JOURNAL SPORTS
MONROE – Stan Humphries led the ULM football team to the 1987 Division I-AA national championship and steered the San Diego Chargers to their only Super Bowl appearance, so coping with pressure is routine to the 58-year-old former Southwood High School standout.
Nowadays he’s most comfortable playing golf and coaching the Ouachita Christian School girls basketball team – although he admits the intensity of leading OCS to a state championship a couple of seasons ago was as taxing as anything he’s done, mostly because there was a limit to what he could control.
Now he’s added another successful walk on a sports high wire – charging to a tie for fourth in a world golf championship.
Last week, Humphries emerged from 168 qualifiers and charged to a tie for fourth in the Royal & Ancient British Senior Amateur Championship at Woodhall Spa, England.
He long since found his comfort zone taking snaps in the NFL, but admitted to KNOE-TV’s Aaron Dietrich that his latest experience was spine-tingling.
“I can play in front of 100,000 with a football in my hand and feel comfortable, but to get up on that first tee and hear the announcer call out your name, it is nerve racking,” he said.
Humphries mounted his charge with a 2-under-par 71 in the second round over Woodhall Spa’s Hotchkin Course to go with an opening 73, 1-over, on the Bracken Course. He was sitting on 1-under total just three shots off the lead when he finished his second round.
With a final total score of 291, Humphries finished at an even par for the championship, securing his prominent place on the leaderboard.
“There’s no doubt I exceeded where I thought I could go,” he said. “I thought I could make the cut (top 50 of 168 golfers).
“To finish birdie-birdie and get up to a tie for fourth, it’s a great accomplishment for me. It is that competitive spirit and that stuff you miss from football.”
Next month, he will try to again qualify for the U.S. Senior Amateur, after earlier missing by just one shot earning a spot in the U.S. Senior Open this summer. His performance last week earned an invitation to next year’s R&A Senior Am.
The 2009 Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame inductee spends plenty of time honing his game, until school starts and the OCS gym beckons.
“It keeps going until it’s time to put up the clubs and get back to coaching girls basketball,” he told Dietrich, looking forward to his 19th season on the bench, including a few as an assistant coach at ULM.