Social media has been flooded with pictures since Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer Bill Walton died Monday at age 71 from colon cancer.

Those photos – all of a smiling, gracious 6-11 Walton towering over someone he just met wanting a selfie with him – tell everything you need to know why he was so beloved.

He loved people. All races. Tall or short. Skinny or overweight. Rich or poor.

Whether he kibitzed at courtside with the CEO of a multi-million company or shot the breeze with an elderly security guard working the players and media entrance at an arena loading dock, he always had time for conversation.

Wanted to know where you were from, what college you attended, what you did for a living, if you were married and if you had kids. It was important for him to connect.

One of the first times I talked to Walton was when I worked in Memphis for almost three decades writing for The Commercial Appeal newspaper.

I was writing an extensive feature on former Memphis State head basketball coach Larry Finch, a legend in his younger years a Tigers’ All-American guard who led MSU to the 1973 NCAA national championship game vs. Walton and coach John Wooden’s UCLA dynasty.

Finch scored 29 points but Walton scored 44 (still a championship game record), hitting 21 of 22 field goals and grabbing 13 rebounds in an 87-66 victory.

With under three minutes left, Walton injured his ankle and had to leave the game. Finch helped him off the floor all to the UCLA bench, an apparent act of magnanimous sportsmanship.

Five years after Finch had been fired as Memphis State’s coach at the end of the 1996-97 season, he suffered a massive heart attack and two strokes that left him partially paralyzed and affected his speech.

But it didn’t alter his memory or his sense of humor when I visited him in a nursing/rehabilitation center for my story. I asked him why he helped the injured Walton to the bench.

“Larry, some people think to this day it’s one of the greatest acts of sportsmanship they’ve ever seen at the Final Four,” I said.

Finch, who died in 2011, smiled as best he could, then gestured for me to lean close to him so I could hear his answer.

“Sportsmanship. . .my. . .ass,” he said in a halting cadence. “He was kicking our butt. I wanted to make sure he wasn’t coming back in the game.”

Finch laughed long and hard, just as Walton did when I tracked him down by phone for a response to what Finch said.

For the next 30 minutes, Walton quizzed me on Finch’s health and what he could do to help him.

He remembered UCLA would have been in trouble in the title game had the Tigers’ high-flying forward Larry Kenon not been in foul trouble and how UCLA had no answer stopping Finch. He also admired Finch later when he became a head coach because he never cheated in recruiting and was loyal to his kids.

I had no idea how Walton knew all of that. But he did. He tried to learn the best attributes of everyone he met.

His positivity was intoxicating, despite the fact he had (by his estimation) 38 surgeries over the years mostly to his knees, feet, ankles, toes and wrists. Those injuries and the constant pain he endured forced him to play in just 44 percent of the games in his 13-year NBA career.

He still managed to post career averages of 13.3 points and 10.5 rebounds, was the NBA’s Most Valuable Player in 1978 and NBA Finals MVP in 1977 for Portland before injuries took away his marvelous athleticism. He was also named the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year in 1986 when he won another NBA title as a backup for Celtics’ center and former Centenary star Robert Parish, a Shreveport native.

The first thing Walton did when he was about to join the Celtics in September 1985 was go to Parish’s house in Boston and tell him he had no aspirations of replacing him in the starting lineup. He just wanted to help the Celtics win.

“He (Walton) thought enough of me to make sure I was comfortable with him being on the team,” Parish told the Boston Globe in 2016. “That’s why I have the utmost respect for Bill Walton and that’s the main reason why he was my inductee into the Hall of Fame (in 2003). Bill Walton is my main man, for that reason.”

Walton once tried to tutor former LSU star Shaquille O’Neal when Tigers’ head coach Dale Brown brought him to Baton Rouge for a week at the start of the 1992-93 season.

Most of the younger generation knew Walton, who once had a personal 142-game winning streak that lasted almost five years from high school through his senior season at UCLA, for his off-beat color commentary on college basketball telecasts.

They didn’t realize Walton, a pontificating master of hyperbole, overcame a stuttering problem at age 28. He started his broadcast career in 1990 and called his last game in February.

Lionel Hollins, Portland’s starting guard on the ’77 NBA title who later became head coach of the Memphis Grizzlies, loved talking about Walton’s competitive spirit.

But he always concluded there was one indisputable characteristic about the big redhead, who married twice and had four sons including Adam, who played 22 games for LSU from 1995-97 before transferring.

“He’s simply a great human being,” Hollins said.

Yes. He was all that and more.

Contact Ron at ronhigginsmedia@gmail.com

The small Concordia Parish village of Ferriday has received national if not worldwide acclaim for three reasons: Jerry Lee Lewis, Mickey Gilley and Jimmy Swaggart. Three cousins, who grew up in Ferriday, would become known across the globe for Lewis’ and Gilley’s piano-pounding music and Swaggart’s preaching.

Seven miles up the road from Ferriday, the Franklin Parish hamlet of Gilbert has produced another notable figure who’s behind the scenes work with his video camera has made his name known throughout the outdoors industry. He is John L. Brown, Jr. who for some 20 years worked as videographer for the National Wild Turkey Federation, eventually being named executive producer.

For more than two decades, his expertise with the camera put him in close quarters with every well-known name in the outdoors industry.

Brown has now retired and has moved back home to his north Louisiana roots. He finally had time to put together a wonderful hard cover book, “Gathering Light” that covers his life from growing up along the Tensas Basin to his years of loading up and packing his camera gear to film hunts with the most notable outdoors personalities across the country.

“Gathering Light” begins as Brown, a youngster, watched and lamented over the destruction of the thousands of acres of prime hardwoods in his beloved Tensas Delta being brought to the ground and burned. The reason for this horrific destruction had to do with the fact that the fertile land along the Tensas could grow soy beans, a crop seen at the time as more valuable than oak trees. Soy beans could grow back every year while you could just about forget about ever replacing the hardwoods.

At the age of 24, Brown and his roommate, Rex Moncrief, were working at a lumber yard when an earlier chance encounter with the promotions director of a local NBC affiliate led to an escape from loading lumber for customers. Brown and Moncrief pitched the idea of producing a local outdoor program for the station. Long story short, their program, “The Outdoor News” was born and enjoyed success for several years.

From “The Outdoor News” came the opportunity to do free-lance work for companies such as Knight and Hale, Primos and others.

“Gathering Light” covers Brown’s eventual expertise with his video camera to capturing the attention of other companies. He was slowly but steadily climbing the ladder to him eventually  anding a plum of a job with the wild turkey federation, a position he held for two decades until an unceremonious release from the organization.

One thing that led to his career success probably more than anything else was imparted to him by well-known outdoors video producer Ron Jolly, a fellow Louisianian.

“John,” Jolly told him, “there are two things that I’ll tell you about this business that are absolutes regarding the job. One, you must be an eternal optimist. You must believe that without a doubt that the buck you’re hunting is about to walk past your stand, or that the next yelp will elicit a gobbler. Number two, you must enjoy seeing others succeed.”

Brown writes that as time passed, he understood what Jolly was saying as he saw the failure of others who couldn’t derive satisfaction seeing someone else pull the trigger.

I finished my copy of “Gathering Light” in one sitting. It brought back memories of the times I was privileged to visit with John over the years and as an outdoors writer, my association with so many he writes about. If you have any interest at all in the outdoors, it’s a book you’ll thoroughly enjoy.

“Gathering Light” is available at Amazon.com. For an inscribed copy of the book, which sells for $25, contact Brown at 486 Marion Sims Rd., W. Monroe, LA 71292.

Contact Glynn at glynnharris37@gmail.com

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Can’t say the City Medal Play Championship amateur golf competition this weekend went according to plan.

It did go off smoothly over 36 holes, with a round on Saturday and Sunday at Huntington Park.

But two teenagers who didn’t anticipate playing stole the show.

Hudson Greene, 14, won with a two-round total of 144. His good friend Slayte Guidry, 15, tied for third by shooting a 147.

Both new eighth-grade graduates were going to play in Lafayette this weekend for Cope Middle School in a state tournament cancelled Friday afternoon, after Guidry had already traveled to the Hub City and Greene and his father were more than halfway there.

With a couple of quick phone calls, the boys got last-minute entries into the City Amateur (stroke play).

Greene was the leader after Saturday’s play and held on for a two-shot margin over Preston Smith (146). Todd Killen tied Guidry’s 147 for third.

Neither knew how they stood until they got to the clubhouse at the end of their rounds.

“I was a little shocked, surprised, but it was very fun to see that we were both able to finish inside the top three,“ said Greene.

“It was great,” said Guidry. “I’m glad we both played that well. If I did lose, I’d want it to be to him.”

Greene said he was “able to hit my driver very well, find a lot of fairways, which is really what you need to do out there. All the fairways are tough to hit, with a lot of trees, and that helped me play better on a lot of the holes.”

Said Guidry:  “I putted the ball really well, made some long par putts, ones I knew I needed toward the end.”

Today, Guidry will caddy for Greene, back at Huntington Park, in a qualifier for the state amateur. That has been planned for a couple of weeks.

Greene is believed to be the youngest golfer to capture the City Championship, either in stroke play or match play.

Greene will enroll at Airline High in the fall, while Guidry is bound for C.E. Byrd. They were 1-2 finishers Sunday in the junior division of the City Am’s stroke play, earning them automatic entry into the match play City Am late this summer.

Other flight results from this weekend’s City Championship:

Presidential Flight:  1, (tie) Chris Baker, Taylor Netherton; 3, Marc Hodge;

First Flight:  (Gross) 1,  John Mast; (Net) 1, Eli Hart;

Second Flight:  (Gross) 1, (tie) Adam Choate, Brayden Hermes; (Net) 1, (tie) Xiang Zhou, David Deramus.

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While home in Choudrant for the birth of his first child April 22, once things settled down Sam Burns got to polish his game, and returned to the PGA Tour very competitively last week.

Burns flirted with a top 10 finish at the Wells Fargo Championship last week in Charlotte, winding up 13^th at 2-under after climbing as high as fifth on the leaderboard. Today, he tees off at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville in his fifth PGA Championship.

The Shreveport native and Calvary Baptist graduate will start at 1:35 CDT alongside 2018 Masters champion Patrick Reed and three-time majors winner Padraig Harrington, the 2008 PGA champ.

In 2022, Burns finished 20th at the PGA Championship won by Justin Thomas at Southern Hills in Tulsa for the former LSU star’s best performance in a major to date. 

He hopes to become the third Shreveporter to win the PGA crown. Hal Sutton won the 1983 PGA in Los Angeles, and David Toms was the 2001 winner in Atlanta.

The 2023 USA Ryder Cupper stands 27^th in the Official World Golf Rankings and is 34^th in the FedEx Cup standings this season.

Burns has been up and down in 2024, with a torrid start followed by five less successful outings before his son, Bear, was delivered by wife Caroline, also a Shreveport native. After a restless first week with the baby, Burns said he was able to get clubs in hand for several days and the polish was apparent last week.

He had four top 10 finishes by the end of February at the American Express in La Quinta, AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, WM Phoenix Open, and Genesis Invitational.  He shot a closing 78 and dipped to a 30^th place finish at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, then followed a third-round 65 at The Players with a 76 and tied for 45^th. 

As the two-time defending champ at the Valspar, he missed the cut and also didn’t reach the weekend three weeks later at The Masters. The following week, he was 44^th at the RBC Heritage, then headed home to begin parenthood.

He has played 11 events and made nine cuts in 2024 while racking up S2.5 million in earnings this season, pushing him over the $24 million mark since he turned pro seven years ago.

Burns is also 27th in total strokes gained on tour with an average of 0.729 and 31st in putting strokes gained with an average of 0.398. Burns is scoring well this year as he is currently 22nd on tour in scoring average with an impressive tally of 69.59. Another notable statistic is his birdie average of 4.59 per round which is ranked fourth on tour. 

Burns’ last time in the winner’s circle was in 2023 at the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play event where he rolled over Cameron Young after dispatching Rory McIlroy in the semifinals.

On April 22, Lincoln Parish lost a man to death at age 88 who was a visionary in the truest sense. Fredric Lee Hoogland was the founder of one of the most popular attractions, not only for Lincoln Parish but for the surrounding area and regions far removed from the hills of north Louisiana. It was Hoogland who located and promoted and worked for the parish to purchase the area and that would become Lincoln Parish Park.

I had the privilege of visiting with Hoogland some 20 years ago after the park was up and running and attracting visitors from everywhere. I wrote a story about our visit that appeared in Lincoln Parish Park Notes newsletter and in honor of his memory, following are excerpts of that article.

“When I stepped up on a bluff that spring day in the late 1970s and saw what lay before me, I’m sure if somebody had heard me, they’d have thought I was an evangelist praising the Lord. I’ve never had an experience quite like that and I was overcome with emotion, realizing that my prayers had been answered. After walking thousands of acres around Ruston for the better part of three years, I realized that God had led me to the right spot and it was just about more than I could handle,” Hoogland recalled.

“That’s not all; the further I walked into the woods, the better it got. There was no doubt in my mind that here was the site that would ultimately become the park I’d dreamed about since high school.”

Once the property was located, there were hurdles that had to be crossed. First of all, the property, no matter how perfect it was as a park site, was privately owned and not for sale.

It took a lengthy period of negotiation and persuasion and, according to Hoogland, another Divine miracle or two, the owners finally agreed to sell. Hoogland was an elected member of the Lincoln Parish Police Jury and the jury formed a Parks, Recreation and Tourism Committee. The obvious choice to chair this committee was Fredric Hoogland.

The jury had the amount of money in the bank needed for the purchase, took a vote and five members voted for it; unfortunately seven voted against it. Not about to give up, Hoogland lobbied the seven no-voters and three weeks later, votes were cast again and the final count was seven for; five against. The property was purchased in February 1982.

After all the legal requirements were met, the park was opened on a limited basis in 1989 and for the seven years following the purchase, it took a plethora of planning and work to turn this rugged hunk of Lincoln Parish property into the jewel it is today.

You can just imagine what was involved into turning the rough piece of land into something visitors could utilize. Concession stand, restrooms, shelters, nature trails and bike trails all had to be planned and constructed. The park became fully operational in March 1990 and by 1995 was averaging approximately 70,000 visitors a year.

Current park director James Ramsaur saw the potential to adding to the park bike trails and today, Lincoln Parish Park is home to one of the most popular mountain bike trails in the United States with the most recent addition being a Flow Trail Hub.

The park is also home to a 3-D archery range, a lake for swimming and fishing and camping sites from tents to recreational RVs.

“Looking back now,” Hoogland told me, “I know that it was the Good Lord who made this place beautiful. We just massaged what He had already made.”

Contact Glynn at glynnharris37@gmail.com

Their hats kept getting dirtier.

With every practice and with every game, their little black hats with the orange oriole on the fronts got a little nastier, a little older, a little more broken in, a little more grown up.

First a film of dusty beige from the opener, the game against the team in the dark blue jerseys. Infield dirt from the game against the Maroon Team. More from the game against the Greens. And the best dirt of all, the dirt that came from playing the feared Red Team, the ’27 Yankees of the 7-and-8-year-olds Coach Pitch B League.

Some hats were wet from Icees and sweat. Some were sticky, too, but not from resin or pine tar: from candy.

They were great hats.

I had never coached people this little. They’d never played anything but T-ball. So there were awkward moments, like at the first practice.

“When you play catcher, you’ll be required to wear an athletic cup.”

Puzzled looks. I was the teacher and had just introduced long division.

“Ask your parents,” I said. A good coach knows how to delegate responsibility.

Second practice: No one wanted to play catcher.

That second practice was probably our most important one of the season. The reason: each guy made up his own nickname.

The Bruiser. The Heat. Rookie. Rocket. Hotball. Fastball. The Smacker. The Blur, later changed to The Flash because, well, ballplayers will just do that sometimes. It’s a “feel” thing. You don’t ask.

Other nicknames were more mysterious. Top Catch. Dragonman. Hammerhead. The Point. Their meanings were known only to God, to administrators at the highest level of the Little League organization, and to the boys who proudly wore the nicknames in white letters pressed on the sleeves of their orange jerseys.

Those jerseys. Some wore them game day or not, along with white baseball pants and cap. Every weekday morning since the season started, I felt I was dropping my son off at a Catholic baseball school.

There were moments. The classic run-it-in from right field instead of throw it. Orioles seeing who could throw his glove the highest — during a game. An outfielder lying down in the inviting right field grass while a batter, no enemy of his, dug in. The evening Hammerhead looked at me after I struck him out on a pitch three feet outside and said politely on his way back to the dugout, his bat on his fragile shoulder, his helmet swallowing his head, “That wasn’t a very good pitch, sir.” 

Heart sinkage.

Aside from the occasional whiff, we ended up being pretty good. And we seemed to have fun: We high-fived all the time and showed up looking sharp and practiced hard and played hard, and even though we weren’t supposed to keep score, I could see them over there in the dugout counting on their little fingers. We made some errors but we hit some homers, too, some frozen ropes, some shots. We ran the bases and we slide and we crossed home, and we never met a snack we didn’t like.

Dirty hats. The rhythmic smacking of gum around the diamond. Those swings from the heels, the swings of boys with big dreams.

And now it’s over. Just that quickly. We break for fishing and card-playing and a few public appearances, all the things ballplayers do in the long and lonely off-season.

We’ll gather again in the spring, and they’ll be fine boys, I’m sure, and it will be fun, but it won’t be the exact same group. It won’t be the exact same ’97 Orioles.

They gave me a spring to bronze and fold up and stick in my pocket and remember. And to them my hat, much older and (sad to say) much cleaner than theirs, is forever off.

(June 3, 1997)

Contact Teddy at teddy@latech.edu

“It was finally the weekend. Spring turkey season had arrived and all Neal Windley of Norfolk, Va., wanted to do was get to his farm, change into his camouflage and get into the woods. What he found when he arrived not only put a halt to his weekend of hunting, it also cost him thousands of dollars in repair and prevention.

“Windley’s hunting camp was demolished. Windows were broken, a television and other items were missing and the once clean and comfortable house had been turned into a disaster area. Sadly, that was not the first time this had happened. Vandals had trashed his camp two other times. Sweeping up glass and filling out police reports were not what he had in mind when he and a good friend originally bought the land in the early 1990s.”

The above report was part of a news release I received from the National Wild Turkey Federation. The report from the NWTF gives sobering evidence that all too often, hunters head for camp after a long hiatus to find just what Neal Windley found.

The first thing I did after reading the NWTF press release was call a fellow club member to see if he’s checked on our camp lately. He no doubt heard my sigh of relief when he reported he was there this past weekend, and everything was as we had left it.

The second thing I did was call the Lincoln Parish Sheriff’s office to talk with Steve Rogers who was investigator at the time to see if there have been incidences of hunting camp vandalism and/or theft recently.

“It happens here from time to time. It seems that things will be quiet and then we’ll get three or four reports in a week. It’s like a rash; it spreads when it breaks out,” said Rogers.

There are several things hunting camp owners can do during the off-season to keep criminals from trashing or stealing from your hunting camp, according to Rogers.

“First, if your camp has a locked gate, be sure to keep the gate locked. This won’t necessarily prevent theft but it makes it harder for thieves to cart off large items.

“Another important thing is don’t leave valuable items, such as 4-wheelers, guns, cookers, lanterns, etc. at the camp. Take them home for the off-season.

“I’d also suggest that you or somebody in your hunting club check on your camp regularly. Also, you might get a neighbor who lives near the camp and who you trust to keep an eye out for what may be going on when you’re not there. One of the problems we have,” Rogers noted, “is that we’ll get a report in the fall when hunters arrive at the camp and it may have been broken into in late spring. 

“Make an inventory of everything of value in your camp, just like you should be doing in your home. Write down serial numbers, description of each item, and where practical, put some identifying mark on the item in a concealed area so thieves won’t be as likely to find and remove it. I’d also suggest taking photos of valuable items to aid in identifying them should they be stolen,” said Rogers.

Some other suggestions offered by the NWTF is to make the local authorities aware that the camp will be unoccupied for a designated period of time. Another suggestion is to leave keys to your property’s gates with someone in authority to help them watch your place while you are away.    Make sure you have insurance and make sure it includes boats, ATVs or any item that may not be covered under a standard homeowner’s or renter’s policy.

Put identifying marks or recognizable numbers on tree stands and blinds. This can help law enforcement agents identify these items in the field if they are stolen. 

Follow these suggestions and you stand a better chance of finding your hunting camp this fall just as you left it — except of course for dirt-dobber nests and a mouse or two.

Contact Glynn at glynnharris37@gmail.com

Jockey Brian Hernandez Jr. was atop Mystic Dan at Churchill Downs, moving in the pack of thoroughbreds, aggressively watching, and with a plan.

The pair was on the inside on the second turn, just sitting there, going with the flow of things, waiting for a spot to open.

It did.

And Mystik Dan shot through it. 

He’s not overly anything for a thoroughbred except athletic and smart. And he’s plenty of those. 

Suddenly the crease was there and Hernandez and Mystik Dan poured themselves through it, and when they did, things went up a notch at the Shreveport home of Wayne and Kim Smith. 

That was only a few days ago — the first Saturday in May, a pretty big day in the horse racing world — and the feeling hasn’t left since the moment Kim and Wayne and two other couples, all close friends, saw with their own eyes and hearts that Mystik Dan, a sort of relative to them all, was going to make a legit run for the roses at the Kentucky Derby in Louisville. 

Which he did. A photo finish champion. Winner’s Circle. Garland of roses. 

Winner winner chicken dinner.

“We’re still on cloud nine at the Smith house,” Wayne said. 

“The Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sports” — and counting. Because Saturday, everything came up roses for Smith’s sister Sharilyn and her husband Brent, co-owners with a tiny group of partners of Mystik Dan, the Man and the Dan of the hour.

“Such a neat story,” said big brother Wayne. “(Sharilyn and Brent) own the mom; they bred her four years ago and now here we are, four years later, and they’ve got the winner of the 150^th Kentucky Derby. Incredible.

“When I think about Brent and Sharilyn, just how humble they are and how genuine they are … they’re givers and for this to happen for them, it just makes me so proud of them and happy for them. At the end of the day, it couldn’t have happened to a better group (of owners).”

Sharilyn is a Captain Shreve High and Louisiana Tech business graduate (1989), a former Tech College of Business Distinguished Alumna of the Year and a valued member of the Dean’s Advisory Board. Wayne graduated just a few years earlier, and if his name sounds familiar, it’s because he was the Tech Basketball program’s leader in assists for more than 30 years, a four-year starter at point guard on teams that went to a pair of NCAA Tournaments and an NIT.

Those old competitive juices were flowing Saturday when Mystik Dan headed down the stretch, stride for stride with Sierra Leone and Forever Young. It doesn’t matter that the next time Wayne Smith gets on a horse will be the first time: competition is competition.

“Lot of excitement,” he said. “I thought about when we won at Lamar (in 1984) to end their (homecourt) win streak (at 80 straight) and win the (Southland Conference) tournament, and then Reunion Arena (a loss in the Regional Semi-Finals in 1985). I guess for Mystik Dan, it’s like winning the national championship.

“You can only dream of something like this happening, and when it does, you’re grateful knowing it couldn’t have happened to a better team,” he said. “The Smith Family didn’t have a lot when we were growing up; I was born June 29, 1964, and Sharilyn was born June 28, 1968. She was my birthday present back then.”

And now, little sis has given him another present. One that he can’t open, but one that can’t ever be closed, either.

Contact Teddy at teddy@latech.edu

JOURNAL SPORTS

The Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Foundation, boosting efforts to generate funds to support the state’s sports museum in Natchitoches including technology upgrades at the 11-year-old facility, will participate in “Give for Good Day” to complement its fund-raising initiatives.

Under the auspices of the Community Foundation of North Louisiana (CFNL), today’s “Give for Good Day” is North Louisiana’s largest day of giving. Established in 2014 by the CFNL, “Give for Good” has raised over $19 million for non-profit entities in North Louisiana. The event empowers the entire Northwest Louisiana community to go the extra mile for causes while building awareness and support for those hard-working and worthwhile organizations. The 2023 “Give for Good Day” raised nearly $2.8 million for over 200 non-profits.

The Independence Bowl Foundation will be celebrating the day of giving at Flying Heart Brewing & Pub from 3-8 p.m. today. Flying Heart Cares is supporting two causes through Give for Good this year — the Independence Bowl Foundation and the Humane Society of NWLA.

The LSHOF Foundation is focused on enhancing the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame and Northwest Louisiana History Museum and “Give for Good Day” is the latest in a series of initiatives.

“Any opportunity to attract support for the foundation’s mission of enhancing the Hall of Fame museum which honors Louisiana’s great sports legacy is one which we will pursue. We are in an exciting new partnership with a nationally-acclaimed company developing a multi-phase plan which will significantly raise the ‘wow factor’ at the museum,” said LSHOF CEO Ronnie Rantz of plans to bolster the facility, which opened in the Natchitoches Historic District in June 2013.

Efforts to increase development for the LSHOF have included statewide fund-raising events, an inaugural membership drive and sponsorship support for the annual Sports Hall of Fame Induction Celebration, to be held June 20-22 in Natchitoches. The 2024 class of 12 inductees includes New Orleans Saints icon Drew Brees, WNBA and LSU basketball standout Seimone Agustus, MMA star Daniel Cormier along with other athletes and ambassadors whose extraordinary accomplishments have earned them Hall of Fame distinction.

LSHOF Foundation Director of Business Development and Public Relations Greg Burke is familiar with annual giving days, dating to his days as athletic director for Northwestern State.

“These special giving days often inspire current supporters to give just a little bit more in support of causes for which they are passionate,” said Burke, who added that LSHOF Foundation hoped to raise $10,000 in its first “Give for Good” initiative.

“Give for Good” donations to the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Foundation can be made by clicking on https://www.giveforgoodnla.org/organization/Louisiana-Sports-Hall-Of-Fame-Foundation online.

The Independence Bowl Foundation’s emphasis is on its own foundation and the Humane Society of NWLA.

Flying Heart will donate a percentage of sales to both causes. Flying Heart has also donated a percentage of sales from the past three Tuesdays to the Independence Bowl Foundation and will be presenting a check for the donations of the four Tuesdays to the Independence Bowl Foundation. Flying Heart is also providing teachers presenting a valid school ID with 10 percent off pizzas.

This year through Give for Good, the Independence Bowl Foundation is focusing on Extra Yard for Teachers, which provides donations to a variety of teachers’ projects each year. Over the past three years, the Independence Bowl has donated over $85,000 to local teachers and education through Extra Yard for Teachers. Every dollar donated by the Independence Bowl Foundation through Extra Yard for Teachers is matched by the College Football Playoff Foundation, doubling the Independence Bowl’s impact on local teachers.

In just about every sport, there are participants who set personal goals. For example, a baseball player aspires to hit .400; basketball players hope for a triple-double. For golfers, it’s a hole-in-one.

It is no different in the world of the hunter/angler. Bass fishermen look for a lunker weighing in double-digits while deer hunters long for a buck with a rack impressive enough to “make the book.” For turkey hunters, there’s the Grand Slam.

Although I would love to have a 10-pound bass on my wall and my name in the Boone and Crockett records for trophy bucks, this is not what makes my motor run. What lights my fire is to hear the thunderous gobble of a long-beard wild turkey gobbler on a spring morning.

The thought of completing a Grand Slam in turkey hunting was about as remote as me making a hole-in-one. That was before I had the chance to hunt turkeys in South Dakota.

To pull off a wild turkey Grand Slam, it is necessary to take one of each of the four sub-species of wild turkeys found in the U.S. These include Easterns, which inhabit much of the south, east and northeast; Rio Grande turkeys, residents of arid mesquite and cactus country of the southwest; Osceolas, which are residents only of the southern half of Florida, and Merriams of the mountains and plains of the mid-west.

To accomplish such a task, it would be necessary for a lot of things to fall into place, and there would be an abundance of traveling involved. Frankly, I just didn’t see that happening.

One spring afternoon as the sun slipped behind a hill in the Badlands of South Dakota, I completed my Grand Slam. First, a little history of what brought me to this point I never thought I’d reach.

My first turkey hunt was a half-hearted effort when a writer friend invited me to his home state of Alabama to hunt. On April 13, 1992, my guide, Skinny Hallmark, called in a gobbling longbeard off a hillside to my gun and in that moment, something happened that would forever change the way I look at spring mornings. It was love at first GOBBLE…BOOM, and I’ve chased these wary birds every spring since.

The Alabama gobbler was an Eastern sub-species and I gradually learned what turkey hunting was all about.

In 2000, I jumped at the opportunity to hunt another of the sub-species, the Rio Grande. While hunting with Al Brasuel and sons in south Texas, I downed my first Rio Grande.  The thought of a Grand Slam only teased the margins of my mind; I saw no way that I’d ever travel to south Florida or to the Great Plains to turkey hunt. That was before Keith Brasuell called me one day inviting me to ride with him to Naples, Florida for an Osceola hunt. Good fortune accompanied me when a mature Osceola gobbler strutted in front of my shotgun.

Like a bolt from the blue, it hit me. All of a sudden, I found myself only one bird away from a coveted Grand Slam. Could I do it? Could I figure out a way to head somewhere up north where Merriams live.

Soon after returning from Florida, I found a press release from the South Dakota Department of Game, Fish and Parks making a pitch for their great hunting and fishing opportunities. The release talked about the great trout fishing; super walleye angling; wonderful deer and elk hunting…and here is what caught my eye — an abundance of Merriams gobblers.

On a hunch, I called the South Dakota agency, got the go ahead and flew into Rapid City.

In addition to securing a Black Hills gobbler tag, I was one of the fortunate few who also snagged a Prairie tag. This would double my chances for a Merriams, and if things worked out right, I might even get two gobblers which, incidentally I did.

On the last minute of the last hour of the last day of my Prairie hunt, I bagged a big 21-pound Merriams.

There’s no 10-pound bass hanging on my wall nor is my name in the Boone and Crockett book but, by George, there’s a wild turkey Grand Slam hanging on my wall and I couldn’t be more proud.

Contact Glynn at glynnharris37@gmail.com

Go to a baseball park on any day you choose and you’re almost always going to see something you’ve never seen before.

Like Saturday in a Conference USA game in Ruston when the Sam Houston catcher had apparently tied the game at 5-5 after he hit a ball way, way over the fence in left with two out in the eighth inning and then — was credited with only a triple, and was called out, and saw the inning end …

… because he failed to touch home plate. 

A “homer” that would have tied the game ends as a triple with a mythical “ghost runner” forever stranded at third. Louisiana Tech held its 5-4 lead in the ninth to win.

The catcher is Walker Janek, by all accounts one of the best all-around dudes on the Sam Houston team and one of the best players in the college game. A junior, he’s expected to be one of the first catchers chosen in the big-league draft.

But he missed home, the only base with an extra side, five instead of four. The most critical of all your bases. 

Doesn’t matter that he just barely missed it, stepping over the plate to celebrate with a waiting teammate, missing the plate’s front edge by, as replays showed, the smallest of margins. 

Had he been wearing a size 13 instead of a 12-and-a-half, the game would have been tied.

Happens to the best of us. 

Such a rule almost seems to go against the spirit of things. He did, after all, hit it way, WAY out. BUT …

Rules is rules. Brings to mind a phrase so familiar that it’s part of the American lexicon: “You gotta touch all the bases” or “Touch ’em all” or “Let’s touch base on this later.”

If a guy forgets to do one thing, he “forgot to touch all the bases.” 

It’s the little things, especially so it seems in baseball.

If Glinda the Good Witch of the North had been there, and had this been Oz and not Ruston, maybe Janek could have tapped his cleats together three times and been given a do-over.

But such is sports. And life. Break a rule, break a heart.

Garrett Belding knows a thing or two about touching home. He played high school ball around Dallas, was a middle infielder for Eastfield College in Mesquite, then came to Tech to be an equipment manager and is now the program’s Director of Player Development, part of a Bulldog support staff second to none.

Why he came back to Tech? Home. Where his daddy grew up and where his granddaddy, Billy “Doc” Belding, served as Tech’s athletic trainer during football’s national championship days of the early 1970s. Lots of tears shed and smiles of precious memories shared last spring when Doc passed away.

Garrett Belding knows about home. He was a little boy in Ruston. Knew his way around campus and around the old Love Field and Aillet Stadium and the field house. 

For this stage of his career, he’s home where he knew he belonged. 

So it should have come as no surprise that Saturday as Janek rounded third, Belding, leaning on the dugout rail by Tech coach Lane Burroughs, was looking closely when Janek made a little hop over the plate and … 

“In that split second,” Belding said, “I’m thinking, ‘He didn’t touch home. For whatever reason, he didn’t touch it.’ And then I start losing my mind…”

And then Burroughs gets in on it and the players erupt and then the home fans start yelling and standing (as if EVERYONE saw it!, and imagine me typing a laughing face here) and Tech made the proper appeal and the home plate umpire, who pictures reveal was looking right at the plate as Janek crossed, signaled “Out.”

Replays proved him right. 

“I didn’t expect that, but I saw it,” Belding said, “and then it’s disbelief, and then you start to try to re-convince yourself you saw it, and then I decided that this is the hill I’d die on, because I was SURE he didn’t touch it.”

Within the next half minute, the Bulldogs were successfully appealing the play, and the ump’s fist was in the air. Tech still held the lead. They’d end the weekend series in first place in CUSA.

“I wasn’t really looking for it, and I wouldn’t say I was the only one who saw it, but I know this,” said Belding, a future coach as sure as sunrise. “However long I’m in the game, however long I’m a coach, I will never NOT watch a guy run the bases, and I’ll always make sure they step on home plate. Always.”

Tech’s designated hitter and ace reliever Ethan “Toolbox” Bates (he’s got ’em all, every baseball tool you need, plus he can fix your four-wheeler), got the save that afternoon after pitching a scoreless ninth and leads the college game with 14 this season, and he leads all active players in career saves with 24. 

But the unofficial save Saturday, a big one, went to Garrett Belding.

And Sunday afternoon, when Tech leftfielder Adarius Myers hit a three-run walk-off homer for a 12-9 win and the series sweep, you can guess which base his celebrating teammates gave him plenty of room to touch.

 Contact Teddy at teddy@latech.edu

JOURNAL SPORTS

Two products of local high schools were chosen Saturday on the final day of the NFL Draft, with Bossier’s Decamerion Richardson picked by the Los Angeles Raiders while Evangel product Myles Cole joined former Calvary coach Doug Pederson and the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Richardson (6-2, 188) is a Cullen native who played cornerback at Mississippi State and gave up his final year of eligibility to enter the draft. He clocked a 4.34 time in the 40-yard dash, third fastest by a corner at the NFL Combine in February, and has a 77 7/8 inch wingspan, large for a defensive back.

Cole (6-6, 278) has the largest wingspan of any player who was measured at the combine at 86 ¼ inches. A defensive lineman who moved out to the edge at Texas Tech, the Shreveport native passed on playing with the Red Raiders in the Radiance Technologies Independence Bowl in his hometown to focus on draft preparation.

Richardson played in 45 games with 26 starts at Mississippi State, recording 177 career tackles (106 solo), 10 pass breakups and a sack. In each of the last two seasons, he led all SEC cornerbacks in total tackles (85 in 2022, 79 last fall).

He also led all SEC corners and ranked third nationally with a top tackle grade of 90.3 according to Pro Football Focus.

Playing for coach Michael Concillio at Bossier, he was a three-star recruit and all-district first team at running back and cornerback as a senior. Richardson was a track star and was third in the state meet with 10.75 100 meter dash mark and also third in the 200 at 21.63, according to his Mississippi State bio. He had a best mark of 6-4 in the high jump.

Cole was one of Texas Tech’s best defenders last fall while starting 12 games and playing 570 snaps. He had 32 tackles (21 solo) including 6 ½ for lost yards and 3 ½ sacks, along with 3 quarterback hurries and a pass breakup.

Cole was honorable mention on the coaches’ All-Big 12 team, and played in both the East-West Shrine Bowl and the Reese’s Senior Bowl postseason all-star games. He ran a 4.67 40 at the combine.

Cole played his first three seasons at ULM, earning an undergraduate degree in kinesiology. He will join the Jacksonville squad coached by Pederson, whose first head coaching experience came at Calvary from 2005-08).

There are plenty of folks who include the outdoors as a part of their lives. They hunt; they fish; they hike but their nine-to-five jobs occupy the majority of their time.

For a handful of others, the outdoors is basically their life; they’re consumed with the woods and waters. That’s why this select group can’t wait to wake up every morning and go to their job in some form of making their living in outdoor industries. John Brown is just such a fellow.

For the 57-year-old Brown, it started some 30-odd years ago when he teamed up with fellow Ruston High School graduate Rex Moncrief to plan, film produce and star in an outdoor television show, “The Outdoor News,” which ran for a few years on area TV stations.

Wanting more exposure to the outdoors, Brown had become adept at handling video equipment and he began doing free-lance video works for such outdoors-related companies as Knight and Hale, Primos, Mossy Oak. His work caught the attention of the National Wild Turkey Federation (NWTF) and for near 30 years, Brown worked with that organization eventually becoming executive producer of their television and video work.

Aside from his involvement with the outdoors, Brown developed an interest in coaching youth baseball. While living in Edgefield, SC, headquarters of the NWTF, he coached youngsters and in 2019, his team of 12-year-olds won a national championship. Interestingly, the tourney was held in Ruston.

“I came to Ruston for the tournament and it was like a homecoming to me. I wanted to plant myself back here in north Louisiana where I was raised. I told my boss at the NWTF I wanted to take an early retirement so I could move back home,” said Brown. 

After retiring, Brown and his wife, a retired school teacher, live in the country outside W. Monroe. Has he retired from his outdoors ventures? That’s not in Brown’s DNA. He writes features for LA Sportsman magazine and has taken a consuming interest in 51 acres of land in Caldwell Parish his dad had purchased before he passed away last year. Brown is converting the property his dad left him to a mecca for wildlife.

“When I first walked over the property, it was so thick and overgrown you could hardly pick your way through it. There was no way you could think about finding a turkey track. For the past year and a half I have worked on the land, clearing brush and establishing food plots. Last week,” said Brown, “I called up two longbeard gobblers, a hen and six jakes at one time.

“I have rededicated myself to telling the conservation story that no matter if a piece of property is large or small, if you work on the habitat, wildlife will react and find it.”

Brown’s next project, which will reach fruition on April 30, is his book, “Gathering Light.’

“Before he passed away, my dad had encouraged me to write down what I had done in stories I could pass down as a legacy to my kids and grandchildren. I finally did it. The book tells about my growing up in Franklin Parish on the Tensas River as well as my outdoors-related work down through the years,” he said.

The hard cover book as well as in E-book form will be available starting April 30. Search for it on Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.

This book will appeal to not only outdoorsmen and women but with John Brown’s God given ability to tell a story, it’s a book anyone will enjoy reading.

Contact Glynn at glynnharris37@gmail.com

Baseball fans in north Louisiana whose dads and granddads were raised on the radio sounds of KMOX and St. Louis Cardinals baseball remember Whitey Herzog, who led the Cardinals to a World Series title (1982) and two other World Series appearances (1985 and 1987) in his 10 years as the team’s colorful manager. 

The prematurely white-haired Herzog passed away last week at 92, one of the last “characters” of the old-school game.

A tip of the ballcap to Whitey, the architect of one of the great nights of my otherwise feeble life. 

It was a July Tuesday in Busch Stadium in 1986, and the San Francisco Giants were in town and so was I, writing stories on some former Shreveport Captains who were now Giants. The Cards were defending world champions but were struggling through a .500 summer, a team built offensively on speed while the Giants were an offense built on power.

St. Louis would sweep the series but it’s that Tuesday game that was the one to remember. The Cards led 10-2 in the fourth. 

In the bottom of the fifth, they stole a base.

It’s sort of an unwritten rule that you don’t steal with a big lead. Roger Craig, the Giants manager, knew this and seemed to take it personally when San Francisco reliever Juan Berenguer (blast from the past, right?) came into the game and threw at the first hitter he saw; it was the only batter he faced.

This brought Herzog out of the Cardinals dugout to protest to the home plate umpire and, a scenario you don’t see often, Craig came out of the Giants dugout and joined the conversation. The last time you’ve seen both managers yelling at the home plate umpire at the same time is … when? Only time I’ve ever seen it. 

Neither manager, as it turned out, was yelling at the umpire. They were yelling at each other. Fairly quickly they were nose to nose. Fingers jabbing. Spit flying. Then the dugouts emptied, and it were as if Herzog and Craig were each a point on opposing spears, with each team forming an arrow behind their guy.

Heated down there on the Busch Stadium turf, sure, but beautiful from where I sat in the press box, listening to 23,000-plus yelling in favor of Whitey “The White Rat” Herzog.

You knew what the argument was about, and after the game, Herzog explained it to me and other writers, his sock feet on his desk in his office underneath the stadium, leaned back in his swivel chair, a can of beer in his left hand. (A former player, Herzog batted, threw, and drank lefty.)

“Does Roger think he invented the game?” Herzog was saying. “I told him if he promised not to hit any three-run homers, I’d promise we wouldn’t try to steal any more bases. We can’t score the same way he can.”

Some other names from that weekend: Chris Brown, Robby Thompson, Jeffrey Leonard, Chili Davis, Mike LaValliere, Willie McGee, Vince Coleman, Tom Herr, Terry Pendleton. Steve Carlton actually hit a three-run homer in the Monday night opener, the only runs his team scored in an 8-3 loss. Only time I ever saw him pitch live — or hit a home run live. Hit it good too; slapped it off one of those columns in right in old Busch.

Good times. 

But the most beautiful part of the whole thing was after the game and Herzog explaining, with a big smile, his side of the argument. His beltless baseball pants unbuttoned to allow that 56-inches-or-so of waist a little freedom. And him holding that can of beer. Of course, in Busch Stadium it was a Busch beer. A freebie. 

The funny part was it was a Busch Light.

Whitey, always looking for an edge.

Contact Teddy at teddy@latech.edu

Dennis “Skinny” Hallmark passed something along to me that was special. So special in fact that what I learned on that visit to Alabama with him in 1992 ignited a passion I had never felt before or since. He guided me on my first turkey hunt and when I drew a bead on a gobbler and he dropped, I was hooked just as solidly as if I had mainlined a narcotic.

For the next 20-something years, hunting wild turkeys in spring was my passion and not only did I finally learn how to do it on my own, I have had special opportunities to pass along my love for the sport to several other rookies like I was that day in Alabama.

Sarah Hebert was the first. On opening day of turkey season for youth several years later, I was asked to do for Sarah what Skinny had done for me. In other words, I was her guide for a hunt on what was then the Jackson-Bienville wildlife management area. I was privileged to call in a gobbler for this young teenager and saw in her eyes the same fire I experienced when my Alabama gobbler bit the dust.

Still later after having several successful turkey seasons under my belt, my Ruston friend, Jody Backus, asked if I would accompany him to his property to see if I could guide him to success with gobblers that inhabited his land. He was successful in downing a big one.

Each episode differs in the way it plays out. When I called the gobbler in for young Sarah Hebert, it came right off the roost to the decoy we had set out. The hunt ended quickly because soon after daylight, she was packing out her first longbeard. In Backus’ case, the weather was chilly and nasty and we were on the verge of giving up when at the last minute, a big longbeard decided to make Jody’s day.

On two other occasions, I shared my know-how with a couple of other hunters who took what they had experienced when I guided them to call in and take gobblers on their own. I wasn’t there when Carla Johnson and Ross Downer got their gobblers but their success was almost as gratifying as if I had been there.

Louisiana’s turkey season opened this past Saturday and I found out about another situation in which one hunter guided another hunter, a novice, to take their first longbeard.

My nephew, Dan Dupree, lives on Clear Lake in Natchitoches Parish with his wife, Debbie and two offspring, daughter Rachel who will graduate from college this summer as a nurse, and high school senior Johnathan, who has been successful in killing a gobbler or two.

“I had located some turkeys on our hunting lease and had gone out and scouted to sort of get them located. When opening day came, I had planned to take my dad and guide him but he wasn’t able to go,” said Johnathan. “Rachel asked me if I would take her so rather than going out to chase gobblers on my own, I agreed.”

Rachel had been successful on her deer stand having taken a nice 9 point buck this past deer season but had never tried turkey hunting. They got to the woods early and as it began to get daylight, the gobblers began waking up and long story short, Johnathon used his turkey calls to entice a big longbeard to Rachel’s gun. She dropped the 21-pound bird with a 10 ½ inch beard at 30 yards with one shot from her 20-gauge Remington.

Her reaction? “I’m hooked; I think Johnathon has created something in me that I’m going to love” she said.

That’s the way it is, one hunter helping another experience the thrill of something that means so much to the guide and ultimately to the novice hunter. In my case, my helping Sarah and Jody and Ross and Carla to getting their first gobblers was right up there in soul satisfaction equal to the day Skinny watched me jump up and down with excitement over my first.

That’s the magic turkey hunting induces.

Contact Glynn at glynnharris37@gmail.com

Didn’t recognize him behind the beard and the years so said my name and he looked up from his lunchtime burger and wiped his mouth and his handshake hand, smiled and said, “Dale Shields.” 

Good lord. Dale Shields. (Not the same person, but in the same ballpark.)

One day we were talking about how to pass Mr. Jones’ senior physics class at West Monroe High School or what to do the night of our Class of 1977 graduation, and the next time we talked it was about Medicare and grandchildren in a grill on an overcast Monday.

“So, what have YOU been up to for the past 45 years?”

Some people you dodge or they dodge you by design or by destiny.

And some people you want to see but you just don’t because life happens that way.

We don’t always get to decide. 

But life’s a funny dog, so it drops dessert on your plate now and then and serves up an old friend who, if you’re lucky, is either Dale Shields or something close.

He’d driven over from his home in West Monroe for some early morning turkey hunting around Downsville. Still had on his high-water rubber boots. Quietly eating. Available but not obvious. Which has always been 100 percent The Dale Shields Way.

Absolutely one of the best we’ve got in your whole Human Race Department. 

Been since the 1987 class reunion since I’d seen him, so he caught me up on the most recent one, just a few years ago. Some classmates had died since the 2017 reunion “so we decided we weren’t going to wait for the 50^th one,” he said, and told me about the one just a couple years ago, who was there and all.

Dale Shields. In high school, you could have asked anyone and they’d have trusted Dale with anything from a secret to your wallet or purse. Offensive tackle. FCA. Baseball. Y-Teen Beau. National Honor Society. The “A” in America. 

Every single time I’ve thought of him over the past near-half century I’ve thought, for at least a nano-second, of the one-bathroom house he grew up in. One of six boys and two girls fathered by Mr. Hugh, who captained the morning bathroom and somehow got all those kids grown and off to school every day of the world. Funny what you remember. Some mornings before first period: “Hey Dale, how’d it go with the bathroom thing this morning?” Daybreak after daybreak must have instilled in him the patience of Job, an outlook optimistic, a colon of iron. Each morning an adventure. 

Major tip of the ballcap to his whole wonderful family.

We talked of his recent retirement after 40 years of work with a local company, and he told me about signing up for Medicare; he’s had his Official Card for two weeks now. When 65 knocks, you and the guys talk not so much about turkey hunting and ball scores as you do about how to successfully sign up for Medicare, which to me seems about as difficult as carving Thomas Jefferson’s face into the side of Mount Rushmore. 

I’m about to find out for my ownself, being just a few months younger than Dale…Time is the great mystery. 

We traded phone numbers and grandchildren stories. We have one. He has No. 12 on the way, and the parents have decided not to find out the flavor yet since they already have one of each. I told him “Teddy” would work for a boy or girl; he smiled and promised to pass that along.

Dale Shields. Day made. 

About an hour later I missed a call from him. Made my heart feel good to see his name on my phone. Probably going to say it was good to see me, talk again soon, that kind of deal. I called him back quickly as I could.

In his humble and sincere Dale Shields voice — I could see him smiling — he said, “Butt dial. Sorry. The ol’ butt dial.”

How old are we, right?

Contact Teddy at teddy@latech.edu

(NOTE: O.J. Simpson’s death, from a cancer battle at age 76, was announced Thursday by his family. His mother grew up in Caddo Parish and Simpson visited the Shreveport area often since he was acquitted of double murder charges in the 1994 slayings of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman in Los Angeles. In August 2022, Shreveport-Bossier Journal writer Harriet Prothro Penrod met him and recounted their conversation for the Journal.)

By HARRIET PROTHRO PENROD, Journal Sports

I don’t know what it was that made me drive the golf cart across the fairway and introduce myself. Curiosity, I imagine. It’s not like I put a lot of thought into it. In fact, I had no idea what I was going to say when I got to his golf cart.

There I was, in the middle of the 17^th fairway at Huntington Park golf course, introducing myself. “Hi. I’m Harriet Prothro Penrod. I’m with the Shreveport-Bossier Journal, and I was wondering if I could do a short Q&A with you after your round.”

He looked me right in the eyes, held out his hand, smiled, and said, “Are you related to (College Football Hall of Fame coach) Tommy Prothro?”

“No,” I said, “but it is spelled the same way.”

He said sure, he’d be happy to sit down and visit after the round. “Well, okay,” I replied. “I’ll meet you in the clubhouse.”

It was on this same course two years ago – playing in the Ebony Golf Tournament – that I saw O.J. Simpson. Actually, I heard him first and recognized that voice. There was no doubt about the identity of the large man bending over to find his golf ball in the high grass on the other side of the 15^th green.

He hung around the clubhouse after the tournament, but I had no desire to go up and talk to him. Perhaps now – two years later — that I was writing for the SBJ (which didn’t exist then), I felt the journalistic urge to interview the (in)famous individual. Maybe people would be interested to know what he was doing in Shreveport.

Think what you may about him.

Growing up, my favorite sport was football. I spent endless days in the front yard – in pads and helmet – playing with my cousin, younger brother, and any of the boys from the neighborhood who wanted to play. When my cousin, who was “all-time QB,” wasn’t playing, that meant I got to be quarterback. When Jeff was there, I’d play wide receiver.

More than once, there would be a knock on our front door and my mom would answer to hear a young boy say, “Can Harriet come out and play quarterback?”

Believe me, that’s not what my mom wanted to hear. But I digress.

I say all that to say this: I loved football – playing it and watching it. And I grew up watching O.J. Simpson play football – at USC and for the Buffalo Bills, where his quarterback was Shreveport’s own Joe Ferguson.

Maybe that’s what made me want to talk to him. Whatever the reason, last Sunday I cut my own round short and waited in the clubhouse at Huntington, wondering if he was actually going to come in and sit down to talk.

If he did, what would I ask him? I hadn’t prepared a “Q&A” or anything else to ask him. I’d just wing it – bring up some topics and see what he had to say.

And in he walked . . .

And so I said . . .

“I saw you at the Ebony tournament here a couple of years ago. How often do you get to Shreveport?”

 Every two to three years, I come for a family reunion. We’re having our reunion this weekend. We own property in Greenwood – it was deeded down to our family. My kids didn’t make it this year. My two younger kids both have kids under one (year old).

“How are you spending your time these days?”

Between golf and fantasy football, I stay pretty busy. Golf has kept me sane through the years. It gets me up, keeps me moving. I just turned 75. I’ll usually play Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday (in Las Vegas). Sometimes people in town want to play, so I’ll play more. We’ve got a golf group in Vegas called “In the Cup.” There are about 12-13 guys from the Shreveport area who come play. Eventually, we’re all going to come down here and have a tournament – maybe at Squire Creek (outside of Ruston in Choudrant).

“What do you do when you’re not playing golf?”

I’m on Twitter. I’ve had over 900,000 followers. I try to stay out of politics, but that’s almost impossible. I try to keep it in sports and history.

“Who do you think are the best running backs in the NFL today?”

King (Derrick) Henry (Tennessee Titans) and Jonathan Taylor (Indianapolis Colts). And Saquon Barkley (New York Giants) is definitely in the top 5 – he just can’t stay healthy.

O.J. talked some more about football – how he and (Pro Football Hall of Famer) Eric Dickerson would be attending, and had a bet on, this year’s opening NFL game between the Buffalo Bills and Los Angeles Rams. He talked some more about politics – how he thought either California Governor Gavin Newsom or Florida Governor Ron DeSantis would be the next President of the United States.

Before leaving, I told O.J. I had one last question: “So, generally, how do people treat you out in public?”

Generally, very well. Rarely do people say something out-of-line.

It was then that a gentleman walked across the clubhouse and asked O.J. if he could have his picture taken with him. You see, as a 10-year-old, he had watched Simpson play in Buffalo and had even gotten O.J.’s autograph after the game.

A football fan . . . like me.

Contact Harriet at sbjharriet@gmail.com

Craig Nall, the Alexandria native and former LSU quarterback who set regular-season records for passing yardage (2,022) and completions (166) in his only season at Northwestern State in 2001, is trying to recover from heart-piercing blows two years ago that involved three deaths in his family within 15 days.

The 44-year-old Nall, who backed up Brett Favre for five NFL seasons with the Green Bay Packers, is also trying to recover from a divorce.

And Nall, who several years ago started QB1 Sports, a successful venture offering one-on-one coaching from a former NFL quarterback, is also trying to recover from alcoholism.

He’s making progress on all fronts.

Craig’s father, Malcolm, died of a heart attack two years ago, and within 15 days, an uncle and a sister-in-law died. “That was pretty tough for the family,” Craig understated. “My dad was my best friend, my biggest fan.”

About three times a year he leaves his home in McKinney, Texas, to visit his mom, Susie, in Alexandria. He visits often on the phone with her and describes her as “a strong woman of faith,” adding, “and we’re kind of getting through things together.”

Divorce reared its ugly head in Craig’s life after 17 ½ years of marriage in October of 2022. “Amanda and I didn’t give our two sons a great example of what love is,” he said, trying to explain they grew apart through financial difficulties. Neither was making much money in their respective jobs at the time – when he was in commercial real estate and brokerage — and his alcoholism was part of the problem, he said. “We didn’t get along. There was no infidelity, but we argued a lot.”

Now, he says, he has a girlfriend, Jessica, whom he met on St. Patrick’s Day last year. “We get along so well, we have fun doing anything together. Within 10 minutes of meeting her, he said, she persuaded him to go with her and get a tattoo, admitting it sounds crazy. “I couldn’t tell her no.” He said he got the Taurus sign above his right shoulder since he and both of his teenage sons, Matthew, a saxophone wizard, and Mason, a good athlete, all were born under that astrological sign. Mason, incidentally, who’ll turn 14 in two weeks, shares the same April 21 birthday with Craig.

Jessica, he said, has a serious side, too, and “has certain expectations of me, and I don’t want to screw this up.” They are not engaged, although they have talked about it. “I know Dad would love Jessica.”

As for the alcoholism, Craig said, he’s dealt with it in varying degrees since college but more so during his time in the NFL, “where we worked hard but we partied hard, too.” He said while most people who drink can quit after a couple, he found he always wanted more. It peaked last July, around the same time he had a serious bout with Covid, when his blood pressure soared to a dangerous 200 over 130.

“One night I left the house to go to the store to get something to drink,” he said in a phone interview this week. “I had this routine where I’d do that and cruise around, usually in the neighborhood. I ended up on a highway and out of gas. I had no idea how I got there. I went into a treatment center in the first week of August.

“I made a phone call to a friend, who has over five years of sobriety,” Craig continued. “I wanted to get help. He got me booked to a treatment center.”

The treatment center’s program focused largely on faith, he said, and he said he found help from prayer. “I let Him take the wheel. I let Him guide me. I pray all the time. I’m trying to be obedient to Him, to be of service to Him.”

He said he learned alcoholism is not a behavioral thing but a disease. “Some people like me have allergic reactions to alcohol, where it’s an addictive problem. You’ve got to want to quit. I needed help. I wanted to set a better example for the boys. Probably within two months, (the urge to drink) was gone.”

He credits God for being 8 ½ months sober and gives Him thanks daily.

Craig’s coming back to Natchitoches next weekend to attend the Demons’ spring football game, the Joe Delaney Bowl, on April 20, supporting his former LSU teammate, new NSU head coach Blaine McCorkle. When the Northwestern job opened last fall, McCorkle called Nall for insight and a few months later, the former Tigers’ deep snapper under Gerry DiNardo is generating excitement in the Demon camp.

Nall is now finding satisfaction in a new job as a registered representative in the oil and gas business with the SEC in 28 states, but he still attends AA meetings, and finds himself counselling others in his group who are struggling with not only addiction but with faith.

“There’s a joy of knowing God is in control,” he said. “I’m trying to live out His will.”

The inspiration for this column was from a recent “Next on the Tee” podcast in which Nall was the guest of Chris Mascaro of Atlanta. It is available on open.spotify.com.  

There is no way I could ever forget my introduction to hunting wild turkeys. I had actually tagged along years ago behind Blue Parkman, a veteran turkey hunter from Ruston who had several years of chasing gobblers under his belt. Back then, turkeys were scarce only being found in isolated areas such as the Jackson-Bienville wildlife management area where I followed Parkman. The hunt ended without success although I got to hear a turkey gobble for the first time.

It was years later, 1994, that my addiction to turkey hunting began when I accepted the invitation to hunt turkeys in Alabama. I was reluctant at first because I had never turkey hunted and the date of the invitation coincided with bream bedding season here at home. I rather reluctantly accepted the invitation, shot my very first gobbler and I was instantly hooked. Some 20 years later before age and infirmities halted my ability to chase gobblers, I was able to bring down 41 gobblers from around the country, collecting my coveted Grand Slam in the process.

I would love to still be able to hurry across the woods to be sitting within 100 yards of a roosted gobbler before it flew down. Since I can’t, I enjoy talking about them, writing about them and supporting them by my membership in our local chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation.

Now that turkey season is kicking off – opening day in Area A this year is April 6 – I visited with the state’s top wild turkey expert, Cody Cedatol, to get his thoughts on what the turkey situation looks like this year in Louisiana. For the past several years, things have not been quite so rosy as they have been in earlier times.

“Based on all we have been able to tell,” Cedatol began, “things are looking better than they have over the last decade or so. We have had a good hatch two years in a row and we have determined that the gobbler harvest was up again last year so we’re excited about that.”

My next question had to do with the reason or reasons that things are looking better for our state’s turkey population.

“There are at least a couple of reasons,” said Cedatol. “A few years ago, we delayed the opening of turkey season to give gobblers and hens a bit longer to get together and breed and this has resulted in better hatches of young turkeys. Another reason is an environmental one. For the past couple of years, we have had better weather during the nesting and brooding season. Turkeys need a relatively dry period from April to June and that’s what we’ve had and turkeys have responded.”

Cedatol noted that there were reports of a good population of juvenile males (jakes) last year which means those that carried over will be adult gobblers this season.

I wondered what plans if any were on the drawing board going forward from this year as regards management of wild turkeys.

“We have a proposal before the Wildlife and Fisheries Commission that would prohibit the harvest of jakes except by youth hunters. Lots of hunters have expressed a desire for us to do this and in fact, many private hunting clubs already prohibit the taking of jakes. It’s not a done deal as the proposal is out for public comments and Commission won’t be acting on it until their April meeting,” he said.

Public hearings will take place around the state prior to the meeting giving hunters the opportunity to express opinions as to whether or not the prohibition of taking jakes will become law. Have an opinion? Let the Commission know what you think.

Contact Glynn at glynnharris37@gmail.com

I am the shell of a man.

That’s because my insides are mostly eggs.

And that goes for you and you. And you too.

Break us and we bleed yellow. 

You don’t think so? I beg to differ. Hang with me and I’ll prove that not since Dean Martin has something been so versatile, so good, and yet, despite a fair amount of fame, still so underappreciated.

Seriously, did somebody say something about an egg? If you did, I’m listening. Eggs get my attention. Were it not for eggs, the world would be a much less happy, less tasteful and less interesting place. What kind of question is “Which came first, the chicken or the … other chicken?” 

See? You almost GOTTA have eggs!

It’s been nearly 50 years — 1977 to be eggsact — since the Egg People, that wonderful group of egg enthusiasts who tout this white-shelled miracle of nature, originated “The Incredible Edible Egg” jingle. One of the greats. Its gleeful message is the same now as then: Eggs Rock!

Think of how deeply this tiny food has embedded itself into our culture. There are eggs in cakes, in pie crusts, in brownies, in egg salad and in breads. Eggs help to hold the crust onto its first cousin, the chicken. (Maybe instead of “first cousin” it should be “mother once removed.”) 

Eggs are in cookies and creams, in fried rice, and in demand. That’s why the United States production of 75 billion eggs a year is an impressive yet big-picture moderate 10 percent of the world’s supply.

We are an egg society.

Think of this food’s adaptability, if you will. It can be boiled and poached and scrambled and fried. And that’s just at breakfast! What a wonderful thing to wake up to.

It can be served sunny side up, over easy, yellow hard, yellow runny. Omelet, you say? Fine!

It can even be split into either yellow or white. How many everyday foods offer you TWO colors in such a small package? The egg is the fruit of the barnyard.

I could rest my case. But I won’t. Because not only is the egg versatile, it’s good for you. You’ve got 13 essential nutrients in a single egg, the egg publicists tell me, which might be a lie but hey, I’m buying it!, because they know I can’t tell a nutrient from a nutria. But I did grow up around chicken snakes, and not once did I see a sick one.

A large egg contains just 70 calories and has six grams of protein. My sources tell me that this is another “plus” in the “healthy food” column. In other words, an egg as a food is a “good egg.”

See? The word even lends itself to playfulness. You can be a good egg or a bad egg. Some people are egg heads. Some have egg on their face. Or a goose egg on their forehead. Some people put all their eggs in one basket, walk on egg shells, lay an egg, egg others on or protect their nest egg.

“Last one in’s a rotten egg!”

It’s a beautiful word, a beautiful food, and you’ll likely enjoy one today, even if it’s disguised in another food. Which is another reason to love the egg: it’s a simple food of delightful complexity. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Mystery is the egg’s “coop” de gras.

Contact Teddy at teddy@latech.edu

JOURNAL SPORTS

There are 450 members of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., founded in 1959. Thirteen more will be enshrined Aug. 16-17.

Two of the newbies will be Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame members. Seimone Augustus, the Baton Rouge native and LSU great entering the LSHOF during the Class of 2024 Induction Celebration June 20-22, is joined by Alexandria’s Charles Smith, boys basketball coach at Peabody Magnet for 40 years and a 2019 LSHOF inductee.

Smith’s Peabody teams frequently play in early-season games against local teams and in some locally-hosted tournaments.

Only eight Louisiana natives – Ruston and Louisiana Tech’s Leon Barmore, Natchitoches native and Shreveport-born Joe Dumars, Rayville’s Elvin Hayes,  Summerfield and Tech’s Karl Malone, Tickfaw native and Lady Techster Kim Mulkey (enshrined in Springfield as a coach), Shreveport native and Centenary grad Robert Parish, Bob Pettit of Baton Rouge and LSU, and Grambling’s Willis Reed – have previously been enshrined in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.  All are in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame.

Three more LSU luminaries who are not Louisiana natives, but are LSHOF inductees, Sue Gunter, Pete Maravich and Shaquille O’Neal, are also in the Naismith Basketball Hall. So is Pineland, Texas native and Lady Techster great Teresa Weatherspoon.

Having two Bayou State greats inducted in the same year has happened once before. Barmore and Parish were inducted in the Springfield Hall together in the Class of 2003.

Already this year, along with her upcoming LSHOF induction, Augustus will be enshrined April 27 in the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in Knoxville, Tenn., and tonight, in the new East Baton Rouge Parish School System Hall of Fame alongside Pettit and other LSHOF members Eddie Robinson, Billy Cannon, Doug Williams and Danielle Scott.

The Basketball Hall enshrinement is unquestionably the ultimate recognition.

Also among the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame 2024 Class:  Vince Carter, Chauncey Billups, retired Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan, and as contributors, Doug Collins, Herb Simon and Jerry West.

Scanning the list of previous Basketball Hall inductees are superstars like Charles Barkley, Kobe Bryant, Bill Russell, Julius Erving, Michael Jordan, Bob Cousy, Rebecca Lobo, Nancy Lieberman, Lisa Leslie, and Teresa Edwards – not to mention the game’s greatest coaches from all levels, like Red Auerbach, Pat Summitt, Tara Van Derveer, Pat Riley, Lenny Wilkins, Adolph Rupp and John Wooden.

The inductees are chosen after a multi-tiered process that culminates with finalists being considered by a 24-person Honors Committee, with at least 18 affirmative votes required for induction.

As women’s basketball has soared into mainstream sports conversation in the last couple of years, Augustus was especially gratified at her first-ballot selection announced Saturday at the men’s NCAA Final Four in Phoenix.

“It means so much, to be a trailblazer of the game to get it where it is now – the elevation of it, the visibility of it. And also, for the people I went on this journey with – it’s been a long, hard journey, but very gratifying journey now that it’s been stamped with the Hall of Fame foundation and going into the Hall in 2024,” she said. “It’s been an amazing journey and career that ended with a cherry on top.”

She played point guard/forward while starring at high school, college and professional levels and was part of three gold medal-winning Olympic teams and four WNBA title teams. Augustus was on the national scene not long after becoming a teenager, appearing on the cover of Sports Illustrated for Women as a high school freshman.

LSU unveiled a statue in her honor in January 2023 for her magnificent four seasons with the Tigers as she won back-to-back national Player of the Year honors and helped  her team to three Final Fours. Augustus led Baton Rouge’s Capitol High to a 138-7 record and Class 4A titles in 2001 and 2002 and a finals berth in 1999 as she scored 3,600 points, had 1,728 rebounds and 869 assists.

She was a member of the U.S. Olympic gold medal-winning teams in 2008, 2012 and 2016.

Smith’s credentials are unquestionably among the best ever among high school coaches. He has 1,208 career wins, fifth in national high school history, and his teams have won nine state championships – the latest just last month in an overtime victory over Madison Prep at the Marsh Madness LHSAA Final Four in Lake Charles. He has won 85 percent of the games he’s coached, losing only 214.

He was ESPN’s National High School Coach of the Year in 2010, when his Warhorses went 41-0. He was a head coach in the 2021 McDonald’s High School All-Star Game. He came to Peabody in 1974 as a math teacher – and remains in that role. He was an assistant coach, helping the Warhorses win the first state title in school history, before taking over the head coaching role in 1984.

Saturday, in Phoenix, his thoughts raced back home.

“It’s a thrill to be here, to represent my school, Peabody High School. I’ve been there for 50 years, teaching and coaching. I’ve had some wonderful guys to play basketball for me. This is an honor not only for me, but for all high school basketball coaches,” he said.