JFK assassination: Your memories

      The day sticks in our minds -- Nov. 22, 1963. Where were you at 12:30 p.m. or shortly thereafter when you got the news about President Kennedy being shot?
      Here are the remembrances from people in my age range, including Woodlawn students who were either in New Orleans or on their way for a state football playoff game:

Nov. 22, 1963: The motorcade on Elm Street, Dallas
(from jfk.org)

 

      Albert A. "Bud" Dean: Never will forget it. I was in the library at our old, now gone Colfax High School. The word had come, but had not been confirmed that morning. Then as it became clear that the rumor was actually a horrible truth, two things still stand out in my mind: (1) the 10th-grade English teacher made an ass out of himself by running into the hallway on the second shouting "please tell me it's true," which eventually got him fired, and (2) even though there was an anti- Kennedy sentiment in my small town as evidenced by the inappropriate response in No. 1, all of us were shocked and continued classes as if nothing happened other than the pall that had been cast by that sad series of events. Also our basketball practice was canceled, which was a great move on our coach and principal's part.
 

        O.K. "Buddy" Davis: I was sitting in a civics class at Ruston High School and word began to circulate about President Kennedy being assassinated, but we didn't have many details yet. Then during a change in classes, the official word filtered through the hallways and that's all anyone was talking about. Then Ruston High announced school would be called off for rest of the day and i remember walking home and seeing my mom waiting outside on the steps when I walked up. She was crying and said, "We lost a great President today." The whole weekend was so incredibly sad.

      Kirby Ramsey: I was a ninth-grade student at Oak Terrace Junior High when President Kennedy was assassinated. The day he was killed I was walking down the dark corridors of Oak Terrace when I saw a girl who was also in the ninth grade. Believe it or not, she was actually laughing. I asked her, "What's so funny?" She said, "President Kennedy has been assassinated in Dallas!" She seemed happy that our President had been killed. I was shocked that President Kennedy had been killed, but I think I was even more shocked by that girl's reaction to such a human tragedy. I never felt the same way about that girl after that encounter. I remember there was a lot of polarization in our country at that time, primarily over civil rights. Vietnam and the Americanization of the war there would not be fully realized until 1965 primarily because President Kennedy was determined NOT to send combat troops to fight an Asian war. (Ref. Lessons In Disaster: McGeorge Bundy and the Path to War in Viet Nam).

       

      Ron Newberry: I was in the TKE frat house at Northwestern State playing bridge with frat brothers my freshman year. I spent the rest of the day and the weekend glued to the TV where I saw Oswald murdered on national television. It was a sad day for America and the beginning of a tragic era for the Kennedy family. No, I am not a Democrat but a human being who cares for his fellow man.
 

      Mary Margaret Higginbotham Richard: I was on the band bus going south to the playoff game in New Orleans. Those were the days of transistor radios, and people picked up a few bits and pieces as we traveled. It was a long time before we found out that the shooting had really happened and that the President was dead. We had rain all the way down, and (I think) rain at the game. I have read conspiracy theories about people traveling from New Orleans to Dallas, and they all describe that relentless rain.
      The band stopped for dinner at a horrible truck stop, the game had a horrible ending, and the President was assassinated. It was just a bad trip from start to finish. The only bright spot was a chartered bus instead of a school bus, but all things considered, that didn't help much. I don't think we got soaked, as Mr. Jennings [Richard Jennings, Woodlawn's band director] was always rightly concerned about the uniforms and instruments. I imagine we spent most of the game standing in a sheltered area at the stadium -- or maybe we waited it out in the gym at East Jefferson, as I can't remember a thing about the game. Again, the pits.

       Shellye Abington Cooper: On the pep squad bus traveling to East Jefferson H.S. for the  state playoffs. A car passed the bus holding up a sign that said something like "Kennedy has been shot or killed." It was raining and the closer we got to the game the more it rained. There was a prayer and moment of reflection in honor of Kennedy before the game. Pep squad wool skirts shrunk and the sweaters drooped. We lost by one first down (which none of us had ever heard of). I think, at the time, we were more upset about the game and riding back home on the bus sopping wet than Kennedy's death. That changed, of course, when we got home and reality set in. 

 

      Mike Richey: Neville High School, civics class, Mr. Phillips ... I have no idea why, but our teacher discussed the President's trip to Dallas during class that morning. I can't quote him verbatim, but he said something to the effect that he wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't trouble during the visit. He alluded to UN Ambassador Adlai Stevenson's visit to Dallas a month earlier to speak on United Nations Day where protestors spit in his face. It wasn't but 15 or 20 minutes later that it was announced to the entire school that the President had been shot, followed later by the announcement that he had died.
      I don't know if the same held true at other Southern schools, but the announcement of his death brought a mixture of cheers and tears in the halls and stairwells. It's hard to believe now that even JFK's biggest detractors could find happiness in his death.

      The rest of the week is mostly a blur ... and probably is for all of us who are old enough to remember. The funeral procession hit home in our house because my sister had marched with the Neville band at JFK's inauguration.

      While this was perhaps the biggest moment up to that point for network television news, it's ironic that two still black and white images are prominent in my memory: the first, Oswald's face just moments after being shot by Jack Ruby and the second, John John saluting his father's casket. 

       

         Lucille (Mrs. Don) Landry: The thing that immediately comes to mind concerns that weekend ... We were planning a party for our oldest son's second birthday on Nov. 24. When this tragedy happened, we were devasted, of course, and seriously considered canceling the party for our little boy. It just did not seem appropriate under the circumstances. We took it very personally, almost as though we had lost a close member of our own family.
 

      Rabbi Dr. Jana L. De Benedetti: I was 3 years old (actually, a bit over 3 1/2). I remember everyone being sad and that the only thing on TV was people talking about the fact that the President was dead -- and they were all sad. At first it was frustrating that I couldn't watch anything fun. But then I realized that I felt sad about the President, too, and it made sense that there was nothing on TV but people being sad about the President.

      
      Jimmy Russell: I was a senior at LSU and had a test scheduled for 1 p.m. I heard the President had been shot but did not know he was dead. I went to my class (Mexican History) and took the test along with other members of the class. The university in the meantime had cancelled classes before 1 p.m., but no one in the class knew it. We took the test. I found out about Kennedy’s death after the class and went home. My older son, Kyle, was born on Nov. 11 and was at home with my wife.

     Steve Oakey: I was working an Elrod strip caster on Nov. 22, 1963, in the foundry of a weekly newspaper and print shop I worked at in Sun Prairie, Wis., during the year I postponed entering the University of Wisconsin so I could establish residency and avoid out-of-state tuition. I was on lunch break with some co-workers in the alley outside the shop when somebody heard the news from Dallas on a transistor radio.
      As the only one in the group who had just moved north from Texas, I was expected to have some insight, but all I could think of was to wonder who could have done such a thing. Was it one of those "outside agitators" for civil rights?
      What I was really thinking about was what effect the momentous news would have on the opening of deer season the next day. None, it turned out. Two friends and I drove up to northern Wisconsin the next morning and hunted all afternoon in 10-degree cold. We bagged zero whitetails, but I did bring down a nice-sized squirrel with a 12-gauge slug from my borrowed pump shotgun. I have avoided any kind of hunting ever since.

      Mike Harper: I was in the seventh grade at St. Joseph's School in Shreveport, was in the library after lunch and noticed that all of the nuns were crying. They later told us what had happened. It still seems surreal, much like 9-11.

     Casey Baker: We [Woodlawn football team] were set to play East Jefferson in the first round of the playoffs in Metairie. Our team was staying at the Holiday Inn. The weather was terrible. Heavy, heavy rain. We were all milling around in our rooms or under the covered walkways outside the room when [coach] Billy Joe Adcox came around to check on us. He asked what was going on, we said "nothing" and then he asked what was going on on the TV. We went to look and the world changed forever.
     The first thing that came to mind was whether we would play that night. The leader of the free world had been assassinated, and I wondered if we were going to play a high school football game.
      I don't remember much of the game except that it poured and water was coming into my hightop cleats. I know the final score was 7-7 and we lost on first downs. Don't remember the trip home, but do remember laying on the living room floor watching Jack Ruby kill Lee Harvey Oswald.

     Pesky Hill: I was 13 years old and we had just started P.E. class in the eighth grade at T. O. Rusheon Junior High School in Bossier City. All of a sudden, someone came in the gym and said President Kennedy had been shot. Then, a few minutes later we heard Texas Gov. John Connally had also been shot.
     It only took a few minutes for virtually everyone in school to get in front of the few television sets available. It was confirmed that President Kennedy was dead and Gov. Connally was in critical condition.

      What bothered me most was some cheering and applause when guys heard our President had been shot. I couldn’t believe the reaction. My parents didn’t vote for JFK and so I suppose I was pulling for Richard Nixon, too. But, to cheer for the President being shot? That really bothered me. I didn’t understand even though JFK was not popular among most in the Deep South.

      I also remember watching (live) when Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald. That was surreal. I couldn’t believe something like that could happen with all the security. And, it happened on television.

     Claude M. Pasquier: That Friday started off great. That was the last day of class before the Thanksgiving holidays and the school newspaper, The Flyer, was due to be handed out. I was in the 10th grade at Jesuit Shreveport. I had seen in the paper a picture of Sen. Everett Dirksen giving President Kennedy the ceremonial Thanksgiving turkey.

      The first bell after lunch had run and I was at my locker on the second floor of Jesuit. Bickford Umphries came bounding up the stairs shouting that the President had been shot and killed in Dallas. We went to fifth period and it was announced that President Kennedy had been shot. We said a prayer for him. A few minutes later it was announced that he had died. That was hard to understand.
     Fifth period ended and we went to Gerald Johnson's geometry class. He was visibly upset. We had no class that day; we just talked and read The Flyer. It was rumored in the classroom that Mr. Johnson had actually seen the President in person.

      My father picked me up that afternoon from school. He was never home from work at 3 p.m. It was very quiet at home. The television was on and we watched until Air Force One landed and the hearse drove off.

      Saturday was a sad day. The paper had quotes from a lot of people in the area that were close to the White House. One person in particular, was Mr. John Iles. Mr. Iles was and still is a family friend. I discovered that day that Mr. Iles and President Kennedy were friends. They served together on PT boats during the war. In my adult years, I asked Mr. Iles about the President and he said “he was a good skipper.”

     Sunday we came home from church and we were watching the transfer of Oswald from the Dallas Jail and saw on live television Jack Ruby shoot Oswald.

      It was a rough weekend for the whole country.
 

     James D. Gibson: I was a ninth grader at Linwood Junior High. It was around 2:30 in sixth period gym. We were playing half-court basketball when the ball went out of bounds under the basketball. Both Johnny Lewter and me stepped to pick up the ball. Johnny just asked, “Did you hear anything about President Kennedy being assassinated?” I answered, “No, I haven’t,” and we continued to play.

      Since school got out at 3, gym ended shortly. I went in the dressing room and finished dressing just about the time the bell rang. I walked out the door onto the small parking lot to head toward Linwood to cross the street to catch the trolley to Caddo Heights.

      The parking lot had a turnaround drive and parents, there to pick up their kids, were all out of their cars. President Kennedy had been killed and it was a very emotional scene. Suddenly, I was scared, felt weak, and wanted to get home. I felt alone, although there were people all around I ran and jumped on the trolley that had just pulled up. It was only a couple of miles, several stops, and maybe 10 minutes to Caddo Heights where I got off the trolley and ran home.

       I rushed in the back door into the kitchen where Mama (my mother) was hanging up the phone. It was about 3:20. She was talking to C.J. Serio, the Newspaper Production route manager, who told her that the papers were already at the paper box. It was a special edition of The Times, the first such special since 1945, and not The Journal, the regular evening paper. Suddenly, I felt a lot better. The paper route made me forget my anxieties.

     I put on my tennis shoes, jumped on my bike, and sped the 3 1/2 blocks to the paper box at the corner of Corbitt and Ridgeway to the awaiting papers. I started folding my papers and was joined in a few minutes by Randy Bouknight, who came to get his papers. I threw the route around my house and Randy threw the route around his house. I don’t recall us saying much to each other. We folded our papers and got on about the business of delivering them.

      The weekend and the days after are a blur now. I remember Walter Cronkite and all the TV coverage: Parkland Hospital, The Texas School Book Depository, Officer J.D. Tippitt, Jack Ruby, Lee Harvey Oswald, President Johnson’s swearing in, Jacqueline, little John, Caroline, and the funeral.

      Elsa Van Thyn: I was in seventh grade social studies class (Ms. Cooper) at Oak Terrace Junior High during lunch break practicing a puppet skit with Diana Jacobs, when someone came in the room and announced that Kennedy had been shot, I remember someone actually cheering, which even then I found horrifying. A little later, Theresa Underwood stood up and said she was listening to the radio and the President had died. At about the same time, Ms. Cooper's phone rang and she told the class that the office mandated that the assassination could not be discussed. I know, isn't that the most outrageous?
      I do remember walking home that Friday in shock and that Mama was crying when I got to the house. I also remember being in Sunday school that Sunday with Steven Katz teaching Hebrew when Oswald was killed, somehow it was announced to the class (maybe Steven came in and told us). 
     I believe for all of us alive and aware that it was the turning point in our lives, it changed us all, by the loss of innocence and instilled fear in me that I had not experienced before.

 

November 22, 1963 -- the darkest day

        November 22, 1963, began as a dark, gloomy day in New Orleans. It would become darker.
         It's a day easy to remember, hard to forget. The news was stunning -- and sickening -- by early afternoon. The weather kept getting worse. It poured that night. How appropriate.
         Where were you when JFK was assassinated? (Many of your remembrances are on a separate blog posted today.)
          The Woodlawn High School football team was in the New Orleans area, at the Holiday Inn -- off Airport Highway -- in Metairie. We were playing at East Jefferson High School, just down the road from the hotel, in a Class AAA first-round playoff game that night.
          It was my junior year; I was a manager/statistician/school sports editor; it was Woodlawn's second playoff game in its four-year history; its first one on the road.
---
          At about 11:45 a.m., I was hanging around the hotel lobby when Coach A.L. Williams (the running backs/defensive backs coach) and Lee Prather (father of our quarterback, Trey Prather) said they were going to drive down the road and look at the stadium. Did I want to go along? Sure.
          We got back to the Holiday Inn about 12:30 p.m. As we walked back into the courtyard -- where a couple of the coaches were sitting near the swimming pool -- players began bolting out of their lower-floor and second-floor rooms yelling that "the President has been shot in Dallas!"
         How suddenly life changes.
         The horrible news that President Kennedy had died came a half-hour later. Football didn't seem so important anymore.
 ---
         We should not have been in New Orleans. We should not have been in the playoffs at all. But we also could have been playing in Shreveport that night. We had Byrd High School -- our good buddies -- to thank for it all.
         We had lost to Bastrop (13-7) and to Byrd (14-7), and it looked as if we were going to finish third in District 1-AAA, out of the playoffs. But two weeks before the regular season ended, the news broke on a Tuesday afternoon: Byrd had used an ineligible player, and had to forfeit eight wins overall, four in the district -- including our game.
         We were back in the race. Think practice at Woodlawn wasn't spirited that day?
         If Byrd could beat Bastrop that week, we had a chance to win the district. So we, for once, were rooting for Byrd. Our just rewards? Bastrop, an unheralded Cinderella-type team with three super players, beat Byrd 19-13 ... and deservedly won the district.
          So Bastrop was at home for its first-round game. Woodlawn, in second place, was on the road. On Thursday, as JFK and Jackie made their way to Texas, the Knights took the bus to New Orleans, with a stop at LSU for practice.
---

The most endearing moment of the long weekend of
 the JFK assassination -- John-John salutes his father.

      Like the rest of the nation, we were mesmerized by the TV reports that afternoon. JFK wasn't popular in the South, but he was a charismatic man with a beautiful family (Jackie and two young children) and the news of the shooting from the Texas School Book Depository Building was riveting.

           Many of the Woodlawn students, including the cheerleaders, pep squad and band, learned of the shooting on their way to New Orleans.
          What I learned just recently, from Coach Williams, is that afternoon there was a lot of discussion with the East Jefferson people -- and the Louisiana High School Athletic Association -- on whether the game should be postponed. It wasn't.
           As far as I know, every game in the state was played that night. (So were the college games the next day and the NFL on Sunday ... a decision for which Pete Rozelle -- one of the great commissioners in sports history -- was criticized forever.)
 ---
          From our standpoint, it should have been postponed. It began raining in mid-afternoon, and it rained, and rained, and rained. There were some breaks, and it just drizzled some, but most of the game was played in a downpour. Especially when we had the ball.
           Sounds made up? Nope, I'm not kidding. I know this because I watched that game film hundreds of times. In fact, Coach Williams remembers that the East Jefferson coach (Bob Whitman) apologized to the Woodlawn staff at midfield at the end of the game because he knew his team had gotten the best of the weather deal.
            It was a 7-7 tie settled on first downs, which was the rule then (before overtime became mandatory). East Jefferson had six first downs to Woodlawn's five. If the first downs had been tied 6-6, we would have won on penetrations inside the 20; we had the edge, 3-2, because we had recovered two East Jeff fumbles inside their 20. We scored after one of them, but not the other.
            In the game's final minute, Trey Prather threw a fourth-down pass to my close friend Ken Liberto, who made a sliding, one-handed catch -- fabulous catch, really -- but out of bounds by inches. It would have been the first down we needed to advance.
            Instead, we were out. It was a loss (of sorts) for us.
            The country's loss that day? Immeasurable.
 ---                           
             Liberto loved that catch. Loved it so much that during the winter and spring, we had the game film and a Woodlawn projector at Trey's house and we watched the game and that play hundreds of times. That's now I know how hard it rained whenever we had the ball.
             The next day the bus ride home was long and quiet. We went through Baton Rouge, where LSU was playing Tulane, a 20-0 Tigers' victory before the most quiet Tiger Stadium crowd in history.  After getting home on Saturday, we spent the rest of the day and most of the following two days watching TV.
             On Sunday morning, more stunning news -- Jack Ruby shooting alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald in the basement of the Dallas jail on live TV. I missed that; I was at the Woodlawn gym with Trey and Ken, who were shooting baskets because our basketball season was going to start on Tuesday. When Ken dropped me off at home, my mother gave me the news about Oswald.
             I'm not sorry I missed that scene.
             We didn't have school on Monday, the day of the state funeral. The images of that day are many and vivid in our memories. It was a sad, long day that concluded a sad, long extended weekend.
             For the generation before us, the "remember where you were" moment was Pearl Harbor. For this generation, it's 9-11. For the people my age, November  22, 1963, was the darkest day.
        

The spirit of Independence

       If you read my previous blog about the 1982 Independence Bowl football game, you might think I was an Independence Bowl basher.
      That would be a mistake. I think the Independence Bowl -- which will be played for the 37th time this year -- is one of the most unsung, and disrespected, bowl games in college football.

original I-Bowl logo
(from Wikipedia)

       Yes, there are far too many bowl games these days. I don't know where I'd begin cutting, but the NCAA shouldn't cut out Shreveport.
        Maybe Shreveport-Bossier has never been the sports area it desires to be, never supported much well or for long. But the Independence Bowl is something is has done well for a long time.
        And while I haven't lived in North Louisiana for almost 24 years, I'm proud to have grown up in that area and proud of the job the Independence Bowl has done.
        And I don't like it being criticized or made fun of nationally. That happens far too often. I don't think it's fair.
        Sure, when it was the Poulan Weedeater Independence Bowl, it was easy for the national media to poke fun at the name. But bless the Poulan company for putting up sponsorship money for a number of years to help the bowl keep going.
         Sure, it was easy for the national media to regard the Independence Bowl -- and the trip to Shreveport -- as second-rate. But I guarantee you that the teams playing in the game, almost without except, were grateful to be playing another game.
         A look at the schools that have played in the game is a pretty strong list. Start with the SEC -- 10 of the current 14 members have been in the game. Let's just take mighty Alabama as an example. Three times in a seven-year period (2001-07), the Crimson Tide was in the Independence Bowl, the last time in Nick Saban's first season as coach there.
         Think he wasn't happy to take a 6-6 team to face Colorado? It gave his team an extra game and three weeks extra practice time. The next year the Tide was unbeaten until the SEC Championship Game and the Sugar Bowl with many of the players who would win the national championship the following year.
         Of course, Saban had been to the Independence Bowl before -- in 1995, with Michigan State against ... LSU. Think the I-Bowl people weren't happy to have LSU?
         Think they weren't even happier to have LSU vs. Notre Dame two years later? That brought in a (still) record attendance of 50,459.
         Yes, the I-Bowl is more than what LSU aspires to now, but in 1995 and '97, under Gerry DiNardo, it helped the Tigers during some dark days.
         In the early years, the Independence Bowl often had to settle for some less-than-desirable matchups. But it found some schools with programs that wanted to be in a bowl game and were willing to buy enough tickets to help support the bowl's effort to make the NCAA minimum payoff requirements.
         And the I-Bowl has never failed to do that. The minimum payout has gone from $50,000 in 1976 -- when the Southland Conference helped establish the bowl to give its champion a place to play -- to $2,300,000 in 2010 and 2011.
         Here's what else goes unsaid and disregarded by the national media: The athletic staffs, players and fans of the participating teams are usually shown a great time by the bowl committee -- good food, hospitality, gifts, interesting visits to local attractions (Shreveport-Bossier has some). Maybe other bowls have more to offer, but the I-Bowl doesn't have to apologize for anything.
         It always has been, for the most part, a well-run game because the bowl staff has been conscientious. One of the directors in the 1980s was one of my mentors, Paul Manasseh, just after his time as sports information director at LSU had ended. The current director, Missy Parker Setters, grew up in Shreveport, went to LSU, married an LSU football player, worked in sports information at LSU, and has helped keep the I-Bowl going.
         In the early years -- when I was working in Shreveport -- I felt the bowl committee had some big shots whose egos were as large as their blazers were red. They didn't know as much about college football and college athletics as they thought they did; they were as interested in self-promotion as promoting the game.
         But give them credit for putting their money and time into the effort. And give them credit for coming up with the Spirit of Independence Award. That's been one of the greatest side benefits of the bowl game.
         It began in 1977 with Gen. Omar N. Bradley -- the award is named for him -- and the next few years the honorees were John Wayne, Bob Hope, Paul Harvey, President Ronald Reagan, Art Linkletter and Danny Thomas. (The list of honorees is at the bottom of this blog.)
       The tradition has continued, and it's a neat one. It's brought national attention to the bowl, and to Shreveport-Bossier.
        It would help if Independence Stadium -- once known as State Fair Stadium -- was more modern. I haven't seen a game there in 25 years, but passing by on Interstate-20, it looks archaic on the home and visitors' sides. The south-end zone addition, built in recent years, apparently is a big plus and an entertainment site. It would be nice if Shreveport, some way, could invest in renovating the older parts of the stadium.
          But no matter, the Independence Bowl has endured. It deserves more respect than it gets.
---              

Spirit of Independence honorees:
    1977 General Omar N. Bradley; 1978 John Wayne;  1979 Bob Hope;  1980 Paul Harvey;    
1981 President Ronald Reagan;  1982 Art Linkletter; 1983 Danny Thomas; 1984 U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds, Demonstration Squadron; 1985 Vietnam Veterans; 1986 National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
    1987 Brigadier General (USAF retired) Charles E. Yeager; 1988 Coach Eddie Robinson;  1989 Harlem Globetrotters; 1990 Boy Scouts of America; 1991 Barksdale Air Force Base; 1992 Shriner’s Hospital for Children; 1993 Sandra Day O’Conner; 1994 YMCA (Young Men’s Christian Assoc.); 1995 American Red Cross; 1996 Veterans of Foreign Wars.
    1997 Fallen Law Enforcement Officers;  1998 Firefighters of America; 1999 World War II Veterans; 2000 General Gabriel P. Disosway; 2001 Heroes of New York City; 2002 Congressional Medal of Honor Society; 2003 Hal Sutton, PGA Tour player and 2004 Ryder Cup captain;  2004 General Tommy Franks; 2005 General Russel Honore;  2006 General Harold Moore.
    2007 Shreveport-Bossier Community Renewal;  2008 Team Hoyt;  2009 National Football Foundation;  2010 St. Jude Children's Research Hospital; 2011 General Charles C. "Hondo" Campbell

K-State helped us to some cold lemonade

         The previous blog on Kansas State and Coach Bill Snyder brings to mind my personal history with K-State.
         It was the 1982 Independence Bowl in Shreveport. Surely you remember that classic: Wisconsin (6-5) vs. K-State (6-4-1). The I-Bowl people did them both a favor inviting them, passing up a 7-4 Miami team that the next year would win the national championship.
       Smart I-Bowl committee. And they were trying to sell tickets in Shreveport and North Louisiana?
       The K-State people were overjoyed -- it was first bowl invitation in the school's sordid (well, make it sorry) 87-year football history. Actually, K-State got the bid because it promised to buy the 15,000 tickets the I-Bowl wanted it to; no such assurance from Miami, which was not yet the football power it would become.
      The Wisconsin people were happy, too; they saw a chance for the first bowl victory in school history (0-4 to that point). They also bought their 15,000 tickets.
       Here was the gimmick Coach Jim Dickey and his staff used at K-State: They redshirted 18 players, including eight seniors-to-be, in 1981 -- thus saving many of their best players for the '82 season. (It was to be the only winning season in Dickey's seven years at the school.)
      When Jerry Byrd wrote a column in the Shreveport Journal calling it "The Lemon Bowl," no one at either school was happy. The I-Bowl people were, uh, not pleased. The bowl chairman lectured me on the media always "looking at the glass half empty." A bowl committee member yelled at me, then stormed away. But the worst was yet to come.
      On the Friday night before the game, a pep rally drew both schools' fans and teams and media to Expo Hall. As Beatrice and I and Journal sports staffer Ed Cassiere were leaving the building, we noticed the Wisconsin athletic director leaving at the same time.
      His name: Elroy "Crazy Legs" Hirsch, one of the greatest players in Wisconsin history and Pro Football Hall of Fame receiver. A tall man with a crewcut and a presence.
     I stopped to speak to him. When I said I was the Journal executive sports editor, "Crazy Legs" went crazy. Don't know to what extent he'd been partying, but he clearly wasn't happy.
     I think the first sentence included a reference to "Lemon Bowl." Not sure because my ears -- and Bea's and Ed's -- were ringing. Mr. Hirsch went on, loudly -- very loudly; they could hear him back in Wisconsin -- for what seemed like a couple of minutes.
      None of us said a word. We had no more luck stopping "Crazy Legs" than NFL defensive backs had. It was as good a chewing-out as I've had in 45 years of sports journalism ... and for something I hadn't even written.
      And you wonder why I was pulling for Kansas State the next night?
      Turned out that Saturday was one of those rare brutal weather days in Shreveport. There's been one other Independence Bowl played in a near blizzard (2000 Texas A&M-Mississippi State), but the 1982 game wasn't fun, either, weather-wise.

Darrell Dickey at Kansas State
(fanbase.com photo)

      The "Lemon Bowl" was also an Ice Bowl. It was below freezing and strong winds left the chill factor at about zero, plus there were snow flurries. It was not a lucky year for the Independence Bowl committee.
      It was an unexciting game in unexciting conditions. Kansas State scored first, a field goal midway in the second quarter. But Wisconsin came right back to drive for a touchdown, then hit an 87-yard pass midway in the third quarter -- and won 14-3.
      My lead on the game in Monday's Journal read: Where was this game played anyway? Alaska? The North Pole?
      The crowd was announced at 49,523. There were maybe some 20,000 people in the stands. It was too cold to count.
     The Wisconsin quarterback was Randy Wright; I saw a story that listed him as one of the five best Badgers QBs ever. The best player in the game was Wisconsin nose tackle Tim Krumrie, who went on to be an All-Pro with the Cincinnati Bengals, played in a Super Bowl and then coached in the NFL.
     The best thing about the game was the Wisconsin band, which despite the weather put on a great show, especially after the game.
     K-State turned the momentum of that bowl trip into records of 3-8, 3-7 and 1-10 in succeeding seasons. Dickey resigned after two games of the 1-10 year.
     His son, Darrell, quarterbacked K-State in the game. I would see his name again often when I came to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram late in 2001; by then, Darrell was the head coach at the University of North Texas. Small world.
     So now you know why I have not-so-fond memories of Kansas State's first bowl trip.

The greatest college football coach ... ever

Bill Snyder (Kansas State photo)

        I say this unequivocally: Bill Snyder is the greatest coach in the history of college football.
       His Kansas State team might win the national championship this season. It might not. Doesn't matter. He's my man.
        Name 'em: Fielding Yost, Knute Rockne, Amos Alonzo Stagg, Paul "Bear" Bryant, Bud Wilkinson, Frank Leahy, Woody Hayes, Ara Parseghian, Bo Schembechler, Joe Paterno, Darrell Royal, Frank Broyles, Bobby Bowden, Eddie Robinson, Steve Spurrier, Nick Saban, Les Miles (just kidding).
         I'll take Bill Snyder.
         No one has ever done what he's done, at the place where's he done it, with the history of that program. And he's done it twice.
         It's in Manhattan, Kansas, for God's sake. I always kid my Oklahoma State friends that Stillwater is in the middle of nowhere. Manhattan, Kansas, is beyond nowhere.
         And beyond nowhere is where Kansas State football lived for as long as most of older folks have been alive. Imagine: four winning seasons in 56 years, nothing better a 7-3 record.
         Here are some BS (Before Snyder) facts:
         -- Eight zero-win seasons, seven one-win seasons, eight 2-win seasons.
         -- A 10-year period (1943-52) with a 9-82-3 record, another 10-year period (1958-67) with a 14-84 record.
        -- Losing streaks of 28, 18 and 17 games.
        -- No conference titles since 1934.
        -- The first major school to lose 500 games; at one point, a 299-509-41 record.
        -- One bowl trip, thanks to Shreveport and a benevolent Independence Bowl offer in 1982 (more on this in the next blog).
---
        Bill Snyder is 73, and he looks more like a college professor than a college football coach. From all I've read and heard, he's totally dedicated to his job and his school -- and his family, when he has time. He's, well, boring.
        He doesn't seem to be a great speaker, certainly not a media favorite. I suspect he tolerates the media, but if you read his quotes, he seems to be self-effacing and has a dry wit. He doesn't seem to lecture the media (hello, Nick Saban) or use the media to send messages to his team (TCU's Gary Patterson).
        His recruiting at Kansas State has never been considered to be among the nation's best classes. But that's the beauty of the coaching job done by Snyder and his staff. They don't have great athletes, blue-chippers, all over the field. They don't use, or feel the need, to resort to a bunch of gimmicks or trick plays or formations.
        Here's the kind of thing they do. Collin Klein came to K-State to play wide receiver. He winds up at quarterback, a heckuva runner and, now a much improved passer, and he could be this year's Heisman Trophy winner.
        The Wildcats -- like the head coach -- are fundamentally sound. You know those teams have been well-drilled, well-conditioned. They block and they tackle, and they just beat opponents down. And they don't beat themselves very often.
        This season, for example, they have six turnovers in 10 wins. Two of them came last week when they came to Fort Worth and beat TCU, and it is my belief that Patterson and his staff -- like Snyder -- have done a tremendous job over the past decade.
        What the K-S staff, under Snyder, has done better than anyone else is -- as Steve Spurrier would say -- "coach them up."
        At this writing, K-State is No. 1 in the BCS standings and sits two wins (at Baylor on Saturday, home against Texas on Dec. 1) from playing for the national championship.
        Kansas State, national championship. It sounds unreal. It seems impossible. It is incredible.
---
        Snyder was unknown to most of the country when he came to K-State just after the 1988 season ended. He had been on Hayden Fry's staff for 13 years, three at North Texas and 10 at Iowa (as offensive coordinator). K-State had gone 0-26-1 when he was hired.
        He began changing the whole culture -- improving the facilities (with the financial backing of the school and boosters), changing the uniforms and even going to a darker shade of purple, the discipline within the team, etc. Here's a link to a story that details the changes: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/10/19/3874894/bill-snyder-saved-a-town-and-a.html
        His team won one game its first season ... on a last-second pass to beat North Texas. But he widened the recruiting net, upped the talent level ... and his staff coached like no K-State staff ever had.
        By his third season, the Wildcats had a winning record (7-4). In his fifth season, K-State went to a bowl game for the first time since 1982, and earned its first bowl victory in history. That started a streak of 11 bowls in a row.
        Here are the Snyder highlights:
        -- At least nine wins in 12 seasons; 11 wins in six of seven years (1997-2000, 2002-03).
        -- 13 bowl trips (6-7 record)
        -- In 1998, K-State was 11-0 and appeared headed for the national championship game. But it was upset (yes, K-State was upset) by Texas A&M 36-33, double overtime, in the Big 12 Championship Game.
        -- In 2003, K-State won its first conference title since 1934 (69 seasons) by beating Oklahoma in the Big 12 title game.
        -- Four national Coach of the Year honors (1991, '94, '98 and last year).
---
        He retired after the 2005 season, after two so-so seasons. He was 66, and he was tired. The day after he retired, K-State renamed its stadium Bill Snyder Stadium. He asked that it be changed to Bill Snyder Family Stadium because, he said, family is everything to him. Done.
        But when the Wildcats' program declined even more the next three years, his successor was fired. The K-State people wanted one man to coach their team ... again. The Professor came back -- and, look, he's done it again.
       You can argue that K-State has never played a top-notch nonconference schedule, and you'd be correct. Sure, that's helped boost the Snyder record some. But the Wildcats have more than held their own against the nation's best programs for much of the past 20 years. I think the man has proven himself.
       Barry Switzer, a pretty successful coach at Oklahoma and a Super Bowl winner with the Dallas Cowboys (thank you, Jimmy Johnson), said this:
       "Bill Snyder isn't the coach of the year, and he isn't the coach of the decade. He's the coach of the century."
       That's on the Kansas State football web site, and I've seen the quote in other places. Barry Switzer and I thinking alike? Scary.

'Hey now' ... Heity, the big guy

    Whenever I work at the newspaper downtown -- and that's only a day or two a week now -- I almost always think of Kent Heitholt when I walk across a parking lot late at night to the garage where my car is parked.   
     The really big guy -- 6-foot-3 and 315 pounds (or more) -- we all called Heity. The big teddy bear  always upbeat, with the great sense of humor, a prankster. The sports writer/editor whose standard greeting was "hey now."
      I was reminded of him recently when Scott Ferrell -- the sports editor at The Shreveport Times much longer than Heity was or I was -- posted this on Facebook: "Hard to not think about Kent Heitholt when Nov. 1 hits the calendar. Great boss, mentor and friend. Rest in peace, Heity."

Kent Heitholt (Columbia Tribune photo)

      Heity, murdered in the parking lot of the Columbia (Mo.) Tribune at about 2:30 a.m. on Nov. 1 (just after the night of Halloween) in 2001. Clubbed into unconsciousness (or nearly so) by a blunt object -- such as a tire tool -- and then strangled with his own belt. His watch and keys stolen. But his car still there next to the bloody mess.
       Heity, 48 then, married to Deb for almost 20 years, father of two (Vince and Kali), a University of Missouri journalism grad (1975) who simply loved the newspaper business. Loved sports and loved people, and loved writing about both.
       The news was stunning, sickening, and it hurt badly. Still does. His many friends across the country, I'm sure, share that feeling.
---
        The murder case is a complex, convoluted one. I don't care to go into the details. In fact, I never read about the details until last week in preparing to write this piece. Couldn't bring myself to do it before. Too gruesome.
        It is a case in which two young men from Columbia were convicted of the murder and are in prison for terms of 40 and 25 years. But one has recanted his confession and testimony; the other, accused by the first guy, has denied all along he was there.
        So there is a lot of doubt, a lot of people who think they didn't do it. Accusations that one of Heity's co-workers -- supposedly not on good terms with Heity (pretty unbelievable) -- did it. It's been the subject of in-depth reports on CBS News' 48 Hours and several blogs. (See below for links on the case).
       Just last week, on the day of the 11th anniversary of the murder, a judge refused a new trial for one of the young men.    http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/topics/ryan-ferguson/
---     
       Heity liked to have his fun, a little too much at times. Without the sordid details, that's why he left a job with the Nashville Banner covering University of Tennessee athletics and, fortunately, soon found a job with The Shreveport Times as a sports columnist/writer.
        His good fortune -- and ours.
        We worked together for a year after I came back to The Times (after 12 years in other jobs) as sports editor in 1987. He was our lead writer, but no prima donna. He helped out with everything -- high schools, agate, talking to other writers, guiding younger people, whatever.
         Gerry Robichaux, who preceded me as sports editor, posted this last week: "When Ken worked with me, he bailed me out hundreds of times, staying late to help. Never said a word, just chipped in. Super guy. One I won't forget."
          Heity wasn't among the super writing talents I've worked with in 45 years. But he was very good, wrote some great people pieces. He was so dedicated, so supportive, just fun to be around.
           He and Deb and the kids -- Vince was little, Kali a baby -- lived two blocks from my parents'  house in South Broadmoor. So I'd visit the Heitholts occasionally on walks around the neighborhood.
            He and I spent much time discussing stories, how to cover them, how to best use our staff and our space, both of us frustrated at times (but not with each other). Many late-night talks in the paper's parking lot ... not such a pleasant memory now.
 ---
             You could tell by looking that Heity loved to eat. Not so obviously, so did I. We found a common cause: crawfish. Several times we took our dinner break to visit an all-you-can-eat crawfish special on West 70th Street, and see who could eat more. We had nothing stronger to drink than ice tea, and we'd spend a couple of hours, then come back to the office -- smelling like crawfish (yukky) -- and help get the section out.
             Believe me, we both put in enough hours of work to make up for the long dinner breaks.
             Eating crawfish was more fun than work.
             Heity. The guy turning out the bathroom lights when he knew you were the only one in there and he was leaving.
             Heity. The guy whose desk often looked like a hurricane had hit. Neatness was not a plus.
             Heity. Sweet with his kids, and other people's kids.
             (This is from Louise Pierce Dortch, the longtime Times administrative assistant who was good friends with Heity: "One of my favorite stories about Kent came from a sports writer. He and Kent were covering something and Kent ended up spending the night at the guy's house. The only bed was in the guy's small child's room. He got up early because he thought Kent might scare the child when it woke. He eased open the door to find Kent sitting on the floor playing a video game with the kid. The child looked up at him and said, 'I like your big friend, Daddy.' ")
             Heity. He was a high school athlete at a private school in St. Louis, and his dad (from a family of great athletes) was a coach. They agreed that Kent wasn't much of an athlete; I remember him saying he played tackle in football and was the team's placekicker and he -- ruefully -- remembered missing a field-goal try that would have won a big game against an arch-rival team.
             Heity. Laughing boisterously (with me) in the office.
---
             We had one disagreement, in a staff meeting one day. One of us wanted to run three places in the results of the many area track meets, to save time and space; the other wanted to keep it a five places to get more names in the paper. We exchanged views, tersely, for about 20 seconds. No big deal.
             When Times management decided they wanted to make a sports editor change, I was out and Heitholt succeeded me. The paper's editor -- not the one who hired me -- was from Nashville and was familiar with Heity.
                Heity called me and said he wished the situation wasn't what it was, felt that maybe what he had told the editors contributed to the change. I assured him -- and I assure you now -- I had no problem with him, that I felt he had been supportive. I told him that I obviously didn't do a good enough job, that the job wasn't right for me and I wasn't right for the job, and I needed to move on.
---                                                    
               Heity and I talked a few times over the years after I moved to Florida and then Tennessee.  We talked about the situation at The Times, where Heity -- I'm sure -- was a better, kinder, more patient fit as sports editor. I remember him talking about covering the Shreveport Pirates in the Canadian Football League (yes, you read that right) in 1994-95.
            By 1996, he was no longer sports editor, just a columnist. He moved to Columbia, Mo., home of his Missouri Tigers, as sports editor of the Tribune. He and Deb felt it would be a nice place for their kids. He seemed pretty happy anytime I talked to him.
            One thing he always kidded me about, never let me forget.
            On the first Sunday in May 1988, we ran a long centerpiece I'd written on "A Day with the Shreveport Captains," a behind-the-scenes look at the team and the activities at the ballpark, a story that started on Page 1 and jumped to a full page inside. It was also after Kentucky Derby day (a story at the bottom of the sports front).
              But the photos on the two stories were identical size (huge mistake on my part). When the first edition came out, they were transposed -- the baseball photo with the Derby story, the winning Derby horse with the baseball story. Imagine the reaction when we saw that.
            This, too: Heity, in editing, jokingly had changed my byline title from "Times Sports Editor" to "Times Epic Writer." And that also made the paper.
            Lee Hiller remembers I got on Heity about the byline before I even noticed the photos.
            It all got fixed for the city edition. But Heitholt and I had a story to exchange for years.
---
           Another Heitholt story: Near the end of the baseball season in 1988, we ran a wire story from Arizona about a minor-league player from Shreveport in the Cleveland Indians' farm system being sent to a drug/alcohol rehab place.
            That afternoon, I came in and Heitholt was on the phone trying to explain that it was a wire story and that, no, we weren't going to retract it. I asked Heity who he was talking to, and he wrote the name on a slip of paper. It was the player's father.
              Obviously, Kent was having a tough time satisfying the caller. But he kept his cool.
              I knew the dad; he had been a high school coach in Bossier for two decades. I knew the mom, a high school teacher in Shreveport who had called the papers several times over the years to complain about coverage of her son (and never to thank us). I knew the kid, who would go on to a great major-league career with Hall of Fame numbers and often a Hall of Shame attitude toward fans and media.
               Finally, I told Heity to let me talk to the dad. He switched the call. I had no more luck with Dad, who had always been polite to me, than Heity. When I told him we would check it out but no correction was planned, he lost his cool and yelled, "I'm going to come up there and put you and Heitholt in a garbage can."
               I couldn't help but laugh. "You'll have no trouble doing that with me," I replied. "But Heitholt might not be that easy. Thanks for the call."
               Click.
---    
           After Heity's death, the Columbia Tribune ran a tribute to him, with contributions from all over the country.  Read them http://archive.showmenews.com/2001/nov/20011104spor005.asp and you'll know how loved he was.
           He was, as our friend and longtime Times columnist Teddy Allen has said many times, "a beautiful human being."
           How true. If only we could have some more crawfish-eating sessions.
           Hey, now.
 ---
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18559_162-1322783.html
http://blog.eyesforlies.com/2011/08/kent-heitholt-murder-ryan-ferguson-or.html
http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2011/aug/09/why-add-another-victim-michael-boyd-kent-heitholt/

Get over it, and move on

      Hope you are having a good morning, and are looking forward to the next four years.
      Because if you're not, what are you going to do? Move to Mexico? Australia? Canada? I can tell you from personal experience that Holland is a nice place to live ... if you like cold weather.
      Thank goodness, the election is over. Let's get back to more important things, like football.
       If your Presidential candidate didn't win last night, it's time to move on. Stop the whining, the complaining, the nasty remarks. Get over it.
       This is, in part, a continuation of my "Have Faith" blog of Aug. 26 when I pointed out how sick I was of all the political posts on Facebook, and how many of those I had turned off because they turned me off.
        I didn't turn off enough of them. I watched the posts during the three Presidential debates, the (critical) comments on seemingly each remark by both candidates, and how people declared one or the other candidate the "winner" of each debate.
        Here's my judgment: President Obama won only debate that counts -- at the polls, in the Electoral College.
         I'll estimate that probably 75-80 percent of the people on my e-mail list and people on my Facebook "friends" list do not support what I support. But I intended to write this piece no matter how this election came out.
          I assure my old friends who supported Gov. Romney, a decent man who fought hard and made it a closer race than it looked as if it was going to be, that this country won't fold up, won't go broke, won't be fighting forces from other nations invading our territory, hopefully won't have to deal with terrorists attacks.
          Paint a doomsday picture, if you want. I just can't think that way.
          After you read this, and you want to set me straight, do so. Just don't expect me to get in a debate with you about politics. I refuse. I'm not out to win the popular vote here.
           You can call me a Socialist, or a Communist, or whatever. If you think I lean toward being a liberal or you call me a Democrat, you might be in the ballpark. I'm not willing to ever support a party that gave us Richard M. Nixon. Some things we don't forget.
           I just keep hearing the same tired arguments, the same reason a lot of people I grew up with despised John F. Kennedy before he was assassinated and martyred; despised Lyndon B. Johnson;   thought Jimmy Carter was inept, despised Bill Clinton -- yes, the brilliant guy with the Monica problem and also the guy who gave us some balanced budgets.
           Those same people who thought Barry Goldwater was going to be a great President and believed Ronald Reagan was (and maybe he was). And thought -- think -- George W. Bush was a big hero. Two words: two wars. Katrina bungler. Financial mess (pass it on). Baseball fan (I like that one).
           And now they despise Barack Obama, and anything he stands for. Sadly, one reason they do is because his skin is darker.
           Obama, who is as popular at the end of his first term as ... Clinton and Bush were. Both of the Bush presidents, in fact.
           Can't tell you Obama has been an effective leader; wish he could have gotten more accomplished.  Can tell you that he's had a part of Congress that has fought him every step of the way, from the very start.
           Hopefully, now our national leaders will find solutions; that those people in Congress who frustrate us with their stalemate and their inability -- or unwillingness -- to compromise will find a way to keep the government from falling off the financial cliff,
         All the criticism, all the whining, all the downright mean remarks and cartoons and photos that I've seen over the past year and a half I've been on Facebook don't do anything for civility.
         We spent much of the eight years of the previous administration feeling the same way, and we were as critical as the other side has been the past four years. But you know what? We're still here, we're still OK. And we will be four years from now.
         I know -- having started my life in another part of the world -- how great it is to be an American, to live in this country, with all its faults, and with all its bounties.
        I intend to keep a positive attitude, to believe that we live in the greatest place in the world, and it's going to remain that way. Whether you like it or not. Let's move forward.
             
       
      
     

Score, score, score ... and I can't keep up

     People who have heard me rail about this know how I feel: I don't like high-scoring football games. Or, for that matter, high-scoring baseball games. Or the farce that is the NBA All-Star Game.
      So here's the contradiction: I like offensive football, I like the passing game. Always have, dating to my days at Woodlawn High and Louisiana Tech, when we had passing offenses ahead of their time.
      But I don't like track meets disguised as football games. A touchdown every minute -- or every two minutes -- doesn't interest me.
      Maybe West Virginia 70, Baylor 63 was entertaining to some. Not to me. Texas 66, Ole Miss 31 (well, it's OK if Ole Miss loses like that). Oklahoma 63, Texas 21. Texas 56, Baylor 50. (Gee, lots of Texas here).
      There's a limit to how much offense I like. I have to admit that if it's one of my favorite teams doing the scoring, well, it's not that bad.
      And one of my favorite teams is the second highest-scoring team in the Football Bowl Subdivision, the stupid NCAA name for Division I. Louisiana Tech is averaging 52.63 points a game; only Oregon (53.38) is better. Texas A&M (45.50) is a distant third.
       All three use the spread, no-huddle, hurry-up offense. I understand the philosophy (keep the pressure on the defense, keep the defense from making personnel substitutions, spread the field, make the defense cover sideline to sideline, and make it play man-to-man, open up the running lanes. Even the odds if the other team's linemen are perhaps more talented than yours).
       I should like it, but I just haven't warmed up to it. No more than I can ever warm up to 8-7 or 11-10 baseball games. I like pitching duels, with good defense, and scores of 1-0 or 2-1 or 3-2.
       I am writing this because the Oregon team orthopedist -- a long-ago athlete from Shreveport -- and I have been trading Facebook messages. When I told him I wasn't crazy about Oregon's offense, he politely -- really -- asked me to explain.
       OK, Don, I'm trying.

Colby Cameron and the Louisiana Tech offense
 have no trouble scoring points (The Shreveport Times photo)

       I'm looking at Oregon's scores this season: 57-34, 63-14, 49-0, 51-26, 52-21, 43-21, 70-14 -- all Ducks. No wonder Don loves it.
        And look at Louisiana Tech's scores: 56-49, 56-37, 52-24, 44-38, 58-31, 57-59 (loss to Texas A&M), 70-28 and -- what's this? -- 28-14 last week at New Mexico State. A mirage. (Explanation: three makeable field goals that missed, a drive to near the goalline that bogged down. That's 16 points wasted.)
        My old Tech friends love this offense; they find it exciting. Tech's 575.73 yards per game is second in the country (Oklahoma State's 586.14 is No. 1).
        My Tech friends thought the Tech-A&M game in Shreveport was a thriller, and maybe it was, with Tech falling behind 27-0 and then rallying, rallying, rallying -- and missing two two-point PAT tries near the end that could have forced overtime.
         Speaking of overtime: Texas Tech beat TCU 56-53 here in Fort Worth two weeks ago. But that was in three overtimes; it was 36-36 at the end of regulation, somewhat acceptable in my view.
         Of course, I am one of the few people in America -- maybe the only one -- who thinks overtime in the regular season is a crock. One thing it does is push scores higher and higher, out of sight, out of proportion.
          I feel that way, and it's been maybe 27 years since John James Marshall and I wrote pro and con columns in the Shreveport Journal debating overtime; it had been put in for colleges and high schools that year. I was the "con" guy (there's a laugh). I thought, and still think, ties would be fine. Save overtime for the playoffs or bowl games. But I'm a native European, so I'm used to tie games in soccer. Oh, well, overtime is another blog subject.
            Sorry, I digress. Back to my, geez, explanation.
            Did a little checking on the 121 FBS (Division I) football teams; 87 of them (71.9 percent) have been involved in at least one game in which one team scores 50 points; 19 more have been in games with at least 45 to 49 points by one team. Only nine teams have not seen a number higher than "39" on a scoreboard this season.
            Neither Rutgers, with a 7-1 record, nor its opponents have topped 35 points in any game.
            I'm a Rutgers fan now. Go Scarlet Knights (well, at least I like the nickname).
            OK, here's the point: I like balance. I like a more even pace, not a frenetic one. I like some offense, and I like some defense. I like defensive teams that can run, cover receivers all over the field, contain running quarterbacks and slow speedy running backs, and that can tackle in the open field. I like it when kicking games can make a big difference.
            Maybe that's old-school thinking. Maybe, because I'm a sportswriter who has tried to cover these games and tried to keep up with the statistics (as in many of the high school games I've covered the past two years), I don't like games that last 3 1/2-4 hours.
            You know I'm not an Alabama or Notre Dame fan, but I admire their defenses. They are Nos. 1-2 in the country in scoring defense (8.13, 9.88). LSU has the same type defense, but not as consistently.       
          Take LSU against Texas A&M a couple of weeks ago. A&M scored 59 against Louisiana Tech the week before and early on against LSU, it looked like the Aggies were going to go wild again. Then LSU adjusted to the A&M speed, and to sensational freshman QB Johnny Manziel's ability to make tacklers miss and hit his short passes. He still burned them some, but Aggies' turnovers and LSU's increasing pressure took the game away from Johnny Football and Co.            

It's OK when Kevin Minter (46) and the LSU defense jump all
over Texas A&M (LSU Football photo from Facebook).

       Oregon didn't fare as well against Auburn's defense in the national championship game two years ago (and it moved the ball at times against LSU in the season opener at Cowboys Stadium a year ago, but got hurt by turnovers). Of course, Cam Newton and Auburn's hurry-up, spread didn't run away from Oregon, either.
         If teams can play some defense, and run the football to take time off the clock, I think it's much more interesting.
         Last Saturday, I watched Georgia-Florida, a 17-9 game full of turnovers, and later Notre Dame-Oklahoma, a tight game until the final few minutes when the Irish pulled away. To me, those were two competitive, high-profile games that held my interest.
        I wouldn't expect a high-scoring duel this Saturday in Baton Rouge, although Alabama certainly has more potential to score than LSU has shown.
      I know many people thought LSU-Alabama a year ago in Tuscaloosa -- the Game of the Year -- was boring -- no touchdowns, all field goals, 9-6 in overtime, Tigers. I thought, from start to finish, it was tense and tight, and intriguing. And it wasn't hard to keep up with the score.
      They deserved to tie (remember, I'm not for overtime in the regular season) and that way they could have justified a national championship rematch with me.
      Instead, they made LSU play a team it already had beaten, on that team's home field.
      Bottom line: Both teams played football the way I like it. Hope Don in Oregon -- via Shreveport -- understands.      
        
         
                

That one last talk

    It happens often these days. I think of things I'd like to ask my dad, or say to him.
    Wish now, four years after his death, that I had told him more often how much difference he made in my life, how much I appreciated him. Maybe he knew from some of my writing.
     Wish, too, that I had asked him to tell us more about his growing-up years and his years just before, during and after his time in German concentration camps. We've got the long interview he did for the Shoah Foundation on tape, but even now it's difficult to watch. Maybe someday again.
      If had known that I was going to do this blog, I would have worked harder at putting his thoughts and stories on paper.
      He didn't speak English well, and he didn't put his thoughts in print like my mother did, but -- as I've said often and written previously on this blog -- he was the better storyteller of the two. To the end, he had recall of events and people in his life, and he had some fascinating travels.
        So I wish we'd had one last big talk. Can't go back and do it.
        I know there was a final goodbye, but it was a few weeks before he died. As his health declined -- and he lived to be 89 -- every time we'd visit the house in Shreveport, when it came time to leave, I knew it could be the last time I saw him alive.
        My sister was there on a visit the late evening he collapsed. She called early the next morning to say he was in the hospital, and we should come on. She called back 15 minutes later to say he was gone. That trip from Fort Worth to Shreveport, it seems, was  longer than ever.

Coach James Farrar, with granddaughte
r MJ Trahan

         So I've thought a lot lately about last visits. Had one with Dr. James C. Farrar three months ago, knowing his time was short. When he passed away Tuesday morning, it brought this particular blog subject to the front.
           How many people did you have a last visit with, and how many do you wish you could go back and see one more time?
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          We -- Bea and I -- got a lot of quality time with my mother in her last few weeks after she broke her hip in late May two years ago. But if I could go back and ask, I'd ask how she managed to hold her rage -- which my sister and I saw enough times to be leery -- when she was shoved around by the German SS guards at Auschwitz. I guess the threat of beatings and/or death was a deterrent.
            If I could go back and re-visit ...
           My in-laws. I'd take one more fried fish meal (bream and perch) cooked by sweet Granny Shaw in the little kitchen in the little house on Shaw Hill in Jamestown, one more fishing trip to Lake Bistineau with Paw-Paw Shaw, or one more session at that table listening to him spin stories about "little ol' Buster" or a variety of subjects.
           Little ol' Buster was Howard Jr., Bea's only brother (two years younger) who we lost earlier this year. And, luckily, Bea and I both got a nice, long last visit with him when he stayed with us for a few days a few months earlier. (Bea also got a last visit with her dad, traveling from Florida to see him a couple of weeks before his death in August 1995.)
          My fill-in grandparents, Abe Gilbert and Janice Cahn, who always brought gifts and/or unconditional love. I've written about them previously.
          My newspaper friends. Start with Bill McIntyre, my first boss. Gave me a parttime job at The Shreveport Times when I was in high school and a fulltime job right after I graduated from college. He explained ice hockey to me, knew as much about boxing as anyone, could type as fast as anyone in history with two fingers, and was my "go-to" guy for questions about keeping score in baseball ... and was as mild-mannered and pleasant a person as you'd ever find.
           Don Bowman, who I've written about (Don's Ashes Are Happy This Week, Oct. 9). Kent Heitholt, the big, friendly guy so brutally murdered; I'd ask him about Missouri going into the SEC. Larry Feese, my page-design mentor. Jess Rutkin, a kind man, and his son Bill Rutkin, the meek guy we called "Bull."
             My sports information director mentors, first T.H. "Pete" Dosher. More than anyone, he was responsible for me attending Louisiana Tech, and for four years, he was always there for me. One more time to hear him say, "Let's go get a bite to eat," and we'd go to his house where Miss Mary fed us and we'd discuss the news of the day. They were like family. Even in my senior year, after Pete moved to Grambling as the head of journalism, he'd call at least once a week.
           Jack Fiser, the erudite, brilliant writer, once sports editor/columnist of The Shreveport Times and for much of one year the SID at Tech. Paul Manasseh, who knew so much about people, sports and journalism, also Tech SID for much of one year. He had lots of opinions, but didn't let them stand in the way of practicality. Bobby Henderson, from Ruston and later Southwestern Louisiana, the best record-keeping SID of his time.
             Coaching friends, beginning with Joe Aillet, "The Smooth Man" who was a legend at Louisiana Tech. The smartest man I've ever been around.  
             The coaching list would be extensive. W.B. Calvert, our football ends/basketball/golf coach at Woodlawn; visited with him in Greenville, Texas, one day in 1994; he introduced me around and said "this kid was my manager." This kid was 47 then.
              Lowell Morrison, another Woodlawn coach with a tough exterior but really a soft heart. Scotty Robertson, the best basketball coach I've known. Bobby Ray McHalffey, the Haughton football coach (from Bossier) who you could quote in the paper ... if you took out the bleeps. Bobby Hudson, the only coach other than Steve Spurrier I've heard refer to his team as a "ball squad." The polished John Bilberry and John Crockett, a wonderful coaching team. Clifford Pennywell, the basketball coach/athletic director I wrote about not too long ago.
             One more steak at Bettye Bruning's house in Natchitoches (with Coach Jim always buying). One more bowl of ice cream at Jimmy and Jeannine Harrison's house in Shreveport, with all those lively Harrison kids. One more bowl of hopskotch ice cream at Jack and Giffy Marshall's house, with Jack showing us his superb photos he took all over Shreveport and talking newspaper business.
           My great friends, the Tuckers, Jimmy and Ruth, at my second home in Sunset Acres in the mid-1960s.
          My school friends, so many of them. Fabe Moseley and Larry Alexander, junior high/high school basketball buddies both taken too soon -- Fabe with Hodgkin's disease, Larry with Lou Gehrig's Disease. I did have good visits with both a few years before they went.
             Murray Pompei, the big kid from Paterson, N.J., who became a good friend at Louisiana Tech and took me to my first Yankee Stadium game in August 1967. He was dead a year later, of cancer.
             Tommy Spinks, one of the best athletes and personalities in the Woodlawn/Louisiana Tech days of the 1960s. Roger Hicks and James Rushworth, two Fair Park basketball/baseball stars who in the '70s and '80s loved to talk sports anytime I saw them or they phoned.
             Old school friends going all the time these days, it seems.
             But I wish I could go back and visit Henry Lee "Trey" Prather, and ask him why join the Marines after dropping out of LSU in late 1966? Why not transfer to another school; it would've been so easy?
          And I did get that last great visit with Ken Liberto several years before he died -- a visit I wrote about in my Bradshaw to Liberto, 82 yards, TD blog last week. As I noted, he was in good shape then -- colon cancer in remission -- and I'm glad I didn't have to see him two years ago in his final days. Ken didn't want that; when Kathy asked if she should contact some of his close friends, he asked her not to.
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         I've had some profound last-visit experiences.
         Pete Dosher, mentioned above, was declining in his cancer battle in February 2003 when I went from Fort Worth to Ruston to visit his home. Sat with Mary and saw his two daughters, who I hadn't seen in 30 years, and finally after a long time, Mary took me back to Pete's bedroom.
         The man who was my foremost journalism teacher/booster was curled in a fetal position, a shell of himself. Mary leaned over and whispered to him to say I was there. For 15-20 seconds, no response. Suddenly, he rolled over and said, "Oh, Nico ..."
        Then he rolled back to where he'd been.
        Two days later, he died.
         In 2008, a tough year, a month before my dad died, Bea and I went to Dallas to see James "Spanky" Baker, younger brother (by one year) of my closest longtime friend, Casey Baker. Spanky was in hospice care, a not-long period after pancreatic cancer was found.
        He went in and out from being lucid that day, but he knew we were there. He seemed to be out of it when, all of a sudden, he said, "Hey, Nico, come here." I went over and he said, "WFAA is moving its offices out of Victory Park." Surprised, I replied, "What?" He didn't reply.
        I went back across the room, and Casey asked, "What'd he say?" I told him. Then Spanky began laughing, and said, "Fooled you." A moment later, he was asleep.
        He died two weeks later.
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         The news about Dr. Farrar -- Coach Farrar -- that came Tuesday was no surprise. His health problems had been on-going for a decade, and his decline in the past couple of years was obvious. We had two wonderful visits, one-on-one, this year, and he was prepared.
          "I know my time is short," he said, "but I want to have things in order for my kids."
          On our last visit, he could barely get out of bed. But he did and we sat and visited for 20 minutes or so before I could see he was getting tired.
          One of the last things we talked about was a photo of him as the catcher/manager of the semipro Minden Red Birds in the late 1950s Big Eight League in North Louisiana. He's trotting home after a grand slam, smiling and about to shake hands with waiting teammates.
           "I didn't hit many home runs, or grand slams," he said, "so that was special."
           James Farrar was special -- as real a person as I've met, a coach with a big personality and a big heart, the best of storytellers, a man who knew baseball through and through as a player, coach, scout, a man devoted to his Miss Kate and his kids and grandkids -- and his many, many friends.
        When I got up to leave, he said, "Give me a hug" (which he always did). He knew, and I knew, that this was it. But over the years, we were a mutual-admiration pair; we'd said it all. He always, always, thanked me for the friendship and the writeups, and I thanked him because you don't find friends like him very often.
            That he died, as Teddy Allen pointed out, two days after the end of a World Series was poetic.