We are all such idiots because this happens summer after summer, year after year. And let me be the first to put myself at the top of the idiot list.

Everybody loves the summer. I love the summer, you love the summer, the American people love the summer.

But that doesn’t mean we have to love everything that is spoon-fed to us during these months.

We keep getting fooled and/or sucked in by this supposed sports vacuum that’s going on and allowing ourselves to believe that things that really have no relevance are somehow important.

These NFL draftniks need to get a life. With only 10 months to go before the next draft, some dude posted a 2025 Mock Draft. It had LSU offensive tackle Will Campbell going sixth to the New England Patriots. Really? Campbell is a fine player and a certain high draft pick, but some guy has already figured out the ’25 draft order and that this is the spot? Did you leave any room for the idea that some player is going to make a rise up the draft boards, like a certain Heisman Trophy winner did last year?

And Lord help us all when training camps starts and every dropped out-route pass and hamstring twinge is going to be examined and presented as BREAKING NEWS!!!! Plus, “Winners and Losers from Week 1 of the NFL pre-season.”

Even worse is the NBA Summer League, which gets presented to us a significant preview of the upcoming season (which ends 11 months from now). We get a first-hand glimpse at which teams have the best 2^nd round picks from two years ago but are going to end up in the G League anyway.

Look, I get it; league executives see the summer as the perfect place to place their secondary sports schedules and the TV executives are more than happy to oblige. You think the WNBA season just happens to be played during the summer?

Angel Reese has some record double-double streak that is the longest in WNBA history and we get daily updates about it. The double-double is one of the most bogus stats in the history of pro basketball. If you just keep rebounding your own missed layup, you can get half of it done in about 20 seconds. The player with the most double-doubles in an NBA season is Wilt Chamberlain (81 games), followed by Wilt Chamberlain (80), Wilt Chamberlain (80), Wilt Chamberlain (79) and Wilt Chamberlain (79). Spread over multiple seasons, Wilt had 227 straight double-doubles. Only 213 more to go!

Then there is the never-ending parade of soccer games/matches played on the field/pitch by teams wearing colorful uniforms/kits. They’ll keep right on inventing tournaments with the word “Copa” in them until someone makes them realize that if it‘s not the World Cup, it just doesn’t matter.

Nothing says “we’ve run out of things to televise” quite like the grossness of the Hot Dog Eating Contest. At least that only lasts a day, unlike the Fourth of July fireworks — a dog owner’s nightmare — that follow and, unfortunately, don’t only last a day. A couple of things about fireworks: (1) Is there a bigger mark-up in all of retail? and (2) Has anything changed in the last 50 years? It’s basically the same old stuff that we’ve had forever. Ever seen fireworks that make you say “Wow, I’ve never seen that before.”

Even the MLB All-Star Game, which should be the shining star of the summer, can’t get out of its own way by allowing the Home Run Derby to become the more anticipated event. And if you can hang on a few minutes, they’ll probably change the rules for that again.

But let’s give it up for college football, which has found a way to come up with the absolute king of summer things no one should ever pay attention to – the Watch List. Beginning July 29 and Aug. 13 – I know I’ve circled those dates — lists such as Doak Walker Watch List (quarterbacks) the Dave Remington Watch List (center) and the John Mackey Watch List (tight ends) will be announced.

Here are the basic guidelines for a school to get a player from a particular position on one of these lists: Do you have one? Yet schools will trumpet how they’ve got random number of players on Watch Lists, as if it really means something.

I’m more than a little embarrassed to admit that I looked up how many players were on last year’s Ray Guy Watch List (punter). One of the 49 – forty-nine! – was Seamus O’Kelly of Texas State, the most interesting name from the most obscure school I could find. Guess what was listed in his online bio: “Ray Guy Award Preseason Watch List.”

But hey, Wilt Chamberlain never did that.

Contact JJ at johnjamesmarshall@yahoo.com

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By JOHN JAMES MARSHALL, Journal Sports

They came by the dozens to line up and take a picture with NBA veteran Robert Williams III during his basketball camp Monday on the LSUS campus. Kid after kid, but more significantly, smile after smile.

And the kids enjoyed it too. Robert Williams never got tired of smiling, no matter how many pictures there were.

“I remember being that age,” Williams said. “I would have loved to have my picture, even if I didn’t know who the guy was.”

And if he could have had that opportunity as a kid, who would he want to take his picture with? “Kevin Durant,” he says. “He was kind of my idol for a long time.”

However many campers there were, that’s how many times Williams flashed a smile. Of course, the kids did too, because it’s not every day that you get a chance to meet and take a picture with a six-year NBA player.

But make no mistake about it: Williams wasn’t just there to smile. The event, presented by Caddo Parks and Recreation, had a bigger purpose.

“It’s more than just about basketball,” Williams said. “It’s about instilling certain traits in these kids like respect. That’s what I told them when I walked in. I don’t have a lot of rules, but if you talk to an adult today, you better say ‘Yes, sir’ or ‘No, sir.’ I’m trying to get to the younger group and set that standard. The purpose of this camp is just to see the smiles and the love.”

It’s not surprising that Williams chose Kevin Durant as his idol because during much of his career at North Caddo, despite being 6-foot-7 at the time, he enjoyed shooting 3-pointers like the NBA All-Star.

“They used to have a little bit of a tussle trying to get me to go into the paint,” Williams said. “But I changed my mind when I figured out it’s all about what the team needs.”

After a career at Texas A&M in which he was twice named as the SEC Defensive Player of the Year, it was his defense that the Boston Celtics needed when he was selected in the first round (27^th overall).

He wasn’t much of a scorer (only once has he averaged double digits for a season), but he became a key member of the Celtics as they grew into a perennial playoff team. The problem was that people began to realize that because he wasn’t on the floor.

It’s been a roll call of injuries for the (now) 6-foot-9 Williams.

In the 2021 playoffs, he suffered both a turf toe and a sprained ankle. The Celtics lost in the first round.

In the 2021-22 season, Williams he had a torn meniscus in his left knee during the regular season. He came back and played in the Finals against Golden State but was still hobbled by injury as the Celtics lost the series.

He played in only 35 games the following 82-game regular season due to knee surgery.

He has also had to deal with a vascular disease in both legs.

“My career has always been like that,” Williams said. “It’s something we can prepare for and try to prevent. You just have to get through it and come out strong.”

Then there was something else had to deal with – getting traded to the Portland Trail Blazers before this season began. On top of that – you guessed it – he got injured after only six games. This time, it was his right knee.

“It was tough with the trade and then to get hurt for the year,” Williams said. “But it helped me to work on my body to get better because that’s stuff I can’t work on during the season. I spent a lot of time with family and I did a lot of soul searching. There’s no reason to be miserable for the whole season so I had to find the good in it.”

Just this week, there have been reports that the Sacramento Kings might be looking to acquire Williams in a trade.

“I hear a lot of rumors but I try to keep my head out of it,” Williams said. “There’s a lot of trade talk and a lot of stuff going on. You just have to buckle down and work as hard as you can during the summer and whenever the time comes in September to get on the court, you have to be ready for it.”

Not only to get on the court, but to stay on the court.

Contact JJ at johnjamesmarshall@yahoo.com

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There comes a time in every writer’s career in which it becomes a moral obligation to inform the public of an impending travesty.

Today is that day.

I love the summer and (almost) everything that goes with it. But particularly baseball. Part of the mixture of summer and baseball is the All-Star Game, also conveniently known, as the Midsummer Classic. (It may not technically be in the middle of the summer and hasn’t been classic for quite a while, but let’s ignore all of that and just go with it.)

While the All-Star memories of Pete Rose/Ray Fosse, Pedro Martinez, Dave Parker and Fred Lynn have faded a bit, there were some things we held on to. One of those was seeing each player adorned in their own team uniform in the game. It was kind of cool to see a Brewer, Dodger and Brave uniform in the starting National League outfield.

That’s sooooo 2019.

In an effort to ruin everything we hold sacred, MLB sold its soul in the name of marketing. Again. Last year’s outfield featured jerseys adorned with National, National and National.

Not kind of cool.

But hang on. Even though the public outcry was decidedly against it, MLB has doubled down for this year’s game, which will be played in Arlington, Texas.

I don’t think they could have made this year’s team jerseys any uglier if they had spent 12 months trying. (Which they may have.)

This year’s uniforms were done to have a “distinctive Lone Star flair” but instead, they actually have a distinctive beer league softball flair.

At the unveiling earlier this week, somebody actually wrote the jerseys were “inspired by Texas’ western heritage, with typography and graphics that exude the classic vibes of the Lone Star State but with a contemporary aesthetic. … bold color blocking, modern trims and vibrant highlight meant to represent a bridge between the past and the future.”

Hundreds of talented journalists are getting laid off all over the country and that guy still has a job. I’m guessing that was written with a straight face.

Which is what you won’t have when you see these. We would show you what they look like, but it is standard practice here at the Shreveport-Bossier Journal not to show images that may be objectionable to younger readers. And older readers. And middle-age readers.

If that makes it sound like a crime scene, that’s because it is. A crime against common sense and tradition.

I doubt it will make any difference once you see the jerseys, but if it’s any consolation, the players caps may actually be even worse. They managed to keep the softball motif going with a touch of trucker’s hat mixed in. Haven’t seen the back of them yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they are adjustable.

In 2021 and 2022, the All-Star jerseys were standardized but at least the team name/nickname was represented on the front. Don’t get me wrong, it was ugly; but you could still make the case that it had some degree of individuality for each team.

Last year, that went out the window. But hey, at least this year there will be a team logo on the left sleeve of each jersey. How’s that for representin’?

If you have reached this point and you haven’t jumped away to Google to see what this is all about, I’d like to offer a suggestion before you do — go get a towel.

Your keyboard will thank you later.

Contact JJ at johnjamesmarshall@yahoo.com

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By JOHN JAMES MARSHALL, Journal Sports

When they line up for the 40^th annual Firecracker 5K race Thursday morning, there will be hundreds of people making their way to the starting line. There will be no shortage of excitement in the air, especially as fireworks and music fill the Mall St. Vincent parking lot.

A few will be focused on the competition – and the prize money that goes with it – but most will be there for the event itself. It’s an annual place-to-be that marks the calendar. After 40 years, the Firecracker 5K is about as established of an event as there is in Shreveport-Bossier.

You might say that when it comes to 5K races in this area, the Firecracker 5K is like the Rose Bowl in college football: The Granddaddy of Them All.

And it all started with an idea, a new business and an apartment complex.

In 1985, Matt Brown had just opened Sportspectrum, a business that served many aspects of outdoor life but particularly running. Which was only natural, since Brown and his friends were big on getting together for a Saturday morning jog.

“After a run one day, we got together and thought it would be a good idea to do something on the Fourth of July,” Brown says. “So we put it out there just to see who would show up.”

The group began thinking of how to get more people involved, so they hatched an idea of a 5K race on the Fourth of July. Next, they had to figure out where to hold the race. One of the members of the running group lived at Spring Lake Point apartments and the group often used that location for their weekend runs, so they figured that was as good of a place as any to have the Start/Finish line.

“I’m not even sure we asked Spring Lake Point if we could,” Brown remembers.

Probably didn’t matter much, since there were only about 40 runners who came to that first race. And it’s not as though the entry fee scared people off. “It was $1,” Brown says. “And you did get a T-shirt.”

Promotion, if you can call it that, was basically word of mouth. “I knew that I wanted to put together some races to drive business to the store, so we probably had some flyers,” Brown says. “We put a few in sporting goods stores. I don’t even know if we had fitness places back then, but I’m sure we put some there, too. But it was mostly just word of mouth.”

There was no mention of the race in either of the Shreveport newspapers at the time. They are thankful they didn’t make the papers the next day for all the wrong reasons.

“I had a bottle rocket in my car for that night, so I decided to shoot it off at the start,” Brown says. “And it went into the woods and it kind of caught on fire a little bit, so I’m trying to put the fire out while they started the race.”

Scott Smith (men’s) and Terry Davis (women’s) were the winners in the inaugural event. There wasn’t any prize money in those days, but there were some bananas at the finish line.

And, truth be told, there were also some adult beverages.

“It was the Fourth of July, so the whole idea was to throw a party afterward,” Brown says.

But it didn’t take long for the popularity to grow and Brown began looking for another site. That’s when the event shifted to its current location and quickly established itself as a major event on the local running calendar.

“We needed a place where people could park and I just loved South Highlands with the trees and the shade and the neighborhood,” Brown says. “It’s been there ever since.”

There was a time in which the Firecracker 5K had about 3,000 runners, which is when Brown realized how much the event had truly grown. “Most of the races in Shreveport on Saturday were typically 200 or 300 people,” Brown says. “So to have that many people show was kind of neat. I had to figure out how much food and drink I had to show up with. But we made it all work.”

Every single year. Yes, even in 2020.

“We never missed a year,” he says. “We had some challenges with COVID and it looked very different. We had to have corrals for the runners and it was crazy. I can’t believe they even let us do it.”

Brown sold Sportspectrum in 2022 and now has a home on Lake Balboa in Hot Springs Village, Ark. “I’ve always been very proud of this event,” he says. “The Fourth of July race is kind of like a reunion. It’s a holiday, everybody’s in a good mood. It’s a great way to kick off the holiday in a healthy way. It’s just a good, fun morning.”

Just like it was back in those days at Spring Lake Point.

“It wasn’t very organized that first year,” Brown remembers. “But it was fun.”

Contact JJ at johnjamesmarshall@yahoo.com

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By JOHN JAMES MARSHALL, Journal Sports

You might think that when it comes down to the most significant part of summer sports camps, the list would include learning an effective two-handed backhand, proper technique for a corner kick or how to hit a knockdown 7-iron.

But when you talk to some of those who are running those camps, you’ll quickly find out that there is something much more important.

“We try not to overload them with too much technique,” says Grady Wilson, general manager/director of tennis at Pierremont Oaks Tennis Club. “What’s important is fun and games.

“And popsicles.”

“When mom or dad come to pick them up after our three-hour sessions, they are going to be hot, sweaty and sticky,” says Querbes Park golf pro Nathan Barrow, “and covered in popsicle juice.”

If you haven’t figured it out by now, the summer sports camps are equal parts fun and games as much as they are about the actual sport itself.

“We have peanuts everywhere they go,” Barrow says. “The kids love feeding the squirrels at Querbes Park.”

POTC has a summer program that combines tennis in the morning and swimming in the afternoon, so many stay at the complex the entire day. “We have them playing (tennis) on the courts in the back,” Wilson says. “My office is in the front and I can still hear them giggling and having fun all the way up there. I love seeing their cheeks get red all morning and then they hit the pool in the afternoon.”

If there’s a sport, you just about bet there’s a summer camp for it.

Just about as soon as the last school bell rings, summer sports camp season opens up. And there’s plenty of them. There are the traditional ones – baseball, softball, golf, tennis, soccer, etc. – but there also those for sports such as archery, weightlifting, lacrosse and gymnastics.

CABOSA, the local parent organization for soccer, has camps all summer for those ages 5 to 19 years old. There have already been two weeks of camps at Cargill Park with three more yet to come for all skill levels.

Instruction is done by four CABOSA directors, club coaches plus a few college players such as Louisiana Tech’s Kalli Matlock.

“The purpose is to keep kids playing. If you don’t do anything over the summer, a lot of the skills you learned throughout the year start to get rusty, so we just want to keep them playing,” Matlock says.  “Summer camps are supposed to be fun, too. For kids who take it seriously, camps are there for them to still have fun while they are playing and have a relaxing experience than it being serious all the time.”

Camps are open for a wide range of age groups. “We start taking them at 4 years old up to 17, but most of the focus is from 5 to 11,” Wilson says. “A lot of them have never played (tennis) before. We teach them some technical stuff, but at that age, it’s all about fun.”

“I’m trying to hook them for life in a fun environment that has some golf to it,” Barrow says. “We are more fun-centric than golf-centric. We want them to remember how much fun they had while they were out at the golf course. Balloon fights, tag relay race games … we do all sorts of things.”

Because Querbes has been closed due to a greens renovation, that has allowed the campers to go out on the course and play some holes without interrupting the flow of the daily golfers. “It took them an hour to play two holes,” Barrow says. “It was great. They were able to take their time and they didn’t know the difference.”

All camps try to keep their instructor/camper ratio as low as possible. “I’m trying to make it so that it’s not one teacher with 15 kids,” Barrow says. “That can be mass chaos. We can only handle 16 (campers) at a time, so we try to have three teachers so the kids get a little more personal time and we move them from station to station.”

It’s summer fun for the campers, but it’s also good for the instructors.

“This is a really good experience for me,” Matlock says. “It’s cool for me to see them having a really good time and they really look up to the coaches. You can tell the admiration they have for their coaches because I remember being a kid and thinking that about my coaches. Sometimes the younger kids are a little impatient and a little harder to work with so it’s good for me to have patience with them.”

Contact JJ at johnjamesmarshall@yahoo.com

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By JOHN JAMES MARSHALL, Journal Sports

Jim Wells likes to tell the story of when Hall of Fame catcher Johnny Bench, then a teenager living in Oklahoma, was watching the New York Yankees play in the World Series and his father told him that Mickey Mantle was also from Oklahoma. “You mean a kid from Oklahoma could actually play in the World Series?” a fascinated Bench asked his father.

As Wells looks back on his time as a college baseball coach, he says he knows exactly how Bench felt. “You mean a kid from Bossier City could actually coach in the College World Series?” he says.

Yes he can.

And not just once. Or twice. Wells took Alabama to Omaha three times in the late 1990s and also served as a graduate assistant at LSU for two other CWS appearances.

“I have fond memories of going to Omaha,” Wells says. “Sometimes I look back and think, I was a part of that? It was kind of a blur. It happened fast. But very grateful to have the opportunity to do that.”

It certainly did happen fast.

In 1987, Wells was one year removed from coaching at Loyola Prep, where he took the Flyers to the state finals in two of the four years he served as head coach. As a graduate assistant in ’87, his main job was to take the LSU team to the Class AAA minor league game the day before.

Typical GA stuff.

But he also learned a valuable lesson at the end of that CWS, when Stanford’s Paul Carey hit a shocking opposite-field grand slam in the 10^th inning off future No. 1 pick Ben McDonald to deny the Tigers a spot in the finals.

It was a gut-wrenching loss for the Tigers. When Carey hit the home run, Wells happened to be standing next to LSU head coach Skip Bertman, who immediately put his hand on Wells’ shoulder and said, “See, stuff like this really does happen.”

And stuff like that really did happen to Wells. He went back to the CWS in ’89 with the Tigers, but soon was on his way to his alma mater, Northwestern State, as a head coach (making two NCAA Regionals from 1990-94) before taking over at Alabama in 1995.

In his second season with the Crimson Tide, he found himself as a head coach at College World Series. His Alabama team was the No. 1 seed and preparing to play Oklahoma State, making its 17^th CWS appearance.

Only 10 years earlier, he had been hitting fungos to 15-year-olds behind the Loyola gym on a makeshift practice field. “I have those thoughts now (of how far he had come) but it was such a blur,” he says. “You are always thinking about the next game or the next pitch. When you lose, you just think about going to recruit or get ready for summer camps. I wish I would have enjoyed it more.”

Wells took Alabama to Omaha in 1996, 1997 (also seeded No. 1) and 1999 and won the opening game in all three appearances.

The 1996 team lost its next two games and was eliminated, but the 1997 team took an interesting path. After beating Mississippi State 3-2, Alabama lost to Miami to fall into the loser’s bracket. After beating Mississippi State again, the Crimson Tide was faced with having to beat Miami (Fla.) twice to advance to the finals.

Which is exactly what happened.

Now, Wells had taken his team to the CWS finals. And who was over in the other dugout? Skip Bertman and the LSU Tigers. One game for it all.

But LSU had only played three games to get to that spot; Alabama had played five. “We threw a guy who I think had only thrown 11 innings all year,” Wells says. “I think by the end of the first inning, they had us by a touchdown.”

It was 6-0 after one inning, 9-0 after two and ended with a 13-6 LSU win.

In his final appearance in 1999, the fifth-seeded Tide made it to the semifinals before losing to Miami.

Wells finished his career at Alabama in 2009 with 625 wins (adding those at NSU, 817 overall). This year, the American Baseball Coaches Association inducted him into the Hall of Fame Class of 2024.

Alabama has not been back to the CWS since Wells retired.

“I dreamed of going to the College World Series, but I never thought I could do that,” Wells says. “Yeah, I was a lucky guy.”

Skip Bertman was right. Stuff like this really does happen.

Contact JJ at johnjamesmarshall@yahoo.com

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By JOHN JAMES MARSHALL, Written for the Louisiana Sports Writers Association

He was a tagalong, only eight years at the time, but the kid had a fascination with all of the things a newsroom had to offer in the 1960s.

The cigar smoke. The pounding of the typewriter. The clicking of the teletype machine. Most of all, the chatter.

Grown men talking about grown men stuff.

“I’d sit there with my dad and all the sports writers,” he says today, “and just take everything in.”

Until one day when Bud Montet, then the sports editor of the Baton Rouge Morning Advocate, called the kid over and handed him a few pieces of paper. “Can you write me four or five paragraphs on this BREC softball game?” Montet asked.

And the boy set about that task on a manual typewriter, two fingers hunting-and-pecking all the way, with the mission of crafting the best BREC softball game story that has ever been written by an eight-year-old.

“I knew then,” Ron Higgins says today, “that this is what I wanted to do.”

It has carried him into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame as a 2024 recipient of the Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism. He is part of the 12-member Class of 2024 to be honored June 20-22 in Natchitoches. For participation opportunities, visit LaSportsHall.com or call 318-238-4255.

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Appropriately, there is a story about how Higgins got started as a sports writer because stories are what he is all about.

Though he still uses that hunt-and-peck style he learned as an eight-year-old, Higgins doesn’t write with his fingers.

He writes with his eyes.

He writes with his ears.

And he writes with his heart.

(His fingers just do the dirty work).

There are stories about covering games all over the South, stories about interview subjects that nobody else had ever heard of and stories about situations he just happened to walk into. But before you can read it, first he had to see it. Hear it. Feel it.

In a 45-year career that has included an amazing 11 stops along the way, Higgins still has a hard time deciding what he enjoys the most about covering sports.

Maybe it’s the big games. Or the off-the-wall quotes. Or giving a hard-line opinion when the situation calls for it. Or the below-the-radar feature stories that he finds that nobody else seems to.

“I have always loved a long-form feature,” he says. “But then again, I like the immediacy of a really good game story. I love covering events because you never know what’s going to happen in a game. That’s the beauty of it and you get to write it that way. And I like writing columns because I’m opinionated. When you’ve done it as long as I have, you’ve got a pretty good perspective. I wish I had that perspective about 30 or 40 years ago.”

Maybe even longer than that.

Higgins had bylined stories before he had a driver’s license. (“Mother would drop me off at the games and come back and pick me up,” he says.) He’d go into postgame locker rooms and football coaches thought he was the towel boy.

There’s no mistaking it any more. Higgins is going to be in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame, alongside sports and sportswriting heroes from his youth, and throughout his career.

“Even after they told me, I had a hard time believing it,” Higgins says. “There are so many other people in this state, which has had a history of great writers, that I think deserve it more. But I’m truly honored to be selected. It’s been my life’s work. It’s all I’ve wanted to do since I was a boy.”

***

You want stories? Here’s one.

On Jan. 11, 1980, Higgins had a morning appointment to talk to LSU defensive coordinator Greg Williams. Fresh out of college as a 1979 LSU graduate, Higgins was working for Tiger Rag and didn’t bother to listen to TV or radio that morning as he made his way to the LSU football office.

When he arrived, he could instantly feel that something was wrong.

“I walked in and everybody is crying and I asked what happened,” Higgins remembers. “That’s when they told me Bo’s plane went down.”

Bo Rein, who had been hired only two months earlier, had left Shreveport the night before to return back to Baton Rouge after a recruiting trip and the plane he was on crashed in the Atlantic Ocean. (The cause of the crash was probably cabin depressurization causing a lack of oxygen.)

“I didn’t even know what to say at that point,” Higgins says. “I realized that I don’t think I can walk into anything worse than this.”

He explained that he had an appointment with Williams. He was told that Williams was in his office and, amazingly, had put Rein on the plane the night before in Shreveport.

Williams invited Higgins into his office. “All I asked him was ‘What happened?’” he says. “And he just started talking.”

Less than a year out of college and Higgins was listening to a man who had just lost one of his best friends and could have easily been aboard that plane had he not made other last-minute plans.

Not exactly a situation they teach you in a journalism classroom.

Higgins followed up with Williams, who had retired from coaching, for a reflective 2015 story that won first place in the LSWA’s annual writing contest.

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And the reason why that young boy was in smoke-filled newsrooms back in the 1960s? That’s because the Ron’s father was Ace Higgins, who was the longtime Sports Information Director at LSU.

In those days, Ace Higgins would come to the Morning Advocate newsroom three times a week and help write stories to put the sports section together.

But Ace Higgins was much more than that. He was the school’s SID when Billy Cannon won the Heisman Trophy. And when LSU had 13 first-team All-Americans. And when Pete Maravich showed up and changed the way college basketball was played.

Three days before Christmas in 1968, Ace Higgins died of a heart attack. He was 45 and left behind a 12-year-old son.

“I think about him every day,” Ron Higgins says. “Every press box I go in, there is somebody who knew him and they’ll talk to me about him.”

When Higgins was hired by the Shreveport Journal in December 1982, the second column he wrote was a tribute to his father, Ace.

“My dad never intended for me to be a sportswriter,” Higgins says. “So he never really knew how much influence he had on me.”

Contact JJ at johnjamesmarshall@yahoo.com

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It didn’t get much notice because the news originated from 2,000 miles away, but there just was an announcement that could have quite an impact for the Shreveport golf community.

Bandon Dunes is one of the great golf locations in the world. It’s a development in southwest Oregon that has, if you believe Golf Digest’s ranking of “Courses you can play,” five of the Top 16 courses in the United States.

But the Kaiser family, the founders of Bandon Dunes, have recently begun to expand their golf empire under the name of Dream Golf. There is Sand Valley in Wisconsin, which has four courses.

There is Rodeo Dunes, which will have 36 holes when completed and is located about an hour away from Denver.

And the latest expansion for Dream Golf? About 70 miles away from Shreveport.

Wild Spring Dunes will be a 36-hole facility located in East Texas. It will be in an area bordered by the geographic triangle formed by Henderson to the northwest, Carthage to the northeast and Nacogdoches to the south.

Zoom in a little tighter at the development’s website and it shows the location to be very close to Mount Enterprise. That’s actually closer to Shreveport than Squire Creek, which is widely considered to be Louisiana’s top course and is located in Choudrant.

Golf.com published the announcement earlier this week.

“This land surprised me,” said Michael Keiser, who is the oldest son of the family’s patriarch. “I would never have imagined this kind of property in Texas. The pine forests. The steep ravines. The big hills surrounding it. You walk the site, and it’s always changing, and you can see golf holes on every part of it. Founders are going to be surprised and excited by Wild Spring Dunes the same way I was.”

Word has spread through the local golf community pretty quickly.

“This is a big deal,” said a local golf insider. “When you look at the circle of where they think their market will come from, it’s not just Dallas and Houston, but Little Rock and New Orleans.”

They might want to check their geography when claiming on the website that the location is “an easy day drive from a wide variety of neighboring cities and states” and then list Birmingham and Memphis.

It should also be a benefit to Shreveport Regional Airport, though East Texas Regional in Longview is a few miles closer.

“They are looking for groups that will fly in on Thursday, play Friday and Saturday and leave out on Sunday,” said the local golf analyst.

The routing has already been completed on one course (No. 1 is a dogleg right) and is being done by Tom Doak. The second course is being designed by Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore.

The facility will be modeled after the other Bandon Dunes/Dream Golf entities (sans Pacific Ocean): full service, publicly accessible golf resort with luxury on-side accommodations. They also expect to add a “short course” to the facility.

There will be Founders Memberships, which will give a buyer early access to the property, preferred real estate locations and exclusive golf privileges. If you’ve got $65,000 stuffed in your mattress, you’re in!

Just a guess here, but the daily golf fee would probably be in the $200-$250 range.

The bigger question is when this will all happen and that answer is not as clear. No announcement has been made on that, probably because Dream Golf is trying to get Rodeo Dunes up and running within the next year.

Contact JJ at johnjamesmarshall@yahoo.com

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I didn’t watch much of the NFL Draft Thursday night because I didn’t have to. I knew exactly what was going to happen.

No, not that USC quarterback Caleb Williams was going to be take first overall by the Chicago Bears. That figured.

Here’s what else I figured –

• NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell was going to be booed every time he stepped to the microphone.

• NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell wasn’t going to care that he was being booed every time he stepped to the microphone.

• Young men with bad suits were going to bro-hug Goodell on stage after their selection and it was going to look awkward for both.

• ESPN announcers would do a poor job of hiding the fact that they knew who the pick was before it was actually announced, just like your older brother would let you know that he knew what your Christmas present was but was “sworn to secrecy” by your parents … and would keep dropping hints anyway.

• There would be Green Room drama.

• Those in the audience would be showing fake excitement when the camera was pointed at them, as if they really were pumped about the pick of that Colorado State player they had never heard of.

• There would be more Green Room drama.

• Every pick would he overanalyzed so that we would be convinced that the latest selection might as well make reservations for an upcoming Hall of Fame ceremony.

Long ago and in a world we really don’t recognize any more, here’s how much significance the NFL Draft had in the public consciousness: In 1982, the draft started at 8:30.

In the morning.                                                 

I remember it well because it was one of the few occasions that those of us who worked at afternoon papers (kids, ask your grandparents) could actually have something that resembled breaking news. We’d hang on as long as we could and try to get the complete first round in the afternoon editions.

You think they might go for an 8:30 a.m. start next year when the draft is held in Green Bay? Breakfast bratwurst for everyone!

It lasted only two days (it’s three days now) and they had 12 rounds of picks, so they didn’t have any time to jack around and wonder what Mel Kiper or Louis Riddick had to say about it.

Kenneth Sims went first that year and Johnie Cooks went next. Heard of them?

Exactly the point.

Much Ado About Nothing was a nice comedy that William Shakespeare cranked out in the late 1500s, but Billy was ahead of the game by about 400-something years because that’s exactly what the NFL Draft has become.

NOTHING is forced on the American sports consciousness quite like the NFL Draft.  There’s not even a close second. It’s become a way for non-experts to act like experts and somehow think they are NFL insiders. As if Jerry Jones is going to tell one of his minions “Hey, somebody call Joe and see who he has pegged at No. 24.”

Here are some more things you can pretty much count on.

• As great as they have made all of these quarterbacks to be – “I see a lot of Tom Brady in him” – typically only one of them will turn out to actually be the real deal. In the 2021 draft, Trevor Lawrence went No. 1 and he seems to be on his way. But after him?

• Quarterbacks were chosen No. 2, No. 3, No. 11 and No. 15 and none of them are still on their same team three years later.

• There’s going to come a time pretty early on that a pick is going to be made and you will have never heard of the guy. Last year, they didn’t even make it into double digits before the first “Who he?” was uttered.

• And, of course, there will be the inevitable draft grades, the most pointless post-event exercise in all of sports.

They could hold this event in a Goodell’s basement and the results would be the same. And he’d probably still get booed.

Contact JJ at johnjamesmarshall@yahoo.com

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I remember exactly where I was three years ago when my financial world changed. No, I didn’t win the lottery or get a visit from the IRS.

Instead, I was at the concession stand at Disch-Falk Field on the campus of the University of Texas for a baseball game and all I wanted was a soft pretzel (easy on the salt).

I whipped out my wallet from my back right pocket, pulled out the cash before seeing the look on the concessionaire’s face, which basically said “We’ve got another rube!”

Instead, I was actually told “Sir, we don’t accept cash.”

WHAT?!?!? Literally, my money was no good at Disch-Falk Field, so I was left with no choice. Out came the debit card.

I’d rather cut my toenails with a hacksaw than pay for singular items with a debit card. To me, it’s like writing a check to the Handee Mart on Tech Drive in Ruston for $0.76. (Yes, I did that in 1981 and I am still not proud of it.)

Until the Great Pretzel Incident in Austin, I had managed to avoid this financial blasphemy. And I have pretty much steered clear of it since. But I know it’s out there, mainly because I see it all the time at high school athletic events — and I go to about 100 of those a year.

The combination of working at a school and being a sports writer allows me the ability to walk right through the admission gate instead of having to scan a QR code or download an app. For that, I am one thankful dude.

All of this comes up because there is a bill in the Louisiana Legislature – House Bill 5 – that would require colleges to accept cash at sporting events. If needed, I am availabe for hire to be the chief lobbyist for this bill.

It’s being sponsored by Rep. Charles Owen of Rosepine and if my man Charlie wanted to have a real impact, he would expand that to include high schools. For all I care, just keep going from there.

Look, I get it. There are all kinds of reasons/excuses that they will give you for being “cashless.” Seems like it started with Covid, when apparently if two people touched the same dollar bill, instant death was sure to ensue.

There is also the ol’ nefarious Booster Club member, who gets sticky fingers behind the popcorn machine and walks out with pockets stuffed when it’s all said and done. LSU sent a note to the House saying that the bill could lead to a $75,000 annual loss of revenue for concession companies. So we need to be inconvenienced because you can’t make proper change for a $20?

And when all else fails, they’ll tell you that being cashless is “for convenience of our patrons.” LSU also argued that it will slow down concession lines. Sure, if everybody is at the ready with the chip card and taps the machine at the right time, that would speed things up.

Now come back to the real world.

It’s particularly troubling at high school games, where internet access for running credit cards can be sketchy. And wait until you see how the line gets backed up because MeeMaw has no idea what she has to do just to get inside the gate so see can watch little Trey.

The University of New Orleans suggested some concession stands should require reverse ATMs, which allow somebody to deposit cash and receive a temporary debit card.  That’s taking inconvenience to a new level. Think MeeMaw will go for that?

There is only one solution – have both. There’s nothing wrong with have the ability to pay online for game admittance or for two hot dogs and a bag of popcorn. Tap away with that chip card and the guy behind you will appreciate getting to the front of the line a little quicker.

But as long as someone is not counting out pennies to pay for a pizza slice, let the people who prefer cash still have the same opportunities as all of you chip-card-toting Millennials.

Before the pretzels gets stale.

Contact JJ at johnjamesmarshall@yahoo.com

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