A 50-year journey: Woodlawn to now

      My old friends -- and we are old, no longer middle-age -- will be getting together Friday and Saturday in Shreveport for the Woodlawn High School Class of 1965 50-year reunion.
      I loved all those '60s classes at WHS, but this is my favorite class, of course. It's my class.
      The past two years, as the classes of '63 and '64 held their 50-year reunions and invited members of other classes, I wrote blog pieces about those days at Woodlawn (see links below). 
      In short, we loved that place and those days -- it was a special time -- but Woodlawn isn't the same, hasn't been for decades, and neither are we.
      Because I am cutting back on attending reunions -- I did not make the previous two -- and sports banquets, this is the last reunion piece I'm planning for a long while.
      Unfortunately, there are more and more memorial services and funerals to attend these days. As my wife pointed out last week, what we have to look forward to is aging and dying.
      Can't do much about the aging process, except handle it mentally and try to do the right things to stay well physically. But when people suggest that I haven't changed much in 50 years, here is my answer: bull (shortened version).
       All I have to do is look in the mirror. As for attitude and approach to life, I've also changed quite a bit. It's not just only a sports-minded world anymore; my social and political views are expanded and probably not what the great majority of my classmates want to hear.
       So it is a long way from Sunset Acres, Oak Terrace and the new school on Wyngate Drive in the Sherwood Park neighborhood ... and the Knights of old.
       But it's sweet memories, and good friends -- some of them for 55-60 years, about 10 that I went to school with from fifth grade through college graduation -- and that's what the reunion is about.   

The headline under this photo in the front section of the 1965 Woodlawn
Accolade read: "Two Knights Win All-State Honors" and the cutline
detailed Ken Liberto and Trey Prather's athletic careers. Three years, and
nine or 10 letters for both -- and the manager-statistician who tagged along.

       The Class of '65 is -- for those of us whose '60s world revolved around athletics -- the class of Ken Liberto and Trey Prather. As long as I live, and my mind is well, I will think of those guys. 
       They left us too soon -- Trey, much too soon, less than three years after graduation -- but as we come to this reunion, from a class of 581, we look at the "in memoriam" list, and count at least 101 names, and there are 40-plus on the "missing" (no contact info) list.
       And that's not even counting faculty members. When I think of Woodlawn reunions, the person I most remember is J.W. "Bubba" Cook, assistant principal in the '60s and then principal through the '70s and '80s. He made all the WHS reunions, although I'm not sure how it went when they conflicted with LSU football. Looking at the pictures of our 2010 reunion, there he was ... wearing a Woodlawn blue shirt.
       Among those we lost -- and I don't mean to slight anyone -- in the past year and a half was Tommy Watson, a friendly, tall, lean guy who started at center for our (woeful) basketball team in our senior year, and just a few months ago Pamela Parker (I was her nemesis in our sixth-grade year). She became a college English professor (Dr. Parker), and I probably could have learned some Southern Literature from her.
       We have too many graduates whose spouses have passed away. That's sorrowful, and a recent one really hurt. Billy Laird (Class of '62), WHS' first quarterback/hero and friend for many of us, died in June; just after the '65 graduation, he married our class' Brenda Boyette (Sunset Acres, cheerleader, homecoming queen, yearbook "beauty").
       What's neat is that many of the all-Woodlawn marriages survived the long years; first true loves do last. Some didn't, but at least they gave it a shot.
       I know how I feel; I think other do, too: grateful to still be here after 50 years. We know people with cancer, heart problems, strokes, Parkinson's ... and we are rooting and praying for healing and comfort.
---
       I mention Watson because he laughingly reminded me at our 2010 reunion about something I wrote in a Shreveport Journal sports-page column before our 1985 (20-year) reunion: "We knew Terry Bradshaw when he was a second-string quarterback who sometimes struggled in B-team games."
       Yes, we did. What happened to that Bradshaw kid anyway?
       (In fact, one of the people in our class was Gary Bradshaw, Terry's older brother by a year, and -- like me -- a team manager in football. We also were at Louisiana Tech -- Gary as a trainer, me as a student sports information assistant.)
       In that 1985 column, I named many of the senior athletes and "I'm proud to say they're my friends and my heroes." I still feel that way.
       Beginning with my two years at Sunset Acres Elementary, we all picked up new friends with each step -- junior high, high school and college. I've said it several times, I thank those kids for accepting me and making me feel at home. We had been in the U.S. only 1 1/2 years when we moved to Sunset Acres.
       When I think of the Woodlawn days, I mostly think of the fun we had, the pride we had in that school, strong administrators, teachers that we (mostly) respected and liked, a five-man coaching staff that was outstanding (and people I was honored to come to know as friends), intense and exciting football seasons. Loved the cheerleaders, the pep squad, the pep rallies, the band (I can sing the fight song and alma mater, and it'd be nice hear The Stripper again), and the colors scarlet and royal blue.
       One lasting memory is how many truly smart people we had in our class, in our school. I was smart, if you wanted to know about World Series, NBA and NFL champions or Mickey Mantle's batting averages in 1956 and '57, and important stuff like that.
       Another memory: Woodlawn is where my newspaper/writing career began, with the Herald (school paper) and Accolade (yearbook). Always thankful for that path.
       The world isn't quite the same, as we're not. Much pride as I had in Woodlawn, it doesn't compare to the pride I have in Beatrice, our kids and our grandkids. My classmates must feel that way about their families.
        But Woodlawn, yeah, those were beautiful days. It was the place of our dreams, soon to turn to life's realities. The seniors of '65 are now senior citizens of 68 -- and we've tried to be good citizens. We have that school and especially those people in our hearts forever and ever.
      http://nvanthyn.blogspot.com/2014/10/its-only-been-50-years-but-memories.html
       http://nvanthyn.blogspot.com/2013/03/in-1960s-woodlawn-was-our-camelot.html
         (Thanks to Beverly and Mike Harlan for providing the scanned photo of Ken and Trey.)

A top-20 list that isn't legit

     This is the "I told you so" follow-up to my July 29 blog piece on The Shreveport Times' top 20 list of "greatest" athletes in Shreveport-Bossier history.
     In the best tradition of Jerry Byrd's two-cents-worth second-guessing (cue up the Byrd voice), to The Times sports staff: You ... blew ... it!
      The 12-member voting panel -- and I was one -- blew it. My opinion: This is not a legitimate top 20 list. I tried to tell you that some big names were not even made available for the voters: (http://nvanthyn.blogspot.com/2015/07/picking-greatest-isnt-easy.html).
      Tommy Davis not among the top 20? It's not legit.
      Gary "Big Hands" Johnson not among the top 20? It's not legit.
      Bo Harris not among the top 20? Maybe it's not legit.
      Willard Brown not among the top 20? Definitely not legit.
      My friends at The Times did not do their homework before they sent out the nominations ballot. Davis wasn't listed. Big Hands wasn't listed. Bo Harris wasn't listed.

Willard Brown

     Willard Brown was listed ... but only after I suggested him. Here is what I said in my July 29 piece: ... You are not likely to guess who I voted for at No. 4. You might have never heard of him. But I will be surprised if he even makes The Times' top 20 list.
      Thank you.
      In my opinion, he is the best baseball player to come out of Shreveport-Bossier. He is in the Baseball Hall of Fame. If he's good enough for Cooperstown, he's good enough for me.
      Much more on him later.
---
      Look, I can see the cases for the athletes who made the top 20 list. But I don't happen to agree they all belong; 14 of the ones I voted for made it. Doesn't mean you have to agree with my opinion.
      Six made the list that I did not vote for (I had my reasons): Joe Delaney, Rogers Hampton, Freddie Spencer, Josh Booty, Kathy Johnson-Clarke, Leo Sanford.
      Six I voted for who didn't make it: Willard Brown, Tommy Davis, Gary "Big Hands" Johnson, Bo Harris, Joe Reding, Roland Harper.
      If I had to vote again, maybe -- maybe -- I would drop Reding and vote for Hampton, or I'd give a nod to a fine man and terrific linebacker-center in his time (the '40s and '50s), Leo Sanford, over Troy Edwards.
      But about a re-vote, read on ...
---
      I made my case for Tommy Davis in my July 29 blog. I know Rogers Hampton was a great all-round athlete at Fair Park High School in the early 1950s, but Davis was the best player on the 1952 state championship football team -- the only one in school history.
      His LSU career, interrupted by a two-year U.S. Army stint, ended after the 1958 national-championship season when he was (1) the Go (offensive) team fullback and (2) as his sketch on the American Football Kicking Hall of Fame site said "his placekicks provided the winning margin in two games (10-7 over Florida and 7-6 over Mississippi State), and his booming punts assured great field position for the Tigers throughout the season—an essential ingredient in [coach] Paul Dietzel’s conservative style of play."
      Then he went to the NFL for 12 seasons, set a record for consecutive extra points (234), missed two PATs out of 350 in his career, and left with a career punting average of 44.7 yards, second then only to Sammy Baugh's 45.1.
      So I'll take Tommy Davis' whole career over what Hampton did. How was he not on The Times' ballot?
---
      Stan Humphries was a heckuva QB at Southwood High, Northeast Louisiana University and a good one for six seasons with the San Diego Chargers. Gary "Big Hands" Johnson was a great defensive tackle in high school (at Charlotte Mitchell in Bossier City, before integration) and certainly at Grambling State University, and I'm saying he was a better Chargers player than Humphries.
      From his obituary story in 2010: Johnson played with the Chargers from 1975 to '84, before being traded to San Francisco, where he won a Super Bowl ring with the 49ers. He was a first-team All-Pro for San Diego in 1980 and ’81 and made the Pro Bowl four times (’80, ’81, ’82 and ’83). In 1980, he recorded 17½ sacks, still a Chargers record.
      How was he not on The Times' ballot?
---
      Bo Harris, as a Captain Shreve end in 1970, was as good a defensive player as I saw in Shreveport-Bossier over my 25 years there. He was a starter at linebacker for three years at LSU, a third-round NFL draft pick by the Cincinnati Bengals, and a tough, enthusiastic regular for them for eight seasons, including one Super Bowl year.
      Maybe Bo is a marginal top 20 choice. But how was he not on The Times' ballot?
---
      Three baseball players made The Times' top 20 list: Albert "Joey" Belle, Todd Walker, Cecil Upshaw. I voted for all of them, but not until I had voted for Willard Brown.
      Now about Willard ...
      Of course, I never saw him play. He was "Home Run" Brown, one of the great sluggers in Negro League baseball in the 1930s and 1940s. He spent less than a month in the just-integrated major leagues in 1947 -- a couple of months after Jackie Robinson began playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers -- but the intense racism he found as he played for the St. Louis Browns left him unhappy, and the Browns soon released him.
      One of the voters on The Times' panel questions Brown's credentials and notes that he made the Hall of Fame with an asterisk (the Negro Leagues selection committee picked him in 2006). Another question: How strong are his Shreveport ties?
      If you read this story (http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/49784799), a good biographical look at Brown, I'd say his Shreveport ties -- in his growing-up days -- are strong enough.
      I'd also say his credentials are strong enough. He is considered one of the great talents of Negro League baseball and a superstar in the Puerto Rico winter leagues, and the biggest knock on him was that he only played really well when he felt like it.
      As my fellow voter pointed out, it was difficult to compare athletes from different eras, and that's especially true for all-white baseball vs. all-Negro Leagues baseball.
      But I base my Brown-at-No. 4 argument on this:
      -- He had to be as good as Belle, Walker and Upshaw, and probably was better.
      -- If he was as great as they say in the Negro Leagues, he was comparable to some of the Negro League stars who came to the majors in the late 1940s and early 1950s and were huge stars -- Jackie Robinson, Larry Doby, Monte Irvin, Satchel Paige, Don Newcombe, Roy Campanella, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, etc.
      -- From 1953 to '56, Willard Brown played in the Texas League, and those were his ages 38-41 years. He was still a productive .300-plus hitter with plenty of power, and the Texas League was a strong Class AA league.
       He played 535 Texas League games (for five different teams), and he must have played often against our Shreveport Sports. But, because of the Louisiana law prohibiting integrated games, he never played a game in his hometown.
      The times weren't right for him in the major leagues. But again: Willard Brown was one of Shreveport-Bossier's greats. Obviously, not many panel voters know that, or agree with me. He was a man before his time.
      The top-20 poll was a good idea, and the stories were well done. But I suggest we take a re-vote ... and this time do our homework and put all the names on the ballot. Make it a legit list.
---
      My ballot: 1, Terry Bradshaw; 2, Robert Parish; 3, Joe Ferguson; 4, Willard Brown; 5, Albert Belle; 6, Hollis Conway; 7, Alana Beard; 8, Hal Sutton; 9, Cecil Upshaw; 10, Tommy Davis; 11. Carlos Pennywell; 12, Gary "Big Hands" Johnson; 13, Tommy Bolt; 14, David Toms; 15. Todd Walker; 16. Bo Harris; 17, Joe Reding; 18, Roland Harper; 19, Troy Edwards; 20, Stan Humphries.
     The Times top 20: 1, Terry Bradshaw; 2, Robert Parish; 3. Albert Belle; 4, Joe Ferguson; 5, Hal Sutton; 6, Hollis Conway; 7, Alana Beard; 8, David Toms; 9, Joe Delaney; 10, Todd Walker; 11, Rogers Hampton; 12, Tommy Bolt; 13, Carlos Pennywell; 14, Stan Humphries; 15, Cecil Upshaw; 16, Freddie Spencer; 17, Josh Booty; 18, Troy Edwards; 19, Kathy Johnson-Clarke; 20, Leo Sanford.
               

Cousin Maurits: A driving force ... in journalism

(Part II on Maurits Kopuit, our cousin)
"The death of Mau Kopuit has left many in Jewish Netherlands stunned. Many had deep differences of opinion with him, yet he was appreciated and respected by everyone. Not in the last place because Mau Kopuit with his inexhaustible energy, humor and unrelenting hold of other people eventually stuck to his convictions and made the New Israelite Weekly what it is today: an independent, critical news and opinion magazine in which the entire Jewish community knows he represented them. A newspaper, his newspaper, high-level journalism plays a vital role in the Jewish community. Jewish Netherlands without Mau Kopuit is hard to imagine."
   -- NIW tribute story, February 1992    
 ---
     Before I detail the impact of Maurits Kopuit's life and newspaper career, I will write about his driving.

My mother (right) and her older sister, Annie,
with their first cousin, the young Mau Kopuit.

     Behind the wheel of his compact car, Maurits was a madman ... and a magician. Riding with him was an adventure.
     One of my mother's favorite memories of her first cousin was Maurits, at about age 8 or 9, riding up to Mom's family's apartment on his bicycle ... without his hands on the handlebar. "He was a daredevil," she would say, laughing.
     Before Dad and I went to Amsterdam in 1991 -- my first trip back in 36 years -- Mom warned us about Maurits' driving. She had ridden with him on several trips back to The Netherlands.
      Amsterdam has many small streets strung alongside the numerous canals. Not much room there, and then there are the roads with streetcar tracks down the middle. No matter; Maurits raced up and down those streets; not speeding per se, but not being all that careful. He knew exactly where he was going.
      Don't know about others, but I was holding on.
      Then there was the day we were on a four-lane loop around Amsterdam, heading out of town. Suddenly Maurits realized we were not going the right direction for our destination. No problem. No traffic was coming from the other direction, so at 45 miles per hour -- or maybe 60 -- he simply U-turned the car.
       I think we were nearly back in downtown Amsterdam when I began breathing again.
        Don't know how many traffic tickets, wrecks or dents Maurits had driving. But I do know that auto racing's loss was journalism's gain.
        Fortunately, he was as fearless as a journalist as he was behind the wheel.
---            

Always the dedicated, tireless, opinionated but fair journalist

     He worked as a proofreader, then a writer at the Algemeen Handelsblad -- the liberal Amsterdam-based paper (published 1828-1970) that employed his father before World War II. From early on in his writing career, he also was a correspondent and contributor of articles for newspapers in Israel and the United States.

      But the New Israelite Weekly (NIW) editor position is the one he wanted, and he took the job in 1971, but not until after nine months of negotiations as he sought -- and received -- full control of editorial direction.

      The paper, still in operation, has been in existence since 1865, and Mau held the editor's position longer than anyone in the last 97 years.

      When it reached the 120-year mark in 1985 -- commemorated by a 120-page special edition and a series of grand events in Amsterdam -- Maurits was granted knighthood in the Order of Orange Nassau, a prestigious honor given by the Dutch government to people for their work for the good of society. 
      In a 1985 interview, he described the NIW as "a stern paper in which nothing and no one is spared."   
      After he took over as editor, the staff was expanded, the number of pages each week expanded and, significantly, the circulation jumped 40 percent.

     Mostly, from what I surmised reading the tributes to him after his death, he was fair -- the paper did not shy from controversy within the Jewish community, presenting both sides of issues, and thus often irritating people -- religious leaders, politicians/government officials, regular readers -- on one side or the other.

       And one great attribute was that he could handle criticism, could deal with it -- that is an admirable trait in the newspaper business (or any business).

       He did not have great belief in Jewish-Christian dialogue, although his paper always had a page of news from the Christian sector. In an interview he called the so-called Jewish-Christian dialog "spielerie" (games-playing), "the kind liberal Jews are interested in."

       He was vigilant about anti-semitism; it was one element he fought in print and in person. He had seen enough before and after World War II to last a lifetime.

       If at times he had a sharp writing style and a sharp tongue, it was only part of the job. Because in reality, Maurits was -- as I noted in the previous blog -- a compassionate soul.
       From the "Goodbye to a Friend" tribute written by G. Philip Mok: "Mau seemed hard. But really, he was the opposite; he radiated so much feeling that was not possible to think of him without feeling. There were people, readers and listeners, employees and opponents, notables and what not, who ... were upset when he brought out painful truths about the limelight, when he "hung out the dirty laundry.
      "... But Mau spoke nicely. He was a gentleman, small in stature, [cheerful and lively], but in the end a gentleman. And above all, he was a journalist, with an unerring nose for news, a keen understanding of people and a sense of reality that, for one example, brought many an ambassador of the State of Israel to anger and despair."
      And, yet, no question, as the editor of a Jewish newspaper, he was a staunch supporter of Israel. But that fairness principle held true.
      Mok's column again: "... Mau loved Israel, felt at home. His son Philip lives there -- Mau joked that he was merely 'on the other end of the telephone line' -- but the deep love he [Mau] felt for the Jewish state did not give it a blank check with him.

       "Mau stuck to his own standards, and to the realization that people are enemies, you must connect people with peace, and that peace can require a price. He reminded that in a free world he could reserve to have an opinion on those enemies and even about the price he could deem reasonable for peace."   

October 1955: Henny and Maurits,
newlyweds in Amsterdam

         Mau was sensitive to the plight of the Jews, especially in The Netherlands. Mok recalled Mau telling him that, "I know the social problems, so I deal with the trauma and wounds of our Jewish people with caution in my newspaper. Otherwise the outsiders think we are only just nebbisj (victims) of war. But we are brave, we are a proud community, for centuries."

       And that pride came through in a book Maurits wrote late in his life and career, a collection of short stories based on his experiences during the Holocaust years and afterward.

Henny and Mau: Some 2 1/2 decades later
 at their daughter's wedding.

     Mok quoted him as saying, "I'm proud of Israel as I am proud of The Netherlands. The Netherlands is my fatherland; Israel is my motherland. What else can I be but proud. Without The Netherlands, I can exist because Israel is there. That made me a different person than I would have been. Israel is my Jewish insurance, the policy of my identity. In Israel I have grown, by generations before me."

---

      What my parents most remember, and what my sister Elsa and I recall, was Maurits' sense of humor and fun. Like my mother, he could break into song; he knew so many tunes.

      He would laugh outrageously -- "infectious" is how one tribute piece described his laugh -- and, even after arguments about newspaper work or the world situation, he was quick not to hold grudges and brought the people around him to even keel.

      His sense of humor was recalled by Rabbi Lody van de Kamp, who conducted his funeral service at the family's request: "Mau always said, 'As long as I work at the newspaper, I will get a big lewaje (burial).' "

      Van de Kamp said Maurits' vision of the NIW and the way he managed the news derived from his experiences in World War II: "I once went into hiding. No more. From now on, I will say and write what I will."

      NIW's presentation often did not please its readers, they did not like what they saw in the mirror. "What they did not realize," Van de Kamp said, "was that Mau himself held a mirror."

---

      There are now seven Kopuit grandchildren; the three oldest boys -- born before February 1992 -- were the ones Maurits knew. Most of them now are based in Israel, even a couple of the (daughter Heleen) Boorgenicht family in Belgium.

      Those grandkids have been told, and reminded, how proud their Opa Maurits was of Henny, Heleen and Philip -- and the family they built. The Van Thyns, in Louisiana, far from Holland, Israel and Belgium, are privileged to be an extended part of that family.

      And all of us are proud that Maurits Kopuit was for Jewish Netherlands, as one tribute put it, "one of its most memorable personalities."

My mother's first cousin: One of my heroes

Maurits Kopuit

    I am not the first journalist in our family, and for sure I am not close to being the best journalist in our family.

    Maurits Kopuit has that distinction, and I am proud that I knew him.

    He left us too soon, but one of the great pleasures of my life is that I spent time with him -- when I was a child in Amsterdam and again on my first trip back to The Netherlands (after 36 years) in 1991.

     He was an accomplished, well-read, well-traveled, studied newspaper man; I consider him brilliant in many ways. And he was one of the funniest, most adventurous people I've been around.

      Maurits' story is a success story -- from Holocaust survivor to chief editor (hoofdredacteur, in Dutch) of the Nieuw Israelitisch Weekblad (New Israelite Weekly) for 21 years (1971-92). He was the driving force of a newspaper considered the main voice for the Jewish community in The Netherlands. 
---

     This blog often has been about heroes or friends I've had, people who made a difference for me, and Maurits certainly was one of those people.

     He was my mother's first cousin -- her favorite cousin, nine years younger -- and after the Holocaust wiped out much of the family, he was her closest remaining relative, one of only a few. 

My mother, Rose Van Thyn (left), and Maurits: They
 were first cousins, they were close, and so much alike.

      (That makes him, best I can tell, my first cousin once removed, or my cousin-uncle. His children -- Heleen, who lives with her family in Antwerp, Belgium, and Philip, who lives with his family in Jerusalem, Israel -- are second cousins to me and my younger sister Elsa.)

      My mother truly loved Maurits all his life; he was always her favorite cousin, when she had 35 of them. They were much alike: loved to talk and tell stories,  loved to laugh, zany and mischievous at times, didn't mind arguing, they were outspoken, and didn't suffer fools (are these family traits?). But they were serious, too; concerned about the people around them and the world; kind and compassionate.

       Maurits survived the Holocaust in a different way than my mother and father. He was spared the horror of the concentration camps because his father and mother had the foresight and the connections to be hidden away on a farm in South Holland for most of three years. The Nazis never found them.

      They thankfully were never discovered, nor betrayed by the people who helped hide them -- "righteous gentiles," if you will. But even in the happy outcome, there was tragedy.

      Because during their hiding period, Maurits' father died of heart disease in 1944. Philip Kopuit -- my mother's uncle, my grandmother's brother -- was only 39. (They buried him on that farm near Voorschoten; after the war, they moved his remains to the largest Jewish cemetery in the Netherlands, at Muiderberg, some 25 minutes east of Amsterdam).

      We lost Maurits on Feb. 10, 1992, also of heart disease at age 62. It was some six months after we (Dad and I) spent some memorable time with Maurits and his wife Henny in Amsterdam. So glad that happened.

       He had a great heart figuratively, but literally it was a troubled one. He died -- shockingly, but perhaps not surprisingly -- during open-heart surgery.

       My parents, on learning the news, quickly made arrangements (bereavement fares) to return to The Netherlands to be with the Kopuit family and friends. He meant that much to my mother, who after a previous visit to Amsterdam said she would not return because it was not the city and country she had known growing up.

        So they were there when Maurits was buried next to his parents in Muiderberg.

        They were there, too, 37 years earlier when Maurits and Henny married in a very formal, very traditional Jewish ceremony. Elsa, 4 then, was the cute flower girl; I was 8 and barely visible in a large crowd of men in the synagogue.

        We have some film and many of the photos from that wedding -- my mother sang during the party and program afterward -- and I do remember it. Two months later, we left The Netherlands on a boat headed to the United States.

         Maurits was a frequent presence in my childhood because his mother (Helena, or Tante Lena as we knew her) lived two houses to our right in old-west  Amsterdam. Her second husband, a tall, bald-headed man with a wooden leg, Jan de Vries, owned our tiny, cramped two-story house -- my first house, 17 Jan Hanzenstraat.

         (On the day we arrived in Shreveport -- Jan. 12, 1956 -- Tante Lena died of leukemia. She was 49, still relatively young. I look at pictures of her and she reminds me of ... Rose Van Thyn.)

---

         I can't say that Maurits was a journalism role model for me. He was still early in his career when we lived in Holland, and the only newspaper pages I looked at and read -- barely -- were sports pages; yes, even at ages 7 and 8.

         Besides, Maurits wrote about the real world -- politics and social matters. What he dealt with mattered much more than fun and games.

         Preparing for this piece, I reviewed six articles -- in Dutch -- written about Maurits in the days after his death. My mother had saved them.

        The articles appeared in his New Israeli Weekly; two were memorial columns; the others were news stories, including a recap of his life, career and personality.

       My Dutch reading education ended in the middle of third grade, so I am an elementary Dutch reader. I retyped the articles in Dutch, then used Internet services to translate. But just as I can't figure out many of the more complex Dutch words and sentences, neither can the Internet translations. Context and meaning are often lost.

        So as I use this material, I am doing the best I can. But I can tell you this: Maurits Kopuit was a wonderful journalist and person, and he left quite a legacy.

       Here are some headlines: "Driven journalist"  ... "Kopuit fought for editorial freedom" ... "Journalist Mau Kopuit was widely appreciated and respected."
       (Part II -- a driving force)
          

Part III: There used to be a ballpark in Shreveport

     (Part III, The life and death of SPAR Stadium)
     We got a big clue that the old ballpark in Shreveport, SPAR Stadium, literally might be falling apart during a major-league spring training game there in early April 1967.
      I believe it was the Cincinnati Reds -- not quite yet The Big Red Machine, but with parts of it -- vs. the Cleveland Indians, managed by Coushatta's own Joe Adcock. Big crowd, near the 5,000 capacity, for the first pro baseball game at the stadium since the Shreveport Sports left after the 1961 season.
      And a section of the upper grandstand down the third-base side simply collapsed to the ground. The people sitting there helplessly rode down with it, landing on or near the home-team clubhouse underneath.
      As I recall, about 15 people suffered injuries, but no major injuries. Still, it was ominously dangerous.
      Engineers recommended that all the steel beams in the stadium -- upper deck, reserved seating lower deck -- be reinforced to keep the place in use for college, high school, American Legion and recreation games.
      The MLB exhibition -- part of the barnstorming trips teams made in those days as they headed for their season openers after breaking spring-training camps in either Florida or Arizona -- had been arranged by city leaders to showcase that Shreveport again could be a viable home for a pro team.
      By the next spring -- when the first-year Oakland Athletics, with Joe DiMaggio as a coach, came into play a spring-training game -- Shreveport baseball was back in business.
      Not only did the Atlanta Braves bring their Double-A franchise from Austin to Shreveport, they combined with city officials to give the ballpark a makeover. Not a renovation -- which is what it really needed, although a relocation would have been better -- but a fresh look.
      The playing field was reworked, the outfield fence rebuilt, the clubhouse, dugouts, concession areas, offices ... everything was cleaned up best as possible, they built a press box -- which might hold a dozen people -- at the top of the grandstand, and there was fresh paint all over the place.
      Significantly, the stadium decor -- green for most years -- became mixed. The general manager the Braves brought in, Bob Morris, got the bright idea that it would be neat if the upper grandstand was a variety of colors. So it had sections of green, blue, red, orange, yellow. It was gaudy. Aw, heck, it was ugly.
      I was partial to that grandstand; that's where we sat in 1956 and 1957 when we first saw the Sports play. I remember my first pro baseball game: Sports -- the team of Ken Guettler, Ev Joyner, Les Peden, J.W. Jones, Ray Knoblauch (father of Chuck), Jim Ackeret, Dale Coogan and popular player-manager Mel McGaha -- vs. the Dallas Eagles on a Sunday afternoon in May 1956.
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Try not to focus on the then 36-year-old, thick-haired sports
writer, sitting outside the press box covering a  Shreveport
 Captains' game in 1983; focus on the steel beams at roofless,
 decaying SPAR Stadium. That's what this blog series is about. 

      So the place was playable again in 1968, and the Braves had a loaded Double-A team, maybe the best talent a Shreveport team ever had. Managed by hitting guru Charlie Lau, they had 15 past or future major leaguers at one time or another that season. Some of the more familiar names: Ralph Garr, Wayne Garrett, Clarence "Cito" Gaston, Tom House, Walt Hriniak, Carl Morton, Ron Schueler and George Stone. 
      Didn't win the Texas League pennant, but came close. Mostly, it was fun to see pro ball back in town -- even in that ballpark -- and, with my senior year in college ahead, I got to cover a few games for The Shreveport Times. Big time.
      Each year, as the stadium situation declined, seemed as if it was the off-season paint job differed. One year, everything was gray; another year, blue. At least the upper grandstand was painted blue, and stayed that way.
      And each year, the stadium still passed the engineers' preseason inspection. Until 1977.
      More reinforcements for all the rickety beams and uncertain concrete standards were a must. City officials were willing to boost the lower reserved-seat section -- maybe 1,000 seats -- but not willing to spend the money to do the upper grandstand.
      Club officials, losing money each year with all the expenses (travel, uniforms, office and game personnel), didn't have the extra revenue to pay for the reinforcements, nor did they feel they should. The stadium belonged to the city.
      So the upper grandstand was closed, period. The only people going up there were those of us with business in the press box. It was OK to sacrifice us, if it came to that.
      Gone were the chances for any big promotional events. Why do so if capacity was only 2,500 or so?
      And why keep operating the ballclub? Why not try to move it to another city, or sell it to another owner, who probably would move it?
      Because Taylor Moore, the team president, and the other members of the ownership group, felt an obligation to Shreveport-Bossier and had the talk/promise (mostly empty) of a new ballpark in town. Several plans were put forth at various sites, one bond issue was passed by voters, but -- reality -- the money involved was woefully short. So that plan was scrapped, too.
      The years passed, the stadium got even worse and even creepier (without the roof, as we've written about previously), and the baseball was entertaining but never championship-caliber in the Texas League.
      Then Louisiana State Fair officials provided a rescue -- land on the eastern part of the Fairgrounds to build a stadium. Then-mayor John Hussey and his staff worked out a bond-issue plan -- and it passed -- and the patience of Taylor Moore and his owners, and the Captains' small group of loyal fans, was rewarded.
      I remember writing a good-bye column to SPAR Stadium for the Shreveport Journal on the day Fair Grounds Field opened for its first official game in 1986. It was a nostalgic look at my memories of the stadium, kind of like these blog pieces.
      Truth is, I didn't miss the place then and I don't now. It outlived its usefulness, stayed on life support far too long.
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      Now Fair Grounds Field is in about the same shape. I read that the bats they have there now aren't the kind you use to hit baseballs; they're the kind that fly around blindly and roost, and leave their marks that drive people bat crazy.
       I don't see pro baseball returning to Shreveport. People would rather spend their money at the casinos, and the cost of renovating/revamping Fair Grounds Field might be too much, plus the corporate/public support for a ballclub doesn't seem at all feasible. 
       Building a new ballpark somewhere, downtown or southeast of town, would mean an output of, say at minimum, $25 million. Think Shreveport can afford that, with all its other needs?
        I checked on ballparks/cities where I've seen the stadium or are familiar with -- Knoxville (Sevierville), Jacksonville, Oklahoma City, (North) Little Rock, Memphis -- and at least a decade ago, the price tags were from $19.4 million to $34 million.
       When the Shreveport Double-A team left after the 2002 season -- Mandalay Baseball Properties had bought the franchise from Moore & Co. two years earlier and changed the team nickname to Swamp Dragons (for some reason the traditionalist part of me didn't agree with -- Mandalay moved it to the new Dr. Pepper Ballpark in Frisco, Texas.
        I drive by there often -- it's 45 minutes from Fort Worth -- and it's a beautiful modern stadium with 10,316 seats and a series of pavilions, upper box seats that look like chalets or vacation condos. 
        Taylor Moore, in our talks, has pointed out that Fair Grounds Field was constructed a few years before the retro brick-based ballparks you see often today and the wide walkways and seating arrangements, with outfield berms and scoreboards with many graphic features.
        Fair Grounds Field, mostly concrete-based, wore out quickly, maybe before its time. Its price tag was $3.5 million; perhaps that's an explanation. That, and the lack of upkeep and concern by Shreveport city leaders.
        Gee, sounds like another ballpark we used to know in Shreveport.         

Now the children try to find it,
And they can't believe their eyes
'Cause the old team just isn't playing,
And the new team hardly tries.
And the sky has got so cloudy
When it used to be so clear,
And the summer went so quickly this year.
Yes, there used to be a ballpark right here.
    -- final verse of There Used to be a Ballpark, recorded by Frank Sinatra, 1973