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 schedule for the first state tournament

     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.) 

Last time in Shreveport (the 1966 schedule)

     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)

Louisiana's "Marsh Madness" was magic

(First of three parts)

Where Louisiana boys state basketball tournament began in 1961

     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) 

"The Jolly Green Giants" and basketball glory

(Third in a series)
      You almost always knew that Bossier High School's athletic teams would be competitive. The Bearkats were rarely a pushover.
      One of the legacies of the 100-year-old school is success in athletics, and so many outstanding athletes that we don't have space to list all that many.
      There have been state championship teams in football (two) and boys track and field (three in a row) and some heartbreaking near-misses in baseball, and success in wrestling and perhaps other sports, but boys basketball is the centerpiece of Bossier High athletics.

In 2016, another basketball state championship
for the Bossier Bearkats.

      Why? Three state championships and five runner-up finishes. And it is a current story.
      Chris White coached the Bearkats to a Class AA runner-up spot in 2005. Then in seven of the past eight years under coach Jeremiah Williams, the Bearkats have played in the state tournament (until expansion, it was known as the Top 28). And that includes four state-championship games. 
      Count 'em up: 2009 -- Class 4A runner-up; 2011 -- Class 4A champions; 2012 -- Class 3A runner-up; 2016 -- Class 4A champions.
      Williams' 2011 team had a 33-2 record and was led by guard Jalan West, who has gone on to a terrific college career -- despite injuries -- at Northwestern State. (He's still there, just awarded an unprecedented injury-waiver seventh year by the NCAA.)
      Two years ago, the Bearkats were piddling along with a 14-9 record. Then they won 13 of their last 14 games -- the last three by a total of six points -- and they claimed the big trophy ... again.
      In 10 seasons, Williams' teams have won eight district championships and have a record of 296-67, and West is one of a dozen Williams-coached Bossier players to play college basketball.

Frank Lampkin: coach, principal

      The late Frank Lampkin and John "Hound" McConathy would be proud. They paved the way.
      Anyone familiar with Bossier High over the past 70 years knows those names.
      Before he was the quiet, dignified and steady school principal for 24 years -- more than double anyone else's tenure -- Lampkin was the Bearkats' basketball coach. His 1949 team was the school's first title contender, the Class 1A runner-up to Many.
      McConathy, a college basketball star and brief early years NBA player, was his successor in 1956 and had a powerful program. A few years before he came the respected superintendent of Bossier Parish schools, his Bearkats struck basketball gold.
      In 1959-60, Bossier won the Class AAA state championship with a 41-4 record -- the last year before the state tournament began in Shreveport.
      That well-rounded Bearkats team was led by a 6-foot-6 stringbean, Cecil Upshaw. I will tell you now that of all the  Bossier High athletes, he was my personal favorite. Read on.
      The often-told story is that McConathy -- nicknamed "The Hound" -- insisted that the state championship game with always powerful DeLaSalle (New Orleans) be played in the old Bossier High gymnasium, a "bandbox" that, crammed, could hold maybe 600 people.
      When it was suggested to McConathy that the game could be moved to, say, Hirsch Youth Center, to accommodate a much bigger crowd, he said he had waited a long time for his team to play for a state title, and he wasn't giving up homecourt advantage.
       Bossier won 39-35. We haven't forgotten.
     

John McConathy, coach, and George
Nattin Jr., player (later coach)

 McConathy's best player before Upshaw was a flashy guard, George Nattin Jr., son of the longtime Bossier City mayor. Nattin Jr. would go on to star for LSU's basketball teams in the late 1950s/early 1960s and, just after graduation, succeeded McConathy as the Bossier coach.
      Nattin's first Bearkats team, 1962-63, was part of "The Big Three" with Byrd and Fair Park, and Bossier's only losses came to those two rivals. It was the year of "The Big Three," and each of them could have won the state title. But Bossier finished third in the district and missed the playoffs.
      With Bill Collinsworth as coach, a big Bossier team -- earning a nickname that stuck for years on all Bearkats teams, "The Jolly Green Giants" -- won a district title in 1964-65. Then Collinsworth's 1967-68 team, second in its district, made a surprising late-season run
all the way to the Class AAA state championship game, only to lose to Al "Apple" Sanders (future LSU star) and Baton Rouge High.
      Bossier continued to have strong teams for the next 3 1/2 decades through a succession of good coaches, but after Williams took over, the 'Kats finally returned to the state tournament in 2005. And now it's a mini-dynasty.
--- 
      Here is why Upshaw is my favorite: Of all the Bossier High athletes, he became -- unless someone suggests differently -- the best-known and most successful at the pro level.
      OK, I'm partial because I got to know him a little bit -- wrote about him a few times -- and watched him play basketball and baseball, although a few years after he graduated from Bossier High.
       Although his roots were in Spearsville, La., where he showed early promise as an athlete (especially in baseball), he moved to Bossier near his high school years ... and the Bearkats, and eventually Centenary College, benefitted greatly.
       He was a heckuva good shooter, a star scorer on a couple of strong Centenary teams that often played major competition in the early 1960s.
      But he was an even better baseball pitcher (and a darned good hitter in college and semipro ball). Baseball was his route to the pros.
       He became a relief pitcher in the minor leagues -- with a wicked submarine delivery, tall and thin (his college nickname was "Stick") and especially difficult for right-handed batters -- and he was a star for the Atlanta Braves, his best year for a division champion in 1969 and again in 1971 (after he almost cut off his right ring finger in a freak accident early in the 1970 season).
        His baseball career and life ended too soon, but he always had his fans, starting in Shreveport-Bossier.
---
    Last season, Bossier was host for its 77th annual Bossier Invitational Basketball Tournament, which dates the event to at least 1940.  
     That is a lot of basketball. At Bossier, it really is a tradition.
     Next: Football memories
 

Minden's best ever: Moreland ... and Dunbar

     (Part II: Sweet Lou Dunbar -- Minden to the Globetrotters)
       If you ask oldtimers, who is the best basketball player to come out of Minden, La., the answer is likely to be Jackie Moreland. But a younger group will say Louis Dunbar. Tough choice.
     Moreland, a 6-foot-7 center/forward who led Minden High School to a 1955 state championship, was so dominant in high school that he was described as "a man among boys." He was the subject of a huge recruiting battle which ultimately left several schools with NCAA penalties.

Jackie Moreland
at Louisiana Tech

     He chose North Carolina State, but never played there. Instead, he went to nearby Louisiana Tech -- after a dalliance with Centenary -- and starred for three seasons, making Little All-American and setting all sorts of Tech scoring and rebounding records. 
     He was Tech's best-ever player, certainly as a big man,  until Mike Green reset the record books in the early 1970s,
     How good was Moreland? Yes, he played in an all-white world in high school and college, but he proved he could last in the NBA. He was the No. 1 draft pick of the Detroit Pistons in 1960, the fourth pick overall.
     Here's what he did that Dunbar didn't: He played eight years of real pro basketball -- five with the Pistons and, after a year out of the game, three with the New Orleans Buccaneers of the new American Basketball Association.
     The NBA and ABA weren't as integrated as they would become, but there were a lot fewer pro teams then -- eight in the NBA in Jackie's rookie season -- and only 12 roster spots, so it was an elite league.
     Moreland was a good pro, especially popular in the ABA in his home state. He retired after the 1969-70 season and became a project engineer on the Superdome being built in New Orleans. Sadly, only a year later, pancreatic cancer quickly took Jackie at age 33.
     He was a Minden/Louisiana Tech legend, and I never saw him play except with the Pistons on TV in the early 1960s. But I knew how good a player he was -- I was told many times by Minden and Tech people -- almost everyone said he was a wonderful person.

Sweet Lou: Globetrotters' "clown prince"

     I saw how good a player Dunbar was at Webster High School (see Part I) and the University of Houston, and for 25 years, with the Harlem Globetrotters.
     I mentioned in a previous blog that I always wondered how it was he didn't play in the NBA; there were rumors he wasn't a fit for the Philadelphia 76ers, who drafted him in the fourth round in 1975. He was their fifth pick; their first two were Darryl Dawkins and World B. Free -- both significant NBA stars-to-be.
     So the word was that Dunbar could not come to terms with the Sixers. Maybe they didn't offer enough money; maybe he wanted too much. Anyway, he wound up going to play in Switzerland, played for the European League champions, and came back to a Houston Rockets summer-league team and tryout camp.
     It was there the Globetrotters scouted him, loved his game and thought he would fit well with them. The rest you know; it's 39 years later, and he's a Trotters' Legend.
     He's traveled the world many times over, met a Pope and several U.S. Presidents and other world leaders, and he's had them -- and so many fans -- laughing. And it's been a personal joy, too.
     Louis summed up his career well in an interview with Larry Guest of the Orlando Sentinel in 1998.
     "When you mention names like Goose Tatum and Meadowlark Lemon and Geese Ausbie, you're talking about the cream of the crop," he said. "To think you're doing some of the routines they did, it's really something special. You just try to go out and do your best knowing and hoping that one day people will say, 'Hey, Lou Dunbar did that.'
     "When you become a showman, you have to bring something to the party."
     Dunbar is not in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame. I think he should be soon. The team he's been with hasn't lost a game in 37 years.
     Yes, Lou Dunbar did bring something to the party, and fans loved him. Going back to Webster High and Minden, he always had a fan here.

 

Sweet Lou: From Webster to Globetrotters

     "Certainly Dunbar and Woodlawn's 7-foot junior Robert Parish rank as the most dominant players in the Shreveport area this year."
     -- my column, The Shreveport Times sports section, Dec. 20, 1970

Sweet Lou Dunbar today (photo from
ESPN telecast)

---
     The late, great Meadowlark Lemon was not my favorite Harlem Globetrotter. Sweet Lou Dunbar was.
     He was only Louis Dunbar -- not yet "Sweet Lou" -- when I met him and first watched him play basketball late in 1970. He was playing for Webster High in Minden, La., and his game was as sweet as any I've ever seen in high school.
     How fortunate I was that in my second year as a fulltime sportswriter, I covered games and wrote about the two greatest high school basketball players I've seen. Both would become legends.
     Robert Parish is in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame after a 21-year  NBA career in which he played more regular-season games than anyone. Louis Dunbar is among the Harlem Globetrotters "Legends," a player for 25 years -- their "clown prince" for much of that time -- and the past 14 years their director of player personnel and a bench coach.
     Which is why I tuned in last week when the Harlem Globetrotters' 90th Anniversary Show came on ESPN. I wanted to see what it would have on Meadowlark, who died Dec. 27, and if Sweet Lou was part of the show.
     And there he was, the (very) big man in the dark suit sitting on the Globetrotters' bench, a few pounds (well, a lot) past his playing weight at Webster and the University of Houston. He was tall and thin then -- "sleek" is what comes to mind -- an explosive jumper, great passer and ballhandler (as his Trotters' days proved) and superb shooter. 
     He was, as many have called him, Magic Johnson before Magic. At 6-foot-9, he could play any position -- center, forward, point guard -- and did. Excelled at all.
     After he got to Houston, he grew an enormous Afro -- the subject of an earlier blog piece http://nvanthyn.blogspot.com/2012/07/it-was-only-willie-mays.html because when we ran his photo on the sports front of The Shreveport Times, the editors told us no-no. 
     The hair is shorter now, and much of it is gray. So is his goatee. He is -- hard for me to believe -- 62 (4 1/2 months younger than Parish). But I recognized him instantly sitting on that bench.

The young man from Webster
High School (1970 Shreveport
Times photo)

     Good to see Louis. The young sportswriter who talked to him after a few Webster games in 1970 and '71 and saw him again a couple of years later did not ask enough questions to draw out the delightful, upbeat personality. He was a polite, bright young man, not as reticent as Parish.
     He probably never before had talked to a white sportswriter. Little did I think that later he would entertain and keep audiences laughing for years and years. Maybe he didn't either. We both probably thought he'd be a college and NBA star. 
     And he was a star, an All-American choice by some, at the U. of Houston. Saw him a couple of times after Houston played Centenary in the early 1970s, when Dunbar and Parish (and their teams) had some epic battles -- just as they'd had in high school -- and the last time I talked to him was in the early 1990s when I called him at the Globetrotters' hotel when they played in Jacksonville, Fla., where I was working.
     Just after halftime of the ESPN show last week, we saw him up close on screen.
     Sideline broadcaster Sam Gore began: "A legend, Sweet Lou Dunbar. We lost one of the great showman on this earth, Meadowlark Lemon. Your thoughts about Meadowlark, Lou?"
     "He was my mentor," Lou answered. "My very first year with the Harlem Globetrotters (1977), I played with Meadowlark and Curly [Neal], and he [Meadowlark] taught me everything I know about this game of Harlem Globetrotters basketball, and he is going to be truly missed.
     "I mean he's a legend in his own time. And for those of you who did not know Meadowlark, he was the Harlem Globetrotters."
     With that, Sweet Lou went back to the bench and began laughing -- just as always -- at routines he has seen hundreds of thousands of times. The Globetrotters, if you love seeing a basketball move at rapid paces and slick ballhandling tricks and dribbling, are still fun to watch.
 ---
     My most vivid memory of Dunbar's final season at Webster: The state championship game in Class AA (third-highest in Louisiana then) and Webster about to win it all, with Louis practically dribbling out the final 3-4 minutes by himself and making the free throws his team needed to hold on.
     The 75-68 victory against Franklinton -- which had won the state title the year before -- ended a 34-1 season for Webster.
     Reminded of that record by my source at The Times, my far-back memory told me that the lone loss was to Silsbee, Texas, in a tournament. So the Wolves did not lose to a Louisiana team.
     They also did not play against Woodlawn and Parish, a team that was -- my opinion -- the best (most talent, most depth, most size) of the five Woodlawn teams that reached state championship games in a 12-year period.
     Webster vs. Woodlawn, Dunbar vs. Parish, would have been a super matchup. But Woodlawn was in Class AAAA, two classes above Webster, and the respective coaches did not schedule a meeting.
     As my 1970 column noted, Webster and Dunbar had faced Parish -- then at all-black Union High -- in the previous season. Webster beat Union twice in the regular season, but Union won the bidistrict state playoff game (Parish led his teams, Union and Woodlawn, to four consecutive state tournaments). Parish scored 30, 25 and 29 points to Dunbar's 22, 31 and 24.
     Parish fouled out of both of his 1971 state tournament games. Dunbar, with two dominating performances, was an easy choice for "Outstanding Player" in the state tournament; by acclamation, if I remember the sportswriters' vote.
---
     Some background: Integration of Louisiana high school began in earnest in January 1970, but many all-black schools remained open for the rest of the school year. In the fall of 1970, many of those schools were phased out or made middle schools -- which is why Parish went from Union to Woodlawn. 
     But Minden -- 30 miles east of Shreveport on Interstate 20 -- was a holdout, and its all-black school (Webster) remained open, leaving Minden High only partially integrated. (In many parishes, private schools -- all white -- opened to skirt forced integration.)
     So Webster kept its powerhouse basketball team intact, and Dunbar & Co. remained with the already legendary Webster coach, a kindly old man -- at least he seemed like it to me -- named Ozias Johnson. 
     Much of my 1970 column is about him because by then his teams had won 818 games, which made him the winningest coach in the state (75.2 percent). His Webster teams had won state titles in the all-black athletic organization in 1961 and 1962 with 45-3 and 43-2 records, and they kept winning, with four 30-wins-plus seasons after that, including 31-3 in Dunbar's junior year.
     As a young man, Johnson had gone to Grambling when it was a junior college and in his mid 20s and early 30s -- before Eddie Robinson began coaching there -- Ozias was the head football coach for a couple of games and then the head basketball coach. That was only a partime job; he also was the postmaster in Grambling. 
     He was a soft-spoken, smaller man (maybe 5-7, 5-8), pleasant and humble. He was fortunate to have talented players on hand, and he knew how to get them to play together. (And to put it into perspective, Coach Johnson was 60 when I wrote about him; he seemed old to me then. Not now.)
     The 1970-71 Webster team had other quality players -- a 6-3 guard, Con L. Flournoy, and 6-6 junior forward Billy Bennett. But Dunbar was the man. In leading the Wolves to an 11-0 record when I wrote the column, he had averaged 30.1 points, 15.2 rebounds and 9.5 assists per game. Flournoy was averaging 22.9 points. 
     I don't recall their final stats, but they likely were in the same range ... pretty impressive and probably accurate. (Webster had a very good statistician, a sharp kid named Rodney Seamster.)
     Johnson told me then that Dunbar had developed more quickly than any player he'd ever had: "He played for me as a freshman and he's the only one to  do that."  
     Ozias, who had arrived at Webster in 1946, coached only two more seasons and finished with 889 victories. Few have topped that. But the smartest thing he did in 1970 and '71 was let Dunbar run the show -- player/coach, perhaps -- on the floor.
---
     Obviously Dunbar was being recruited by every college that thought it had a chance. While I was visiting Webster, a coach from LSU called to check when the team was playing again. But LSU, where Press Maravich was in his next-to-last season as head coach, didn't have a chance. No one did, except Houston.
     The word was that Houston was going to outbid everyone for Dunbar. Yeah, read between the words.
     Houston was an independent and had a reputation as an "outlaw" program, in football and especially in basketball under Coach Guy V. Lewis. Was it fact? Can't recall an NCAA probation ever, but Lewis and his chief assistant/recruiter, Harvey Pate, had recruited some great Louisiana talent in the 1960s, notably future NBA stars Elvin Hayes and Don Chaney.
     (The story is that Pate, recruiting Dunbar, made himself at home in Minden and in the Dunbar home. Near signing day, Pate sat next to the phone at the Dunbars. When it rang, he picked up the receiver ... and hung it up. True? Who knows?)
     Lou became one of Houston's top players ever. Here is the link to a 2011  story for a Houston-area newspaper that caps his UH and Globetrotters careers:
     http://www.yourhoustonnews.com/bay_area/sports/sweet-lou-dunbar/article_2a1966a7-4520-5b64-bdde-28c8540a87e6.html 
     He certainly was a fit between the Hayes/Chaney NCAA Final Four teams of the mid-1960s and the Phi Slama Jama teams -- Akeem Olajuwon, Clyde Drexler and Co. -- that twice lost NCAA title games in the 1980s.
     Houston wasn't as successful in Dunbar's time, but a tough opponent for anyone ... including Centenary (and Parish). Dunbar was in a lineup with Dwight Davis and Dwight Jones, each also about 6-foot-10, and that was much for Parish to handle. But there were some classic Houston-Centenary games in the '70s.
     I saw one matchup at Hofheinz Pavilion in Houston in which Parish, a freshman, outplayed all three of those guys -- probably the best game I saw Parish play for Centenary (and he played a lot of great ones). Houston won, but tight officiating was one factor.
     In the return game at Centenary, Parish again starred -- except for the finish. Fouled while shooting as the clock ran out, with Houston ahead by one point, he had two free throws. The clock read 0:00, no one lined up on the lane, and Centenary's No. 00 stood alone. Win, tie, or lose. There was another zero.  Miss. Miss.
     The next season, though, Parish and Centenary got the best of Dunbar and Houston in the Gold Dome in Shreveport -- maybe the most significant of Centenary's 89 wins in the Parish Era.
     Parish and Dunbar never faced each other again. Lou was headed to the NBA a year earlier than Robert, or so we thought. Didn't happen.
      Next: Part II -- Minden's best ever?

Shaq and Dale: It's not just about basketball

from ESPN.com

      "Shaq and Dale is a film about basketball, but it's a film about a relationship, a really special relationship between a huge megastar that we all know now in Shaquille O'Neal and his college head coach, Dale Brown, that dates back to when Shaq was quote/unquote a nobody in Germany on an Army base struggling with the decision to whether or not to even play basketball.
      "It's a story about love. It was a relationship that proved to Shaq there was one person who would always stand up for him regardless of what happened on the court and also off the court. And it gave this young man so much confidence. Shaq says that he wouldn't have become the player he did without Dale Brown. And I believe that wholeheartedly."
      -- ESPN anchor Hannah Storm, on the film she directed
---
      I have watched Shaq and Dale twice now, once to make notes for this piece. I have been thoroughly entertained.
      I recommend this film -- an hour, with commercials -- to anyone who likes a feel-good story. Sure, it's better if you are a basketball fan and/or an LSU fan. But if you are a fan of human beings with character, this fits.

from YouTube.com

      This is one of the newest in the ESPN Films Presents productions, an extension of the excellent  30 for 30 series, now developed for the SEC Network's SEC Storied features. I've seen a half dozen -- all wonderful, but none better than It's Time -- Chucky Mullins (of Ole Miss). That one, poignant and sad, brought many tears.
      Shaq and Dale is poignant, too, but joyful.
      Oh, there's controversy. Wouldn't be Dale Brown if there wasn't. Or Shaq, for that matter.
      Both are outspoken and honest (maybe to a fault). Part of the celebrity status they've had for decades is that the description controversial comes with it.
      I'm sure their critics will find something to knock in this film. Sorry, I can't find it.
      What I did find was a lot of humor; that's what Shaq is known for. Telling his stories, acting them out, talking about life on campus, finding his old dorm room and, after slowly opening the door, barging in and diving on his old bed, yelling, "It's still here; it's still here." Yes, 7-foot-1 and 350 pounds (or so) diving on this bed.
      And Dale, repeatedly, is seen laughing at the Shaq antics/stories. You will, too.
      What also comes through is Dale's earnestness and the fatherly guidance he gave to Shaq and so many others. Daddy Dale, indeed.
      And his motivational methods -- in so many ways. As Shaq points out early on, from right after he met Dale at age 13, he received a letter (or more) a week from the coach and still receives an e-mail regularly.
      I know; I've been on the mailing list for years. As I was writing this Tuesday night, an e-mail from Dale hit my inbox. From the time he became the LSU coach in 1972, those of us around the state received the messages from Dale -- notes complimenting a story he liked, encouragement on non-sports matters, the printouts such as "The Man in the Mirror" (I still have that one).
---
      My opinions:
      (1) Other than Charlie McClendon and Les Miles, Dale Brown is the most criticized coach in LSU history. Charlie Mac and Les, because it came with their position as the longest tenured Tigers football coaches of the past 70 years; Dale, because he was being Dale.
      (2) Dale Brown is the most interesting coach in LSU history, a man of the world. Maybe Skip Bertman (baseball guru) was in the ballpark and maybe Miles, the often hard-to-figure-out guy, will be his equal given another 10 years of news conferences and sound bytes and social media posts.
      But if you dealt with Dale, if you interviewed him, you weren't always sure where it was going.
He might talk about world hunger, or visiting the Taj Mahal or the rain forests in South America or the Himalayas; he's concerned about Middle East politics; and I can assure you that he is very much an American patriot.
      He was always willing to criticize the NCAA's investigative methods and its archaic rules concerning humane needs for players. He wanted to recruit Arvydas Sabonis from behind the Iron Curtain in the mid-1970s; he knew a great player when he saw one.
      OK, so maybe it's eccentric, maybe it's unlike how most coaches think and act. How many times have I heard Dale criticized (by my friends, coaches and sportswriters) for that?
      Plus, how much criticism have I heard of his coaching? Plenty.
      Couldn't coach really talented teams; did better with undermanned, underrated teams. Wasn't a good in-game coach. Couldn't get past the second round of the NCAA Tournament with the 1990 Shaq-Chris Jackson-Stanley Roberts team (a focal point early in this film). Couldn't beat Indiana and Bob Knight (0-3 in the NCAA Tournament).
      Lost a 31-point lead (with 15 1/2 minutes to play) and the game to Kentucky in February 1994 -- the biggest blown lead in NCAA Division I history to that point.
      I have to be honest -- I was among the early critics. My wife will tell you that. She reminds me of it often.
      It took Dale six seasons at LSU (1972-78) before one of his teams had a better-than-.500 record in the Southeastern Conference. And when I met Bea in the mid-1970s, I was not enamored with the LSU basketball program. Few people were.
      But she had worked with some LSU boosters, and Dale boosters, and she kept telling me how much those people respected Dale and his program.
      So when many thought he was on the verge of being told to leave this coaching job, his program turned for good. In 1979, LSU made the NCAA Tournament (as SEC champion) for the first time in 25 seasons. Two years later, LSU made the Final Four.
      Here is opinion No. 3: Dale Brown is the main reason people care about LSU basketball.
      Yes, Bob Pettit is a legend, and those 1952-53, 1953-54 teams he led to a combined 27-0 SEC record (and one Final Four) are legends. Yes, Pete Maravich is a legend -- the greatest scoring machine many of us have seen -- and the Assembly Center is named for him.
      But Dale lasted 25 years in the job, he coached more games (749) than any LSU basketball coach, he took 13 teams to the NCAA Tournament, he coached four SEC regular-season and one SEC Tournament champions; he took two teams to the Final Four; and -- although it didn't happen -- he set a goal: LSU winning the national championship.
      Some of us -- not going along with the thought that LSU doesn't care about basketball -- have always thought that should be an achievable goal.
      Anyway, LSU won 448 times with Dale coaching, and consider this -- 18 of those victories came against Kentucky. How significant is that?
      LSU was 0-19 all-time vs. Kentucky before a 1961 victory. Then it was 1-35 before a 1973 victory -- the last victory of Press Maravich's coaching stint at LSU. It took Dale only three games to beat Kentucky. OK, so his teams were 1-10 vs. Kentucky before they won six of eight from the Wildcats.
      And then his Tigers beat them 11 more times, including that memorable 1986 Elite Eight (NCAA Regional final) in Atlanta -- maybe the greatest victory of the Dale era. After that one, Dale was shown leaping in the air and racing off the floor toward the dressing room -- similar to his sprint off the Superdome floor when his team's first Final Four trip was assured in 1981.
      In '86, that was a totally surprising LSU Final Four team. Think about how many great coaches never took even one team to a Final Four? This so-so coach took two.
---
      So, yes, the 1989-90 team -- which Dale on this film said had "unlimited potential" -- didn't get it done. One reason: Shaq really wasn't the force he would become the next two years. Chris Jackson, as exciting a shooter as LSU ever had other than Maravich, wasn't enough. Stanley Roberts wasn't a good enough all-around player. There wasn't enough cohesion, or quality depth to overcome the shortcomings.
      "Great expectations ... maybe too great," says the film narrator, country-music star Tim McGraw (who grew up in Northeast Louisiana).
      "Disappointing. I could have recruited better. I could have motivated them better. I could have done this; I could have done that," Dale said of the season and the second-round NCAA loss to Georgia Tech on Tennessee's home floor. (Tech made the Final Four).
      No excuses. You wouldn't expect that from Dale.
      The film covers the many highlight (and lowlight) games of Shaq's three years at LSU. It was a spectacular era, not all it could have been, but it's worth seeing the clips from the games, and for the LSU faithful, there are many scenic shots of the campus ... including Tiger Stadium and the PMAC.
       For those of us with Shreveport ties, there's the play-by-play sounds of Jim Hawthorne and a couple of quick shots of longtime LSU basketball sports information man Kent Lowe. Those are from 25 years ago; we go back with those guys for 40-plus years.
---
      Shaq and Dale aren't the only controversial people in this film. Jerry Tarkanian is in there as the UNLV coach, but even he pales in comparison to ... David Duke and Bob Knight.
       The less I write about David Duke, the better.
       He makes even Bob Knight look decent. But I don't want to write much about Knight, either. Did not approve of his coaching style -- or any coach that thrives on intimidation --  and detest his mean-spirited public presence. Especially didn't like his criticisms of Dale Brown.
         Sure, he was a great coach; few have been better in terms of defense and motion offense, and knowledge. He has many devoted followers; he's been giving to the game in many ways and to people he considers loyal and friends. But few top him in arrogance, self-importance.
         I can tell you that I would rather deal with Dale more than Bob Knight 101 times out of 100.
         Enough negativity. Dale would not approve of it. But just for the record, there you have it.
---
         When we were at the Shreveport newspapers, we knew that if we called Dale, he would return the call. Maybe if he was busy, or off to practice or not in the office, it might take 24 hours for the callback, but you could count on it.
          Some big-name coaches, it was impossible. Eddie Sutton at Arkansas was either too busy or did not deem the Shreveport Journal important enough to talk to by phone; the return call several times came from his assistant, James Dickey.
          But Dale would give you something. When I was in Shreveport, in the '70s and '80s, we did not cover LSU daily; we didn't have a Glenn Guilbeau type on the scene. We would -- to use one of Dale's favorite expressions -- "parachute in" to cover games (and do interviews).
          Personally, I rarely covered LSU basketball. In fact, I never attended a game Shaquille O'Neal played for LSU. The only game I saw him play was his rookie year in the NBA for the Orlando Magic, the first time he faced the Boston Celtics and Robert Parish. And I wasn't there to see or talk to Shaq.
          I always thought Shaq was a man-child, an often silly, goofy guy who was serious only about winning basketball games. He was good at that at LSU, but much better in the NBA.
          When he joined the Inside the NBA panel on TBS (and other networks), I thought at first he wasn't a good fit; working with the irrepressible Charles Barkley and sidekick Kenny Smith is a formidable task. But, as Shaq points out in the film, he isn't one to be intimidated -- not since he was an LSU freshman -- and so he has (pun here) grown into the role. He's a big man on the show now.
          With this film, my admiration for him has grown. And while others can still be critical of Dale Brown, I'm not going there. The man proved long ago that there's much more depth there than just being eccentric and outspoken.
         Watch the film. You might agree.
              

Postseason? How about postmortem?

    With apologies to my LSU friends, and my Tennessee, TCU and UT Arlington friends, our men's basketball teams don't need to be playing tonight.

     If you are excited about being in the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) -- or in TCU's case, something called the College Basketball Invitational -- have at it. I'm not joining you.
    If a team can't play in the NCAA Tournament, it shouldn't play anymore at all. Thank you.
    LSU's goal -- or anyone else's -- should not be the NIT. That tournament, once upon a time, was played entirely (with only 12 or 14 or 16 teams) at Madison Square Garden in New York City -- the only reason it was glamorous.
    They could have quit after the 1970 tournament, which was glorious because LSU was in it (the Tigers' first postseason appearance since a Bob Pettit-led NCAA trip in 1954). That gave us four extra games in Pistol Pete Maravich's career -- and he had a spectacular Garden party.
     After that, don't know that I've ever cared much (or any) about the NIT, exception being an occasional Louisiana Tech appearance.
      So I read this Monday: There are 148 men's teams playing in the basketball postseason -- 68 in the NCAA, 32 in the NIT, 32 in the College Invitational Tournament, 16 in the College Basketball Invitational.
     Too many, way too many.
      Like the college football bowl season ... and I'd do away with about 20 of those bowl games right now. Teams with 7-5 and 6-6 records don't need to keep playing.
       The college basketball season starts far too soon, and lasts far too long. There is now a Preseason NIT and dozens of other warmup tournaments in November. I'm still footballing then, OK.
      And now we're playing basketball on several fronts deep into baseball spring training.
      Here's what else makes no sense about the NIT ... LSU is playing at Oregon tonight, UT Arlington is at Washington. Exactly how many Tigers and Mavericks fans are able to make that trip?
       Used to be, the NIT would have regional matchups in the first round. At least the organizers -- which is now an NCAA-run committee -- put Tennessee, Middle Tennessee, Savannah State and Marshall in the same pairings for the first two rounds. That's regional.
     Why not, say, LSU and UT Arlington, Oral Roberts and Ole Miss or Mississippi State together in a "pod?"
        I can even be critical of the NCAA Tournament expanding. Look, it was perfect at 64 teams. Didn't need the expansion to 65 -- the Tuesday "play-in" game -- and now it's 68, with four "play-in" games (two tonight, two Wednesday).
      The NCAA's first two full-schedule days are compelling -- the prospects of the smaller schools from the smaller conferences (Butler, Valpo, Western Kentucky, Northwestern State, etc.) knocking off one of the big names. Great stuff, great television as they roll from game to game. It's wall-to-wall basketball.
       It's almost as good in the women's tournament, but not quite. Honestly, the parity in the men's game doesn't carry over to the women. If they cut the women's NCAA field to 32 instead of 64, a lot of bad matchups would be avoided.
       Sorry if that sounds sexist. I wish there were more competitive women's teams. It's just not so.
       Anyway, if you're a college hoops fan, enjoy the games. I'm only going to watch some of them. Won't even watch LSU at Oregon live on TV tonight (Bea wants to watch the Dallas Mavericks' game, as always, and the postgame show).
       Besides, it's the NIT -- the Not Interesting Tournament.  And that's not even the CIT or the CBI ... or the CIA. Whatever.