orleans) Class AAA state champs, probably the best team of the all-white era. Deep and talented, the Blue Jays scored 100-plus points in their two Top Twenty games. The year before, Jesuit had routed Fair Park in the Class AAA final; this Jesuit team was even better.
By 1970, in my first full year as a Times sportswriter, my first day of Top Twenty coverage was memorable. The afternoon session was a packed house (national scoring leader and phenom Greg Procell and Ebarb in the Class C final was the big attraction); the night session was an overflow, no-room-to-move crowd and a monumental Class AAA championship between Captain Shreve (Shreveport) and Brother Martin (New Orleans), a classic overtime slugfest.
(Wrote about that day, those games, in a previous blog:
https://nvanthyn.blogspot.com/2018/11/cannons-friend-but-not-captain-shreves.html)
Another personal note: Covered the Top Twenty for six years in Alexandria, and it was among the best times I had in an early stage of my career. So much work, but so much fun, being part of the scene, being among the top prep writers in the state ... and watching so much great basketball.
(Next: What's happened to the tournament)
From Jim Dawson's column, The Shreveport Times, on the Top Twenty's first day (March 9, 1961):
Louisiana is fortunate to have an arena such as the 10,500-seat Youth Center in which to stage its "Top Twenty." This cavernous auditorium on the State Fair Grounds isn't likely to be taxed to capacity during the inaugural "Top Twenty," but stranger things have happened. North Louisiana has its usual strong semifinals contingent and appears likely to cart away three of the five championships.
(Three North Louisiana champs, indeed -- AA, Ruston; B, Ringgold; C, Athens.)
From the start, the tournament format/schedule was Thursday and Friday, two sessions a day -- two afternoon games (1:30 start), clear the place, three night games (starting at 6); Saturday -- five championship games, two sessions -- Classes C and B in the afternoon; Class A, AA and AAA at night.
No way the tournament made money the first year. Ticket prices -- each session -- were $1.50 for adults, $1 for students, 50 cents for children under 12. Ah, 1961 prices.
 |
| The schedule for the first state tournament |
(A personal note: In Jim Dawson's column, a section titled "Tourney Potpourri" included this note: "LOGANSPORT HAS THE YOUNGEST player, 13-year-old Kenneth Harvey, an eighth-grader." That Kenneth Harvey, the once-young man who was the subject of my blog's nine-part series in 2013.)
One giant (and strange) LHSAA mistake the first year: The scheduling of the tournament's biggest attraction, Shreveport's Byrd Yellow Jackets.
They were in the Class AAA semifinals, and their game vs. Baton Rouge High (the eventual champion) was scheduled at 1:30 p.m. on Friday; yes, a weekday afternoon game, instead of one of the featured slots, the wrapup game on one of the first two nights.
So the per-session average attendance the first year was 2,159 -- OK, but not exactly a success. Still, the LHSAA approved a second year for Shreveport ... and later, two more two-year deals.
Fair Park breezed to a 62-33 victory and the next night, before the first almost capacity crowd in tournament history, beat Lafayette for the state title and helped give the attendance total a 5,800 boost over the previous year.
And by then, the thrill of reaching the Top Twenty and playing at Hirsch had set in for all the schools, small and large. Even the New Orleans teams and their fans did not mind making the trip.
Plus, it was a meeting place for the state's coaches and for the college recruiters scouting -- and pursuing -- many of the state's top prospects.
(Also in 1963, the girls state tournament -- the "Sweet Sixteen," four teams in four classes -- began in Pineville. It, too, has carried on; the 58th annual was played last week in Lake Charles.)
 |
| Last time in Shreveport (the 1966 schedule) |
Alexandria, with its 1-year-old Rapides Coliseum (which seated near 10,000), and -- most importantly -- its central location (thus shortening the trip for South Louisiana schools) made the LHSAA a financial offer that Shreveport did not match.
So starting in 1967, Rapides -- on Highway 28 West -- was the basketball mecca.
---
As a high school sophomore, I first attended Shreveport's Top Twenty in Fair Park's title year (1963) and most games of the 1964 and '65 tournaments ... in '65, on media row, thanks to my Times connections.
One '65 memory (thanks to a reminder from longtime Louisiana sports writer/editor Bob Tompkins about a team from his school): The "Century Club" Jesuit (New Orleans) Class AAA state champs, probably the best team of the all-white era. Deep and talented, the Blue Jays scored 100-plus points in their two Top Twenty games. The year before, Jesuit had routed Fair Park in the Class AAA final; this Jesuit team was even better.
By 1970, in my first full year as a Times sportswriter, my first day of Top Twenty coverage was memorable. The afternoon session was a packed house (national scoring leader and phenom Greg Procell and Ebarb in the Class C final was the big attraction); the night session was an overflow, no-room-to-move crowd and a monumental Class AAA championship between Captain Shreve (Shreveport) and Brother Martin (New Orleans), a classic overtime slugfest.
(Wrote about that day, those games, in a previous blog:
https://nvanthyn.blogspot.com/2018/11/cannons-friend-but-not-captain-shreves.html)
Another personal note: Covered the Top Twenty for six years in Alexandria, and it was among the best times I had in an early stage of my career. So much work, but so much fun, being part of the scene, being among the top prep writers in the state ... and watching so much great basketball.
(Next: What's happened to the tournament)
Wednesday, March 11, 2020
Louisiana's "Marsh Madness" was magic
(First of three parts)
The building stands on the Louisiana State Fairgrounds along Interstate 20 in west Shreveport, as it has since the mid-1950s. The name now is Hirsch Memorial Coliseum; when it opened, it was Hirsch Youth Center.
Elvis played there, and left the building ... in 1957.
Many other acts performed there -- singers, the circus, Centenary College basketball and the Louisiana Invitational Tournament/Gulf South Classic.
It is, mostly now, the home of ice hockey (the Mudbugs, a junior-level professional) team, and the rodeo site during the Louisiana State Fair.
But how we remember it most: A long time ago, it was the mecca of high school basketball in Louisiana.
It was, from 1961 to 1966, the first home of the boys state tournament, the "Top Twenty."
And once upon a time, covering the state tournament was a magic time for a young sportswriter. Gosh, we loved it.
The 60th annual edition -- 60 years, can you believe it? -- will be played this week at Burton Coliseum in Lake Charles.
But the state tournament is not what it used to be. (Right, and your reaction is, what is?).
In our boyhood, when it began (and we do remember that), it was one of the greatest things that ever happened for basketball in Louisiana. Yes, in my opinion, even better than Pistol Pete Maravich and -- arguably -- Coach Dale Brown at LSU.
For years and years, state championships had been decided in school gymnasiums, one team as the host -- thanks to a coin-flip victory -- and the visiting team facing a road challenge.
Many believed it wasn't fair, knowing that basketball-crazy states such as Indiana and Illinois had the right idea: a state tournament, played at a neutral site.
After several years of in-fighting among the school principals who made the decisions in the Louisiana High School Athletic Association, the idea became reality.
So starting in '61, the final four teams in the five LHSAA classifications -- AAA, AA, A, B and C -- came to one site for (at the beginning) three intense days of basketball. Four teams, five classes ... a Top Twenty.
Don't know the origin of that tournament name, but -- just a bit partial here -- let's credit the organizers in Shreveport and the sportswriters at The Shreveport Times. And Hirsch Youth Center was a perfect home, for a short while.
That was home. We were the proud home team, so to speak.
The guys in the sports department at The Times were the first to give the tournament the full coverage it deserved. And as the historical microfilm pages of the newspaper prove, they did a helluva good job.
(Yes, I am partial. Two years later, on those sports pages, I would begin a career of bylines.)
Researching this subject, through the sports pages of the late 1950s and in 1960, there was clearly a divided state.
On one side: Small-school principals (and coaches) preferred to take their championship hopes to the big city. They realized that playoff games in their small gyms often attracted overflow crowds, uncomfortable conditions for fans and the on-court action. Plus, their games got little press coverage. A state tournament, with writers from all over, would change that.
Opposing side: Many/most South Louisiana schools -- especially a solid core of the bigger New Orleans schools -- were OK with a playoff format that The Times sports columnist Jim Dawson in 1959 called "probably the worst system in the United States."
Among the opponents, though -- surprisingly considering his former basketball-coach role -- was Bossier High's Frank Lampkin. Well-respected, he and his coach, John McConathy, had proven their stance.
When their team -- led by future major-league baseball and Centenary basketball star Cecil Upshaw -- made the Class AAA state title game in 1960, Lampkin and McConathy turned down a chance to play the game at Hirsch (10,500 seating capacity) and, not wanting to give up homecourt advantage, opted to stay at Bossier's tiny old gym, where some 600 fans crammed in to see the Bearkats beat DeLaSalle (New Orleans) 39-34.
DeLaSalle's Johnny Altobello, the state's most successful high school basketball coach of the 1950s and '60s, was with Lampkin in the battle "against" right up to the end.
For several years, one of the leading principals "for" -- and an advocate for Shreveport and Hirsch -- was J.H. Napper of Simsboro (Class B). His efforts were rewarded at the LHSAA meetings in March 1960.
It was Shreveport that made the difference.
Centenary athletic director-coach Orvis Sigler, a Missouri man who had come to town after coaching at the U.S. Military Academy, was a basketball promoter and the spokesman for the Shreveport group at the pivotal LHSAA meetings.
Sigler's pitch: The Athletic Affairs Committee of the Shreveport Chamber of Commerce had agreed to underwrite the state tournament, offering a $12,000 guarantee to the LHSAA with all expenses paid for the visiting teams, plus $400 for each of the 10 finalists and $200 for each of the 10 losing semifinalists. Net profits after expenses would be equally divided among the 20 schools.
Still, the LHSAA Executive Committee turned down the proposal by a 15-13 vote. Told of the strong support by the four lower classification schools for the tournament, Triple-A principals reconsidered by a 17-4 vote. And then the Executive Committee vote was 26-2 "for" (Lampkin and Altobello were the "no" votes.)
The next day -- March 26, 1960 -- it was James "Little Fuzzy" Brown, principal of arguably the state's top athletics powerhouse at the time, Istrouma of Baton Rouge, who told the entire body of school principals: "Let's do this for the good of basketball in this state, not for the interests of a few individuals."
Napper and Minden High principal W.W. Williams joined Brown in pushing the "for" proposal ... and it passed in a landslide.
The next March, basketball took a huge step in Louisiana.
(Next: Louisiana's basketball eyes were on Shreveport)
 |
| Where Louisiana boys state basketball tournament began in 1961 |
Elvis played there, and left the building ... in 1957.
Many other acts performed there -- singers, the circus, Centenary College basketball and the Louisiana Invitational Tournament/Gulf South Classic.
It is, mostly now, the home of ice hockey (the Mudbugs, a junior-level professional) team, and the rodeo site during the Louisiana State Fair.
But how we remember it most: A long time ago, it was the mecca of high school basketball in Louisiana.
It was, from 1961 to 1966, the first home of the boys state tournament, the "Top Twenty."
And once upon a time, covering the state tournament was a magic time for a young sportswriter. Gosh, we loved it.
The 60th annual edition -- 60 years, can you believe it? -- will be played this week at Burton Coliseum in Lake Charles.
But the state tournament is not what it used to be. (Right, and your reaction is, what is?).
In our boyhood, when it began (and we do remember that), it was one of the greatest things that ever happened for basketball in Louisiana. Yes, in my opinion, even better than Pistol Pete Maravich and -- arguably -- Coach Dale Brown at LSU.
For years and years, state championships had been decided in school gymnasiums, one team as the host -- thanks to a coin-flip victory -- and the visiting team facing a road challenge.Many believed it wasn't fair, knowing that basketball-crazy states such as Indiana and Illinois had the right idea: a state tournament, played at a neutral site.
After several years of in-fighting among the school principals who made the decisions in the Louisiana High School Athletic Association, the idea became reality.
So starting in '61, the final four teams in the five LHSAA classifications -- AAA, AA, A, B and C -- came to one site for (at the beginning) three intense days of basketball. Four teams, five classes ... a Top Twenty.
Don't know the origin of that tournament name, but -- just a bit partial here -- let's credit the organizers in Shreveport and the sportswriters at The Shreveport Times. And Hirsch Youth Center was a perfect home, for a short while.
That was home. We were the proud home team, so to speak.
The guys in the sports department at The Times were the first to give the tournament the full coverage it deserved. And as the historical microfilm pages of the newspaper prove, they did a helluva good job.
(Yes, I am partial. Two years later, on those sports pages, I would begin a career of bylines.)
Researching this subject, through the sports pages of the late 1950s and in 1960, there was clearly a divided state.
On one side: Small-school principals (and coaches) preferred to take their championship hopes to the big city. They realized that playoff games in their small gyms often attracted overflow crowds, uncomfortable conditions for fans and the on-court action. Plus, their games got little press coverage. A state tournament, with writers from all over, would change that.
Opposing side: Many/most South Louisiana schools -- especially a solid core of the bigger New Orleans schools -- were OK with a playoff format that The Times sports columnist Jim Dawson in 1959 called "probably the worst system in the United States."
Among the opponents, though -- surprisingly considering his former basketball-coach role -- was Bossier High's Frank Lampkin. Well-respected, he and his coach, John McConathy, had proven their stance.
When their team -- led by future major-league baseball and Centenary basketball star Cecil Upshaw -- made the Class AAA state title game in 1960, Lampkin and McConathy turned down a chance to play the game at Hirsch (10,500 seating capacity) and, not wanting to give up homecourt advantage, opted to stay at Bossier's tiny old gym, where some 600 fans crammed in to see the Bearkats beat DeLaSalle (New Orleans) 39-34.
DeLaSalle's Johnny Altobello, the state's most successful high school basketball coach of the 1950s and '60s, was with Lampkin in the battle "against" right up to the end.
For several years, one of the leading principals "for" -- and an advocate for Shreveport and Hirsch -- was J.H. Napper of Simsboro (Class B). His efforts were rewarded at the LHSAA meetings in March 1960.
It was Shreveport that made the difference.
Centenary athletic director-coach Orvis Sigler, a Missouri man who had come to town after coaching at the U.S. Military Academy, was a basketball promoter and the spokesman for the Shreveport group at the pivotal LHSAA meetings.
Sigler's pitch: The Athletic Affairs Committee of the Shreveport Chamber of Commerce had agreed to underwrite the state tournament, offering a $12,000 guarantee to the LHSAA with all expenses paid for the visiting teams, plus $400 for each of the 10 finalists and $200 for each of the 10 losing semifinalists. Net profits after expenses would be equally divided among the 20 schools.
Still, the LHSAA Executive Committee turned down the proposal by a 15-13 vote. Told of the strong support by the four lower classification schools for the tournament, Triple-A principals reconsidered by a 17-4 vote. And then the Executive Committee vote was 26-2 "for" (Lampkin and Altobello were the "no" votes.)
The next day -- March 26, 1960 -- it was James "Little Fuzzy" Brown, principal of arguably the state's top athletics powerhouse at the time, Istrouma of Baton Rouge, who told the entire body of school principals: "Let's do this for the good of basketball in this state, not for the interests of a few individuals."
Napper and Minden High principal W.W. Williams joined Brown in pushing the "for" proposal ... and it passed in a landslide.
The next March, basketball took a huge step in Louisiana.
(Next: Louisiana's basketball eyes were on Shreveport)
Thursday, December 6, 2018
"Fast Eddie:" A world of trouble ... a sad ending
He was one of those kids we knew in the late 1950s -- a rough-edged, tough young guy. And then, where did he go?
It is a sad story, a horrible one, really. Ended tragically. Two weeks ago, we got a reminder.
Someone contacted me looking for information on this man, provided some background (not all of it correct), sent a photo, and asked, "Is this 'Fast' Eddie Smith?"
Instant recognition. Yes. Yes, it is/was Eddie Smith.
The photo -- from a Woodlawn High School yearbook -- was the kid we remembered ... from our neighborhood and our schools (Sunset Acres Elementary, Oak Terrace Junior High and Woodlawn).
We had been on the same kids' baseball team one year, I was certain of that. Read on, you'll see why I remember.
The information sent said he was a 1965 graduate of Woodlawn, but, no, actually he was in the Class of '66. So a year behind us in school -- for eight years.
What was correct was this: In 1983, a man named Willie Eddie Smith was murdered in Shreveport.
Intriguing. And, of course, I thought: This might make for an interesting blog. Time to do some research.
Did not remember this happening, although it must have been in the papers. To find out, to be reminded 35 years later, was a bit of a shock.
We were in Shreveport in 1983, working as part of a terrific, talented, fun-loving sports department at the Journal. The big story in sports for us that year was second-year pro Hal Sutton's emergence as the top money winner on the PGA Tour and the PGA Championship wire-to-wire winner that August.
By then, Eddie Smith -- from Sunset Acres -- had been dead for 2 1/2 months.
Shot to death May 23 in an argument related to a card game (poker).
The "Fast Eddie" nickname, referenced in a newspaper story a week after Willie Edward Smith's obituary in The Shreveport Times, was a hint to the fast, wild, sordid life of the victim.
Just how wild we learned by tracking down two people: (1) a Smith family member -- Eddie's nephew, a son of his oldest brother -- and (2) one of our school buddies.
"Eddie stayed in trouble," said the nephew, R. Lewis Smith. "Some people just find trouble wherever they go, and that was Eddie. And the trouble got worse and worse through his life."
Until he met a fast death.
---
Details of the end (taken from stories in The Times): Shot three times, in the head and the abdomen, and also beaten in the face.
He had been the lone white man in a group of five at 2911 Portland, Apartment A, located in the Queensborough area (close to the State Fairgrounds).
Much like Sunset Acres, Queensborough had been a comfortable, working-class, almost all-white residential neighborhood, but by 1983, it had become more mixed-race, lower-income, and the streets were meaner.
The shooting, said the July 6 story which reported that the triggerman -- Jack King, then 34 -- had pleaded guilty, followed an argument over (what else?) money.
King was allowed to take a lesser plea of manslaughter -- rather than second-degree murder -- in agreement to a maximum sentence of 21 years in prison.
After the Shreveport police investigation, King was arrested within two days after the shooting.
That day and over the next week, four people -- three men (one King's roommate) and one 20-year-old woman -- also were arrested and charged as accessories after the fact, meaning they witnessed the act, then helped clean blood from the apartment and dispose of the body. (Two of the "accessories" lived in the apartment.)
Early the next morning after the shooting, Eddie's body was found in the rear seat of his compact foreign car [a red Plymouth Barracuda] on Hardy Street (some nine blocks from the Portland apartment).
At the time of the murder, King also had been charged with armed robbery and aggravated burglary in another case. But that was dismissed in September 1983.
The four "accessories" cases ultimately were dismissed, one by that July, the others late the next year.
Guess the murder sentence was enough for the courts, and that with King in prison, the "accessories" were given leniency.
No leniency for Eddie. But while his death "was a hard time for all of us," said nephew Lewis Smith, "it wasn't surprising.
"He always ran with the wrong crowd. It was a downward spiral that Eddie went through for years and years."
---
In the stories in The Times, Eddie is listed as living in Keithville -- just south of Shreveport. But his obituary said he lived in Shreveport and his nephew said he resided at the home that had been the family's for years -- 2867 Hollywood, the northeast part of Sunset Acres (the "other" side of the canal from us, about 11 blocks from our house, 10 blocks from the elementary school).
That is where we remember him from the late 1950s.
Willie Edward was born late in 1947, the "baby" of his family -- with a much older father (Robert Calhoun "Shorty" Smith) and mother Margaret Gould Smith, and two brothers who were almost a generation older -- Robert by 17 years, Jerry by 14.
The family dynamics were problematic.
"He never got along with his father, my grandfather," said Lewis Smith.
There was little connection with the brothers, who had long moved away from home by Eddie's teenage years.
The tie with the mother was stronger, for many years. But the relationship soured as trouble mounted, and finally fell apart.
Dennis Storey was a Sunset Acres friend, in the same grade as Eddie throughout school days, also a Woodlawn '66 graduate. He was a frequent visitor to the Smith home, and felt that Eddie "was an 'accident' child.
"He was a spoiled kid," Storey remembered. "The way he talked to his Dad ... If I had talked to my Dad that way, he'd have whooped my ass."
"Shorty" Smith was a painter, and Eddie worked with his father some in those years. "I thought he would end up as a painter, too," said Storey. Did not happen; the obituary listed him as a plumber.
---
Our brief tie with Eddie Smith was on a St. James Episcopal Church-sponsored midget league baseball team (ages 10-12) in either the summer of 1959 or 1960. He was a compact-built kid, a catcher, one of the better players on a team with little talent and few victories.
But here is the distinct memory ...
Late in the season, on a game-ending play, an opposing runner crashed into Eddie at home plate and flattened him. He was hurt.
In fact, he was hurt badly enough that the coach and concerned parents took him to a hospital. Internal injuries caused swelling and shock, and the vivid memory is that Eddie's body overnight had to be packed in ice.
That incident perhaps was a sign of woes to come.
He recovered, but he did not play again that summer. Don't recall him playing baseball again.
But Storey said he remembered Eddie playing running back for our junior-high team: "He was a helluva football player ... he'd just as soon run over you as look at you." Another friend recalled Eddie running track one junior-high year. (I don't recall him in either sport, but I don't doubt it.)
By high school, he was a different guy. He had the look, frankly, of a hood, a thug. The hair was slicked back, not a total ducktail -- so hood-looking in those days of the crewcut or flattop that our faculty much preferred -- but close.
A memory from school: Eddie swaggered his way around.
"His demeanor was that he wanted to be the tough guy," said Storey. "I did not run around with him by then. I thought he would eventually run into trouble.
"He was hanging around the wrong people, riding motorcycles. And I think he got in a gang."
Storey, retired after 32 years of working in traffic engineering for the City of Shreveport and now living in Blanchard, recalled a chance meeting many years later at a convenience-store stop in Bossier City. In the parking lot, he noticed a familiar -- but changed -- figure.
"He looked like a gang member," he said of Eddie. "Black leather jacket, the motorcycle ('choppers' they called them), beard, mustache, he was -- as they called it -- 'flying the colors' for the gang.
"I talked to him, but I knew I didn't want to stay around long. It was obvious he was gang-related and dope-related."
Mike Flores (Woodlawn Class of '65) was another neighborhood resident who lived closeby and said, "I remember Eddie Smith's name better than I remember Eddie the person. As I recall, he was on the periphery of all my groups."
Flores said it had been decades and he had no knowledge of Eddie after high school.
"My memory is that he ran with a rougher crowd," Mike said. "Maybe his associates caught up with him in the end."
For sure, Eddie Smith was a black-cloud person, accidents waiting to happen.
---
Lewis Smith, 63, a Shreveport resident who is a certified public accountant and registered financial advisor, said that writing about Eddie now would not be a problem for the family. "We all know the story," he said.
The trail of trouble was long, and Lewis offered some details. So did our check with the Caddo Parish Clerk of Courts office.
• An altercation with the Shreveport police in which he was a holdout inside a house, then was shot and had a severe stomach wound.
• A conviction for possession/distribution of methamphetamines Dec. 7, 1972, and a sentence of two years hard labor at the federal prison in Oakdale, La.
• A couple of motorcycle wrecks. On one, he hit a median curve going 70-80 miles an hour ("he was totally reckless," said Lewis), causing a shattered jawbone and a total reconstruction of his jaw. Lewis: "He kind of mumbled after that."
• A conviction for receiving stolen goods, Jan. 10, 1983, a guilty plea, a fine of $500 and costs or 50 days in the Caddo Parish jail.
A little more than four months later, the end.
Lewis, who had been a funeral director for Rose-Neath before becoming a CPA, knew some of the people who made the arrangements for Eddie's service and burial (Lewis was one of the pallbearers).
For the final decade of his life, family members occasionally would see Eddie. Lewis said his younger brother Charles Wayne also was a plumber and at times crossed paths with Eddie at work.
."He [Eddie] was always on the fringe of the family," Lewis said. "He might show up for holidays, but he was not really part of it."
And even the mother, who had tried to maintain a relationship, gave up.
"She settled up with Eddie several years before [his death," Lewis said, "and did not have much to do with him. She was tired of financially bailing him out and supporting him."
The death "was hard to Memaw to accept, it was a grueling time for her. But it also put her at peace. It put a lot of things to rest."
---
There is no redeeming message in Eddie Smith's story. It is an example that even in an idyllic neighborhood and schools of our youth not everything turned out well in our Camelot.
It is, though, a heartbreaking story -- one of several from our area.
"It wasn't that Eddie did not have good examples in his household," Lewis Smith said, recalling his grandparents' efforts. "Memaw could not understand what happened to him.
"He could not change, or he didn't want to. Other people go through rehab, and some make changes. Some don't. He didn't even try."
It is a sad story, a horrible one, really. Ended tragically. Two weeks ago, we got a reminder.
Someone contacted me looking for information on this man, provided some background (not all of it correct), sent a photo, and asked, "Is this 'Fast' Eddie Smith?"Instant recognition. Yes. Yes, it is/was Eddie Smith.
The photo -- from a Woodlawn High School yearbook -- was the kid we remembered ... from our neighborhood and our schools (Sunset Acres Elementary, Oak Terrace Junior High and Woodlawn).
We had been on the same kids' baseball team one year, I was certain of that. Read on, you'll see why I remember.
The information sent said he was a 1965 graduate of Woodlawn, but, no, actually he was in the Class of '66. So a year behind us in school -- for eight years.
What was correct was this: In 1983, a man named Willie Eddie Smith was murdered in Shreveport.
Intriguing. And, of course, I thought: This might make for an interesting blog. Time to do some research.
Did not remember this happening, although it must have been in the papers. To find out, to be reminded 35 years later, was a bit of a shock.
We were in Shreveport in 1983, working as part of a terrific, talented, fun-loving sports department at the Journal. The big story in sports for us that year was second-year pro Hal Sutton's emergence as the top money winner on the PGA Tour and the PGA Championship wire-to-wire winner that August.
By then, Eddie Smith -- from Sunset Acres -- had been dead for 2 1/2 months.
Shot to death May 23 in an argument related to a card game (poker).
The "Fast Eddie" nickname, referenced in a newspaper story a week after Willie Edward Smith's obituary in The Shreveport Times, was a hint to the fast, wild, sordid life of the victim.
Just how wild we learned by tracking down two people: (1) a Smith family member -- Eddie's nephew, a son of his oldest brother -- and (2) one of our school buddies.
"Eddie stayed in trouble," said the nephew, R. Lewis Smith. "Some people just find trouble wherever they go, and that was Eddie. And the trouble got worse and worse through his life."
Until he met a fast death.
---
Details of the end (taken from stories in The Times): Shot three times, in the head and the abdomen, and also beaten in the face.
He had been the lone white man in a group of five at 2911 Portland, Apartment A, located in the Queensborough area (close to the State Fairgrounds).
Much like Sunset Acres, Queensborough had been a comfortable, working-class, almost all-white residential neighborhood, but by 1983, it had become more mixed-race, lower-income, and the streets were meaner.
The shooting, said the July 6 story which reported that the triggerman -- Jack King, then 34 -- had pleaded guilty, followed an argument over (what else?) money.
King was allowed to take a lesser plea of manslaughter -- rather than second-degree murder -- in agreement to a maximum sentence of 21 years in prison.
After the Shreveport police investigation, King was arrested within two days after the shooting.
That day and over the next week, four people -- three men (one King's roommate) and one 20-year-old woman -- also were arrested and charged as accessories after the fact, meaning they witnessed the act, then helped clean blood from the apartment and dispose of the body. (Two of the "accessories" lived in the apartment.)
Early the next morning after the shooting, Eddie's body was found in the rear seat of his compact foreign car [a red Plymouth Barracuda] on Hardy Street (some nine blocks from the Portland apartment).
At the time of the murder, King also had been charged with armed robbery and aggravated burglary in another case. But that was dismissed in September 1983.
The four "accessories" cases ultimately were dismissed, one by that July, the others late the next year.
Guess the murder sentence was enough for the courts, and that with King in prison, the "accessories" were given leniency.
No leniency for Eddie. But while his death "was a hard time for all of us," said nephew Lewis Smith, "it wasn't surprising.
"He always ran with the wrong crowd. It was a downward spiral that Eddie went through for years and years."
---
In the stories in The Times, Eddie is listed as living in Keithville -- just south of Shreveport. But his obituary said he lived in Shreveport and his nephew said he resided at the home that had been the family's for years -- 2867 Hollywood, the northeast part of Sunset Acres (the "other" side of the canal from us, about 11 blocks from our house, 10 blocks from the elementary school).
That is where we remember him from the late 1950s.
Willie Edward was born late in 1947, the "baby" of his family -- with a much older father (Robert Calhoun "Shorty" Smith) and mother Margaret Gould Smith, and two brothers who were almost a generation older -- Robert by 17 years, Jerry by 14.
The family dynamics were problematic.
"He never got along with his father, my grandfather," said Lewis Smith.
There was little connection with the brothers, who had long moved away from home by Eddie's teenage years.
The tie with the mother was stronger, for many years. But the relationship soured as trouble mounted, and finally fell apart.
Dennis Storey was a Sunset Acres friend, in the same grade as Eddie throughout school days, also a Woodlawn '66 graduate. He was a frequent visitor to the Smith home, and felt that Eddie "was an 'accident' child.
"He was a spoiled kid," Storey remembered. "The way he talked to his Dad ... If I had talked to my Dad that way, he'd have whooped my ass."
"Shorty" Smith was a painter, and Eddie worked with his father some in those years. "I thought he would end up as a painter, too," said Storey. Did not happen; the obituary listed him as a plumber.
---
Our brief tie with Eddie Smith was on a St. James Episcopal Church-sponsored midget league baseball team (ages 10-12) in either the summer of 1959 or 1960. He was a compact-built kid, a catcher, one of the better players on a team with little talent and few victories.
But here is the distinct memory ...
Late in the season, on a game-ending play, an opposing runner crashed into Eddie at home plate and flattened him. He was hurt.
In fact, he was hurt badly enough that the coach and concerned parents took him to a hospital. Internal injuries caused swelling and shock, and the vivid memory is that Eddie's body overnight had to be packed in ice.
That incident perhaps was a sign of woes to come.
He recovered, but he did not play again that summer. Don't recall him playing baseball again.
But Storey said he remembered Eddie playing running back for our junior-high team: "He was a helluva football player ... he'd just as soon run over you as look at you." Another friend recalled Eddie running track one junior-high year. (I don't recall him in either sport, but I don't doubt it.)
By high school, he was a different guy. He had the look, frankly, of a hood, a thug. The hair was slicked back, not a total ducktail -- so hood-looking in those days of the crewcut or flattop that our faculty much preferred -- but close.A memory from school: Eddie swaggered his way around.
"His demeanor was that he wanted to be the tough guy," said Storey. "I did not run around with him by then. I thought he would eventually run into trouble.
"He was hanging around the wrong people, riding motorcycles. And I think he got in a gang."
Storey, retired after 32 years of working in traffic engineering for the City of Shreveport and now living in Blanchard, recalled a chance meeting many years later at a convenience-store stop in Bossier City. In the parking lot, he noticed a familiar -- but changed -- figure.
"He looked like a gang member," he said of Eddie. "Black leather jacket, the motorcycle ('choppers' they called them), beard, mustache, he was -- as they called it -- 'flying the colors' for the gang.
"I talked to him, but I knew I didn't want to stay around long. It was obvious he was gang-related and dope-related."
Mike Flores (Woodlawn Class of '65) was another neighborhood resident who lived closeby and said, "I remember Eddie Smith's name better than I remember Eddie the person. As I recall, he was on the periphery of all my groups."
Flores said it had been decades and he had no knowledge of Eddie after high school.
"My memory is that he ran with a rougher crowd," Mike said. "Maybe his associates caught up with him in the end."
For sure, Eddie Smith was a black-cloud person, accidents waiting to happen.
---
Lewis Smith, 63, a Shreveport resident who is a certified public accountant and registered financial advisor, said that writing about Eddie now would not be a problem for the family. "We all know the story," he said.
The trail of trouble was long, and Lewis offered some details. So did our check with the Caddo Parish Clerk of Courts office.
• An altercation with the Shreveport police in which he was a holdout inside a house, then was shot and had a severe stomach wound.
• A conviction for possession/distribution of methamphetamines Dec. 7, 1972, and a sentence of two years hard labor at the federal prison in Oakdale, La.
• A couple of motorcycle wrecks. On one, he hit a median curve going 70-80 miles an hour ("he was totally reckless," said Lewis), causing a shattered jawbone and a total reconstruction of his jaw. Lewis: "He kind of mumbled after that."
• A conviction for receiving stolen goods, Jan. 10, 1983, a guilty plea, a fine of $500 and costs or 50 days in the Caddo Parish jail.
A little more than four months later, the end.
Lewis, who had been a funeral director for Rose-Neath before becoming a CPA, knew some of the people who made the arrangements for Eddie's service and burial (Lewis was one of the pallbearers).
For the final decade of his life, family members occasionally would see Eddie. Lewis said his younger brother Charles Wayne also was a plumber and at times crossed paths with Eddie at work.
."He [Eddie] was always on the fringe of the family," Lewis said. "He might show up for holidays, but he was not really part of it."
And even the mother, who had tried to maintain a relationship, gave up.
"She settled up with Eddie several years before [his death," Lewis said, "and did not have much to do with him. She was tired of financially bailing him out and supporting him."
The death "was hard to Memaw to accept, it was a grueling time for her. But it also put her at peace. It put a lot of things to rest."
---
There is no redeeming message in Eddie Smith's story. It is an example that even in an idyllic neighborhood and schools of our youth not everything turned out well in our Camelot.
It is, though, a heartbreaking story -- one of several from our area.
"It wasn't that Eddie did not have good examples in his household," Lewis Smith said, recalling his grandparents' efforts. "Memaw could not understand what happened to him.
"He could not change, or he didn't want to. Other people go through rehab, and some make changes. Some don't. He didn't even try."
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