Butch Williams' life has been one of achievement

         Those of us who for decades have known Wayne Williams Jr. -- always "Butch" to just about everyone -- know that he has been an achiever all his life. And a battler.
     We admire that. We have for all those years.

The Williams family -- at the Frisco (Texas) Bowl, December 2017

     He was, when we first knew him in the mid-1960s, a darned good athlete. Not a superstar, but he was a difference maker. And it was that way in his career, too.
     Whether it was in athletics, as a player and coach, or in education, as a teacher or administrator, he met with success -- and earned respect.  
     He always has been a big man in Minden, Louisiana -- and Webster Parish -- and his family has been a treasured one in that area, especially in education.
     Most proudly, he was -- to use an expression we favor -- the son of the father. Wayne Jr. (Butch) followed Wayne Sr.'s career path -- teaching and coaching, then school administration, from high school principal to the same job:  superintendent of Webster Parish Schools.
     And Irene Williams ("Mama Rene") -- Sr.'s wife, Jr.'s mother -- was right there -- for 34 years the school secretary at Minden High.  
      It was a dynasty of sorts.

The young just-married couple, April 1969

     But Butch's biggest achievement, as I am sure he said repeatedly over the years, is the family he and Ki built over nearly 49 years of marriage.
     She was Karen Marlowe of Mangham, Louisiana, when they began dating and fell in love as students at Louisiana Tech University in the late 1960s and married in the spring of 1969, a few months before Butch's senior football season.
      Three sons and six grandkids are their pride and joy.
---
      Here is the reality: For more than a decade, Butch faced an opponent tougher than Springhill and Northwestern State in football or Jesuit and Bossier (in baseball). Cancer sucks.
      Even as schools superintendent, he worked through the early battles. After his retirement (in June 2011), his life -- with Ki -- was his kids and grandkids, his love of gardening, staying in touch with friends, and following Louisiana Tech athletics. 
      But cancer kept striking. It attacked his neck and his liver last summer; a Facebook post on Aug. 11 told of his infusion treatments. And the couple of times we spoke in the fall, he told me about the every-other-week treatments in Baton Rouge -- where son Trey (Wayne III) lives -- so it was a difficult, demanding process.
      It sapped his strength; it took his hair. He no longer was the beefy guy who -- after being tried in several positions -- bulked up to 235 pounds and became an all-conference offensive tackle ... in front of quarterback Terry Bradshaw. 
      Still, he was hopeful, optimistic ... but cautious.
      Time now is precious, and it is short. Prayers are in order.
---
      The personal connection: We arrived at Louisiana Tech at the same time, as freshmen in August 1965. He was a football linebacker and end, or had been at Minden High; I was a student sports information assistant.
      Butch for years was a good source for stories and background information on high school athletics and Tech football (especially about our years there, the Phil Robertson and Bradshaw years at quarterback).
      When he was coaching and afterward, Butch was a cooperative media source. But not always a happy one. I remember a young coach not being enamored with a few stories or columns -- slanted, he said -- written by a young sportswriter. Oh, well. But ... always friends.
      In early December, when he did not reply to phone and Facebook messages and an e-mail we sent him, seeking info on Tech's 1969 football bowl game, it was unusual. And not a good sign.
      So, it was a pleasure -- a treat -- to see Butch and Ki at Tech's pregame Frisco Bowl gathering in late December.
      It was nice to be with our son and two oldest grandsons that evening, but to visit with Butch for a few minutes -- twice -- was even better than Tech's rout of SMU.
      He was feeling good that night and that week, and detailed his health issues. He apologized for not getting back to me and assuring me that rumors that the seniors on Tech's  football team in 1969 did not want to play in the Grantland Rice Bowl in Baton Rouge -- Bradshaw's last Tech game -- were not accurate, that as team captains, he and center John Harper urged their teammates to relish the experience.
      (It was a long day for Tech, especially for the offensive line and Bradshaw, sacked 12 times by East Tennessee State. Butch, for one, played, although he was needing surgery on an injured knee.)
      Plans for us to talk about this prospective blog piece did not develop after that, as he again met physical challenges. But with his family's permission, here is the tribute to Our Man in Minden.
---
      A recap of his sports career: 
      -- He was a starting linebacker and end as a junior on Minden's talented, unbeaten Class AA state championship football team in 1963; he was the best player as a senior on the '64 team. 
     -- He was a good and versatile baseball player. He became an all-conference offensive tackle at Louisiana Tech.
     -- He was a dedicated, hard-working football assistant coach for a decade at Minden High. 
     -- More significantly, he was a state championship-winning coach in baseball (1972) and, for a couple of decades, spent summers coaching Minden's American Legion baseball team; twice his team made the North Louisiana finals.
     -- As principal at Sibley High (10 miles south of Minden), he helped start the football program.
      How good an athlete was he? In researching for this piece, we came across these highlights:
      -- In the spring of 1964, the eventual Class AA state champion Jesuit (Shreveport) baseball team beat Minden 7-0 as super pitcher George Restovich gave up one hit. Butch got that hit.
      -- He was the placekicker for Minden in 1963 and 1964. The '63 team eased to most of its victories, but in 1964, Butch's PAT delivered a 7-6 victory against Airline (Bossier City), a first-year school. His PAT late in the game saved a 20-20 tie for Minden in a bitter rivalry game with Jesuit.

       (About that game: Jesuit's sensational junior running back Tony Papa was badly injured early that night when a Minden player hit him from behind long after Papa had handed off the ball on a trick kickoff return. Jesuit faithful always thought it was a "cheap-shot" hit -- that's what we heard -- and the Minden player who did it, they recalled, was Butch Williams. He swore to me it wasn't him ... but he knew who it was.)
      -- In his greatest '64 game, he scored 29 points in a 35-20 victory against Homer on four touchdowns (two short runs, a 42-yard pass reception, a 52-yard run with a fumble).
      -- Against North Caddo in '64, he intercepted a pass and ran it back 60 yards for a touchdown on the last play of the first half. Minden went on to win 41-18.
---
      Butch, as like many of us, was a great admirer of Louisiana Tech's legendary head football coach-athletic director Joe Aillet, and he recalled these moments:
      As an eager freshman linebacker during a controlled scrimmage in the fall of 1965, Butch made the mistake of tackling QB Billy Laird, who that fall would be all-conference for the third year in a row. Coach Aillet -- soft-spoken, polished and polite, a professor-type coaching football -- rushed up (he was past age 60) and practically yelled, "No, no, no, we don't hit Billy."
      Another day, leaving the field after practice, Butch had his head down when Coach Aillet walked past. "He stopped me and asked, 'How are you doing, Wayne?' -- he always called me Wayne. I said, 'I don't know, Coach; I'm doing a lot of things wrong.' He said, 'Wayne, when we correct you, it means we think you have a chance to be a very good player. So keep at it.' "
      Two years later, Butch Williams was a regular in the Tech offensive line.
---        
      The highlight of Butch's coaching career, no question, was the 1972 Minden baseball season. It was one of the most dramatic, and surprising, events we covered in prep athletics.
      The 3-0 state-championship victory spoiled a perfect season for Bossier, a team that had gone 26-0, including three victories against district rival Minden. But junior pitcher Ronald Martin no-hit the Bearkats that day.
       It was Butch's second year as the Crimson Tide baseball coach and his team, tied for second in the district with Jesuit, had to be voted into the playoffs by a district committee.
        Reading back over the two stories we wrote that day, the funniest quote was Butch, finally greeting his pitcher after the title celebration and telling him, "You did a goooooood job."
---
     More Williams family history: Wayne Sr. and Rene met in Dayton, Ohio, where he was stationed just after World War II when he was a captain in the US. Army Air Corps. By 1947, when Butch was born in Haynesville, La., his dad was principal at Shongaloo High School. He also had coached there.
     After the family's move to Minden in 1950, he became principal at Minden High, from 1952 to 1961, took a supervisor's position and then became superintendent. In honor of his 44 years of service, the Minden High football stadium -- "The Pit" -- was named for him in 2009.
     When Mama Rene retired from Minden High in May 1986, the city honored her with a "day." 
      The Williams family influence in Minden and the parish extended into business. For 4 1/2 decades, Butch and Ki  have owned Minden Athletic Supply in the old downtown, and younger brother Jimmy Williams helped manage it. Even Wayne Sr. worked there after his retirement from the education field.

      Butch's career took him from coaching and teaching biology and chemistry at Minden High to assistant principal there, then moving to Sibley as principal and staying on when that school consolidated with several others in the area to become Lakeside High.
       After 21 years as principal, in June 2003, he moved to his father's old job -- superintendent of Webster schools.
       Two contracts extensions followed. So did financial challenges in the schools and a controversial plan to consolidate several parish high school/middle schools.
       The superintendent has to make tough decisions and needs school-board support. It was waning. And so if Butch was beloved by most people in parish schools, he also has to take the heat. And he did ... until his surprise announcement on March 7, 2011, that he was ending his 38-year career in education.
       "I have had about all of this fun I can stand," he said at that school board meeting, then took his accrued vacation/sick time ... and left the building.
       He did consulting work in area schools for a short while, and took the time with Ki, the kids, grandkids, Tech athletics, Facebook, his garden and his friends.
       And, unfortunately, with many doctors, nurses in hospitals and clinics. Cancer is a brutal opponent.
       The last couple of times we talked -- his voice obviously weakened -- or traded messages, he told me how blessed his life had been, how grateful he was for friends and especially Ki and his family.
       The old offensive tackle is still battling, trying to block cancer. Our friend Wayne Williams Jr. -- Butch -- never backed down. He has done a goooooood job. 

Butch and his three sons

The grandfather always was a gamer.

College hoops' "what could have been"

      Let's rewrite history and suppose Willis Reed and Elvin Hayes -- future NBA stars, Hall of Famers, both from north-central/east Louisiana -- had played basketball for LSU in the 1960s.
      Or pick a future star -- say, Robert Parish, Louis Dunbar, Larry Wright, Calvin Natt, Joe Dumars, Rick Robey, Orlando Woolridge -- and put them at LSU in the 1970s.
      Or Karl Malone delivering as the Tigers' "Mailman" in the 1980s. Or P.J. Brown, like Malone another Louisiana Tech big man who lasted for 15-plus years in the NBA, going there.
      Think they might all have helped LSU's program?
      And today -- this morning -- envision Robert Williams playing for LSU in the NCAA Tournament instead of for Texas A&M. 
      Think the Tigers -- just like all the other men's basketball teams in Louisiana -- would have been shut out of the NCAA Tournament (for the second year a row)?
      We can no more rewrite history than LSU could get those guys in school. 
      But the point is, "what could have been," as suggested a couple of weeks by Dale Brown -- mastermind of the LSU men's program for 25 years.
      Dale, as most anyone who has been around him for, say, 10 seconds, can spin some tales (pick a subject), and among those are his adventures in recruiting over three decades in college basketball.
      He was reacting to our recent blog piece about Parish's statistics at Centenary finally being officially recognized by the NCAA, and in that piece, we mentioned that while Brown recruited Robert for LSU and happily would have welcomed his 7-foot presence, Robert did not qualify academically.
      By Parish's senior year in high school, LSU had just  integrated its basketball program. Among the talent Dale inherited when he became the Tigers' head coach in the spring of 1972 was Collis Temple Jr., a 6-foot-8 forward recruited out of Kentwood, Louisiana, in 1970 by Press Maravich and his staff. He was the color barrier breaker in LSU's program.

Houston coach Guy Lewis with his two big stars
from Louisiana in 1966-68 -- Elvin Hayes and
Don Chaney. Imagine if they had played at LSU
instead of Houston.

      But the barrier breaker could have been Elvin Hayes ... if, as Dale tells it, the "Big E" could have made that choice.
      He could not, of course. In early 1964, Hayes' senior year in high school, LSU was not yet recruiting African-American players.
      He was a still-developing 6-9 forward who averaged 35  points a game and led his Eula D. Britton High School team in Rayville, Louisiana -- 22 miles east of Monroe -- to a state championship in the all-black athletic association (LIALO).
      Was he the best player in the state? Little question. In his team's state-title game, he had 45 points and 20 rebounds.
      But the bulk of the publicity, the white guy considered the state's best prospect, was 6-4 forward Bobby Lane of Isadore Newman High (New Orleans), the do-it-all leader of two consecutive LHSAA (the all-white organization) Class A state championship teams.
      (Oh, LSU didn't get Lane, either. He chose to attend and play at Davidson, N.C., College.)
--- 

      Here is the Dale Brown version of Hayes' "what could have been" story.

      In Hayes' fabulous college career at the University of Houston (late 1965 to March 1968), he was the nation's best college player not named Lou Alcindor. A 16-year NBA career followed and included 27,313 points, 16,279 rebounds, one NBA championship, two other Finals appearances and 12 All-Star Games in a row.
      Several years later, he made it to LSU.
      By now, he operated a company that cleaned campus dormitories and he had come to LSU seeking a service contract. He visited with Coach Brown, and that night attended the LSU basketball banquet.
      "He told me it was the first time he'd ever been on the LSU campus," Dale recalled. "And then he got very emotional about LSU. He said that when he was in high school, he really wanted to go to school there and wrote a letter to the LSU coaches. Never heard back from them."
---
       LSU was a football school always. It did have a couple of basketball highlights -- a pre-NCAA Tournament national championship in 1935 (Sparky Wade's team) and, led by  Bob Pettit (from Baton Rouge, and a future NBA all-timer), SEC championships in 1953 and '54, and an NCAA Final Four in '53. 
       Jay McCreary, an Indiana Hoosier through and through, was near the end of a less-than-mediocre eight years as LSU head coach when Willis Reed and Elvin Hayes came along.
       McCreary ignored Hayes. University of Houston coach Guy Lewis did not.
       It was Lewis and assistant Harvey Pate who recruited Hayes and another Louisiana black-school star, guard Don Chaney -- from Baton Rouge no less (McKinley High) -- and signed them on the same day to integrate the Houston program. And they added a third player from the state, 6-7 forward Theodis Lee, from Carroll High in Monroe.
      (Lewis and Pate would bring their talent search back to Louisiana, most notably for guard Poo Welch from LaGrange-Lake Charles in 1969 (after two years in junior college), Dunbar -- best player other than Parish many of us saw in high school -- out of Webster High-Minden in 1971, and "outlaw" Benny Anders from Bernice in 1981.)
      Houston, riding Hayes' turnaround jumper and rebounding prowess, became a national powerhouse.
      In the famous "Game of the Century" -- Jan. 20, 1968, before 52,693 paid at the Astrodome, the first nationally televised regular-season college basketball game -- Elvin and No. 2-ranked, 13-0 Houston stopped No. 1-ranked, 14-0 UCLA, winner of 47 consecutive games over 2 1/2 seasons. Hayes outscored the awesome Alcindor 39-15, outrebounded him 15-12, and made the winning two free throws in Houston's 71-69 victory.
      (That season, Houston twice played Centenary, winning 118-81 in Houston and -- yikes -- 107-56 in Shreveport. Hayes scored 40 the first game, then 50 at Hirsch Youth Center.)
      Houston went to two NCAA Final Four in a row (1967 and '68), and lost to UCLA in the semifinals both years. In '68, the revenge score was a rout, 101-69.
      LSU didn't go anywhere from 1954 until Brown's program finally took hold in 1979 and became a postseason regular.
---
      Let's backtrack to early 1964 as Hayes was finishing high school. Willis Reed was finishing that spring at Grambling College, about 20 1/2 miles directly south from his hometown of Bernice (which is 73 miles from Rayville).
      Don't know if Willis ever thought about LSU. But what a sensational four-year career he had at Grambling.

Willis Reed: a young star at Grambling College
(no thoughts of LSU in the early 1960s).
Photo from Small College Basketball Hall
of Fame.

      It began in the 1960-61 season when he was the  freshman star center on GC's NAIA national championship team and ended with him as the New York Knicks' second-round NBA draft pick, eighth overall, in 1964.
      And, of course, he helped the Knicks to their first NBA championship in 1970, made the Basketball Hall of Fame, became a team executive ... and a legend.
      LSU obviously never gave him a look. Not in 1960, at West Side High School in the Bernice suburb of Lillie (that is a joke; it's all very rural territory).
---
      "You can't believe the number of black players who were not recruited before schools in Louisiana were integrated," Dale Brown said in suggesting this post. 
      Oh, yes, we can believe. Those of us who can name many of the great players Louisiana high school basketball has produced know.
      And so, just a sampling from the 1950s through about 1970 when LSU -- and other state schools -- finally followed the basketball integration path first taken by Southwestern Louisiana and Louisiana Tech:
      -- Bob "Lil' Abner" Hopkins, a lithe 6-8 center-forward from Jackson High in Jonesboro who scored 3,759 points (29.8 per game) for Grambling in 1952-56, then played four years in the NBA and was the Seattle Supersonics' head coach in 1977.
      -- Bob "Butterbean" Love (Morehouse High in Bastrop, then Southern University 1961-65, a 6-8 small forward who for eight years was a scoring machine for the NBA's Chicago Bulls).
      -- Lucious Jackson (also Morehouse High, then Pan American in Edinburgh, Texas, which he led to the 1962 NAIA national championship) and then as a bullish 6-9 power  forward helped Wilt Chamberlain and the 1967 Philadelphia 76ers to the only NBA title not won by the Boston Celtics in an 11-year span.
      -- Chaney, a guard, a defensive phenom who started for those Hayes-led Houston teams, then helped the Celtics win two NBA titles and was an NBA head coach for 12 of his 22 years in coaching.  
      -- Theodis Lee also started for Houston in the monumental 1967-68 season, was a team co-captain the next year and went on to play for a decade with the Harlem Globetrotters, then died in 1979 of cancer, only a few weeks after it was found.
      -- Wilbert Frazier (Webster High in Minden, Grambling 1961-65), a 6-7 forward who had two pro seasons.  
      -- The players out of McCall High (Tallulah): guard Jimmy Jones (Grambling 1963-67, then a six-time all-star in the American Basketball Association) and three stars on Stephen F. Austin's NAIA power in the early 1970s -- guard James Silas, a top-flight ABA and NBA player for Dallas and San Antonio), forward Surrey Oliver and center George Johnson.
---
      We could give you a long list of terrific players from Louisiana that LSU did recruit successfully, and a long list of good/great ones that LSU could not sign, who chose another Louisiana school perhaps closer to their homes or decided they wanted to play for an out-of-state school.
      But if you have gotten this far, you have earned an ending. So we will return to Robert Williams and Texas A&M.
      He is the Aggies' biggest star, a strong 6-10 forward who likely will be a high NBA Draft pick. He is that good, has that much potential.
      Coming from Oil City, Louisiana (just north of Shreveport) and out of North Caddo High School, he might have been a natural for LSU.
      No. Although LSU -- when Johnny Jones was head coach -- was very interested and recruited him, Williams apparently always preferred A&M.
      So this NCAA Tournament, in fact today, might be the end of his college career. The Aggies face Providence in the  first of the day's 16 first-round games. LSU faithful can watch Williams and think, "What could have been."  
      Elvin Hayes and Willis Reed probably will be watching, too.
     
        

      

Speaking of Louisiana College, a lawsuit ... and discrimination (?)

     And so, here is a controversy that I did not expect.
     Is it fake news? No, the lawsuit is a filed fact. But, maybe, one side or the other is not telling the truth. Who the heck knows?
     The e-mail and Facebook note I posted early Tuesday morning turned into a response stronger than anything I have had for quite some time.
     My response to that: Surprise!
     But when religion is involved ...
     In case you missed it, the post was a link to a Feb. 22  Associated Press wire story involving a position on the Louisiana College football coaching staff.
     Here are the lead paragraphs:
     The president of a private Baptist college in Louisiana refused to approve a football coach's hiring because of what he called the applicant's "Jewish blood," a federal lawsuit claims.
     Joshua Bonadona sued Louisiana College and its president, Rick Brewer, accusing them of violating his civil rights.    
     OK, naturally, the Jewish part -- and the charge of discrimination -- drew my attention, and it is why someone directed the story to me. I had not previously seen it.
     But let's be real clear right here: I do not know the story is true, and neither do you. Only those involved know for sure -- and it might take a court case to determine it.
     So I am not being critical. I was distributing the news ... and not anticipating the feedback.
     By the time I got home from yoga/stretching class at noon, there were 14 e-mail responses, one text, and 11 Facebook comments. As I write this, it is up to 24 e-mails and 17 Facebook comments. But who's counting?
---
     Let's review. What I sent was topped by my personal note ...
     "If this story, and the lawsuit, are valid, it is a sad commentary on a college that through the years has had much respect. Bea attended Louisiana College; I have had friends who were students there, and coaches. Longtime former basketball/baseball coach and athletic director Billy Allgood was tough but much respected and successful. So this is hard to digest."
---
       From the story: Bonadona, 28, applied for a job as defensive backs coach and said he was interviewed last May by Brewer and head football coach Justin Charles. Later, Charles reportedly told Bonadona that he had recommended him for the job, but the college didn't approve his hiring because of his "Jewish descent," the suit alleges. 
     "Mr. Bonadona asked Justin Charles what that meant, and Justin Charles stated that Dr. Brewer refused to approve Mr. Bonadona's hiring because of what Dr. Brewer called Mr. Bonadona's "Jewish blood," the suit says.
     A couple of facts:
     -- Bonadona, from Baton Rouge, was a kicker on LC's team, graduated from the college and was an assistant coach there in 2014. He moved to another school, but was attempting to return because he was told LC would rehire him. He ended up taking a lesser-paying coaching job.
     -- He was born into a Jewish family -- his mother is Jewish -- and he converted to Christianity while at LC.
--- 
     Now about the responses ... because there were so many, I have compiled them in a separate take (sent with this one).
     Heard from many, many old friends, many of them in or from Louisiana, some Jewish, most not Jewish, many critical of LC and the college president, some defensive, some harsh, some mild, some explanatory.
     Going to post three separate responses here, two from old friends who live in Alexandria (next to Pineville) and offer a defense for LC president Brewer, and one from an old devout Baptist friend from Shreveport and Louisiana Tech who lives in Ruston.
     From Bob Tompkins, retired Alexandria Town Talk sports editor/columnist: "I have no 'insider' information on this despite my locale. The truth is the young man was not hired.
     "The school president, who is widely regarded locally as a good, sensible, compassionate man, has refuted the notion that the former LC kicker was not hired for the reason he says he was told by the coach. Many of us locals believe him. He has shown no trace of being capable of making such a decision."   
     From Dr. Stephen Katz, Alexandria resident, anesthesiologist: "I agree that this story was very disturbing. Appears from reliable sources here to have no merit and represents ill feelings from an individual who did not get a job.
     "PS, it is interesting that due to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Jews in the U.S. are considered to be a race in order to prevent discrimination." 
     From Glenn Theis, in Ruston: "My father graduated from Louisiana College and he worked at Guaranty Bank in Pineville the first seven years of my life. I spent a lot of time on that campus and later in high school playing in the state church league championships in basketball. I used to like that school a lot.
      "I take the Baptist Message (the Louisiana Baptist Convention newspaper) and have been really disappointed in the direction the school has taken in recent years.
      "I agree that this is a totally wrong path for the school to take. He [the coach] appeared to be an excellent choice for Louisiana College.
      "It shows that there are people who have wrong ideas and motives in every part of our country. ... Here's hoping we can try to unite rather than argue, call names and fight. It will take some compromise on both sides, but it will be better than where we are now."

---

      I appreciate that people care so much. Don't care for the anger, but it is a hot-button issue.
      Discrimination of any sort bugs me, and particularly so if it is Jewish-related (think you understand).
      I am not -- not -- saying that LC president Brewer is guilty here. But as the last paragraph of the Feb. 22 AP wire story indicates and as I have been told by what I consider good sources, he can be difficult and has angered people on and off campus. 
      I don't have ties to LC -- other than my wife's couple of years five decades ago. But the response to my post shows that this lawsuit is an interesting topic to discuss.
---
     A link to the responses: 
http://nvanthyn.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-responses-and-opinions-pour-in-on.html

The responses (and opinions) pour in on Louisiana College

      Here are the bulk of the comments/opinions received after the Tuesday morning e-mail/Facebook post concerning a lawsuit against Louisiana College and its president by an assistant football coach reportedly rejected for consideration because of his "Jewish descent."
      My comment of this response: Happy reading.
---
      -- "Wow."
       -- "My dad graduated from LC; I met my wife at LC; and Billy Allgood was my baseball coach for two years at LC. So much has changed over the last 40 years. Very sad."
       -- "Incomprehensible. What if Jesus had applied."
       -- "Jesus was Jewish (tribe of Judah). I would think that the school would welcome someone of whom God said, 'I will bless those who bless you, curse those who curse you.' (Genesis 12:3)"
       -- "Sad!"
       -- "I find it hard to believe that this is actually true."
       -- "Outrageous if true!"
       -- "Nice way to treat an alum."
       -- "Doesn't surprise me at all."
       -- "What about federal funding and this is a form of discrimination that would NOT be allowed? Fake news I hope."
       -- "Seriously??"
       -- "I hate stuff like this."
       -- "What!?!"
       -- "This would be so crushing for so many people on so many levels."  
       -- "It gives people who call themselves Christians give all Christians a bad name. You don't win many to Jesus this way. If it is true, LC has a lot of work to do. I hope it is not true."
       -- "Damn, this pisses me off. We live in America. Used to welcome all, no matter what your race, creed, ethnicity, religion, etc., etc. If this is a true and accurate story, and Brewer is behind this, they should fire him and send him on his way."
      -- "I really hope this is 'fake news' and Louisiana College isn't guilty of something so stupid."
     -- "As a Christian, I find this appalling. The president needs to be fired immediately and someone with a true Christian heart (love one another as Christ loves you) needs to be hired. I have lots of family who attended Louisiana College (being brought up as a Baptist in Louisiana that happens!)
        "I hate that the college is being sued when it is the president who made the decision. However, he represents the school and I understand why the lawsuit is against the school. One (pseudo?) Christian man in a position of power is hurting the reputation of an excellent school."
        -- "I did read this recently, and am dismayed by it. Will wait to see how the courts rule, but it is disturbing."
        -- "Wow! Amazing that this still happens, or is happening again, under current American leadership?"
        -- "I am shocked and disappointed, but wondering if the head coach was accurate in his report of the reason for the decision. I attended LC for three years and never saw this type of discrimination. It doesn't even represent Southern Baptist views, so not sure where the policy or view comes from. If that is the policy, even Jesus would not be allowed to coach at LC. I know Billy Allgood and the faculty during his time would not have agreed with the decision."
      -- "If the LC story is true (and I don't think that has been determined, it is beyond reprehensible and in no way representative of the beliefs and attitudes of the Baptist faith. I hope my love and friendship with you is a much clearer representation."
       -- "Very sad if the story is true. In the New Testament, Christian believers are told that we have been 'grafted in' to the root of Abraham. In essence, we have been adopted as brothers and sisters into the Jewish nation and are now co-recipients of all the promises God made to Abraham. That is why true Christians are very pro-Jewish. Unfortunately, there are many 'religious' people who are not true Christians."
        -- "Very sad. Aren't we supposed to expand our views in college?"
        -- "Wow! If this is true, then they need an attitude adjustment. I'm a Southern Baptist girl from way back, but have detested this 'holier and better than you' vibe that so many Protestants (and others) have subscribed to for years. Hope they have a change of heart. [This is] so not right."
        -- "Same thing happens at Baylor. This is going to become more and more common with the religious freedom movement. Another reason to retire some place besides Louisiana."
        -- "It's hard for me to believe that this sort of thing still exists. The president probably has a pointed white hat and robe in his closet. Excuse me, I have to go throw up now."
        -- "This is totally ridiculous! How could they think this would not be challenged?? I am appalled."
        -- "Interesting. This is the kind of thing that made me want to leave Louisiana. I still miss New Orleans, though, and go back every couple of years."
        -- "Gotta love those Baptists. Praise the Lord and pass the offering plate."
        -- "Truly sad but not surprising."
        -- "If there is a dumbass on earth that thinks like that, it would be in a place like Pineville, La. Just when you think we have evolved ..."
        -- "How very, very stupid and anti-Semitic that is, although not unusual in today's crazy world."
        -- "I read this in The Shreveport Times and couldn't believe it!!!!"
        -- "How sad if true."
        -- "That's unexplainable."
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        -- "I agree with you, but in case you didn't know Brigham Young requires all its coaches to be Mormon."
        (Researched this, and could not verify it, other than a sentence from a 2004 story in the Daily Herald -- Provo, Utah -- which said: "BYU's head football and basketball coaches must be active members of the LDS Church who have been and will be good role models.") 
        Likely there are religious-affiliated schools/colleges in this country which would prefer -- or even demand -- that administration, faculty and coaches be of that religion.
         But, just two examples, that is not the case at the most prominent Catholic university, Notre Dame, or at the Catholic high school in Shreveport-Bossier, Loyola College Prep.
         Not certain how that applies to this Louisiana College issue, but there you have it.

Toughest story assignment -- it was Love (and death)

     The most difficult, most challenging, assignment of a 45-year sportswriting career? Some stories/columns to choose from, but one stands out.
      It dates 30 years this November, and relates to Jacksonville, Florida, and the Florida Times-Union. And it was about golf, but not specifically.
      It was more about the aftermath of the deaths of four men in a small-plane crash. And the assignment was totally unexpected.
      Reading a book on golf recently brought a reminder. The main character of the latest of John Feinstein's long string of sports-related books, The First Major, (subtitle) The Inside Story of the 2016 Ryder Cup, is Davis Love III.
      If you know golf, you know the name.
      He was captain of the winning U.S. Ryder Cup team in 2016, having been chosen for the captain's position for a second time (because his work as captain in 2012, even in a U.S. loss to Europe, had impressed the U.S. Ryder Cup people).
      These days people might not remember Davis Love Jr., father of the son. When I see Davis III, I always think of his Dad. 
      It was his death and three others that made Nov. 14, 1988, a memorable day for me.
      On that Monday morning, I received a phone call from Mike Richey the then-Times-Union sports editor and my longtime friend from our Louisiana days.
      He wanted me to drive to St. Simons Island -- off the coast off southeast Georgia, some 75 miles from Jacksonville -- to do a story on the scene at Sea Island Golf Club.
      That was home base for Davis Love Jr., 53, the nationally known Golf Digest teaching pro/instructor, and two others who went down in the plane -- head golf pro John Popa, 37, and teaching pro Jimmy Hodges, 35, Mr. Love's protégé.
      Also killed: nearby resident Frank "Chip" Worthington, 39, the pilot.
      Obviously, this was a tragedy, a shock to the golf world and to that community on the most prominent, most affluent of the "barrier" islands just east of Brunswick, Ga.
      I was new to the Florida Times-Union, maybe three weeks into the job -- a job I needed after my departure from Shreveport. With the family, we had settled in Orange Park, a suburb just south of Jacksonville.
      Here, other than what was going to be a trip into a sad, stunned scene, was what made it difficult. I knew little about the golf world, I had never been anywhere close to Brunswick, had never heard of Sea Island Golf Club or St. Simons Island.
      I was a stranger in strange territory, about to meet and interview people who were complete strangers to me.
      And I was only vaguely familiar with Davis Love III, then an extremely promising, long-hitting, 24-year-old, fourth-year PGA Tour player with one tour victory, his father's prize pupil and -- with younger brother Mark -- his greatest achievement.   
      Now, expecting a routine work day (my main task was to guide the high school/community athletics coverage), here I was faced with uncertainty.
      Why me?
      We are not sure, can't recall. We think, though, that Mike Richey that morning could not reach our talented main Times-Union golf writer, Chris Smith, who had a good relationship with the Love family. (It was before cellphones, folks.)
      Maybe because -- laugh here -- I was a savvy sports writing veteran (it was my 19th fulltime year, but at 41, I was still kind of young, OK) and had experience, Mike called on me. We had plenty of other really good writers on that staff.
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      This was at least 10 a.m., so I rushed to get ready to go. Mike gave me some travel directions and the first place to find -- the Times-Union bureau in Brunswick and the name of that bureau person -- Beth Reese.
      Thank goodness for Beth, who soon added Cravey to her name and moved to Jacksonville, where she remains on the newspaper's news staff. She made my work that day a bit smoother.
      As I recall, when I found the bureau, she showed me how to use the machine to get my story back to the office a few hours later, and because she had to attend a meeting, left me the key to the office. And gave me directions to St. Simons Island.
      It was a 7-mile drive east on a causeway -- marshland all around -- with the Atlantic Ocean close by the resort and residential community.
      It was with plenty of trepidation that I drove to that golf club. Actually, I was not sure of all the details of the plane crash. 
      A link to the full details is below (from a Golf Digest story 20 years later).
      What happened: Davis Love Jr. and his two companions were going to attend the annual meeting of Golf Digest teaching pros at Innisbrook, a golf resort near Tampa. Because they wanted to spend most of that Sunday with their families, instead of driving to Jacksonville to catch a flight south, they chose to have Worthington fly them there -- in early evening -- from the air strip next to the golf course and connect on a Piedmont Airlines flight at 9:30 p.m.
      But the short hop met disaster -- a dense fog and, as it turned out, mixed-up signals from air controllers. Worthington's sight lines were impossible; the plane, a quarter-mile left and 500 feet past the runway's starting point, hit trees 40 feet above the ground. The estimated time: 8:53.27 p.m.
      The plane went "off the radar," but the fog was so bad, the wreckage was not found until daylight the next morning.
      Damn.
      What a loss. What a sad story to write.
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      Unfortunately, we -- any of us who write and get paid for it -- do some of our best work when it involves deaths, or tragedy. Many of the strongest reactions to pieces I've written fit this category.
      And it can be a tough task. Thinking about writing this blog, I remembered that one of the toughest assignments I made -- with the suggestion from editor Stan Tiner at the Shreveport Journal in summer 1983 -- was sending young sportswriter John James Marshall to visit/interview Joe Delaney's family after the sensational running back's drowning as he tried to save some drowning young people in Monroe, La.
      John James said it was his toughest assignment, and credited then-Haughton head coach Bobby Ray McHalffey for accompanying him and sitting through the interview. That made it easier, but "easy" is not the right word in these situations.
      For me, the people at Sea Island that awful November day in 1988 could not have been more cooperative and available. 
      Davis Love III and wife Robin were not there; they were on the way back home from Hawaii (and then San Francisco) where he was to play in the Kapalua Open and also make a vacation of it. They had just arrived in Hawaii when they got word the plane was missing.
      Three weeks later Chris Smith went to Sea Island to interview Davis III, and Chris' in-depth story was one of his best.   
      Davis III, who will be 54 next month, continues as one of the PGA Tour's biggest names, a 21-time winner on Tour, one major (1997 PGA Championship), a World Golf Hall of Fame inductee last year.
      Two of his victories came near Jacksonville in The Players Championship (1992 and 2003). We were there in '92 when, three shots out of first going into the final round, he shot a 67 on Sunday and won by four shots.
      Because of what had happened -- with its Jacksonville ties -- four years earlier, I thought that was an especially poignant victory.
      Chris Smith, who now works for the PGA Tour (senior director, business public relations), made Davis Love III and his "team" the focus of the cover story for the Times-Union's Players Championship preview the next year. Another nice story.
       It wasn't that my story for the Times-Union -- published Nov. 15, 1988 -- was that difficult to write. It was mixing the quotes from the interviews and the facts into a readable piece (our sports desk in Jacksonville helped with that).
       It was not an award-winning effort, but it was rewarding just to meet the challenge and get it done, and in plenty of time before deadline. 
       It was one to remember, for sure.
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https://www.golfdigest.com/story/gw20081107fields
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aGl2Xctj1o