August 24, 2017
THE ENSHRINEMENT
The Denham Springs High School Athletic Hall of Fame and title sponsor Sport-N-Center are pleased to announce the Hall of Fame classes of 2016 and 2017 will be enshrined on August 31 at Forrest Grove Plantation in Denham Springs. The Great Flood of 2016 prevented the induction banquet for the Class of 2016 that had been scheduled for last September.
This year’s banquet will serve as the joint induction ceremony for both classes, plus one member of the Class of 2015 who has not yet been inducted. Tickets for the popular affair are on sale at the school office through August 29 on a first-come, first-serve basis. With such a large slate of inductees–13 in all—school officials expect a sell-out crowd, so the public is encouraged to purchase tickets early. The cost of the catered-dinner event is $50 per person. Advance ticket purchase is required.
Please see press release, furnished to us by Jim Spring, at the end of this newsletter
JACKETS ON THE RADIO
Denham Springs HS Football Radio Broadcasts will air on Family Radio-91.9 FM-Baton Rouge, starting at 6:00 pm Friday nights with Sport-n-Center Jackets Warmup. All broadcasts can also be heard on the Internet at JonFineProductions.com (click Listen Live on the Denham Springs Football PBP page). The first broadcast is Friday, September 1, as the Jackets play host to Hammond High School. In next week’s newsletter, we’ll afford you a comprehensive look at this year’s broadcasts
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THE WIZARDRY OF OS
Assistant Basketball Coach and Head Swimming Coach at Central High
Who Dat! The Saints won a preseason game. I know that sounds pathetic, but you should be able to win a preseason game more than once every three years even if you don’t play to win. The other teams aren’t playing to win either.
The highlight for me, by far, was AJ Klein. I have been sick to my stomach the last few years watching Tampa and Carolina linebackers diagnose plays before the ball is snapped. I watch them play off blocks or get to the hole before the blocker gets there, and make the tackle. Don’t get me started on the difference between their linebackers and our linebackers reading a screen pass.
Meanwhile, I have watched Saints linebackers sit back 3 yards behind the line of scrimmage and either overrun the play or get blocked. Well those days might be gone. Teo looks good, but Klein looks like a Carolina linebacker and that is about as big of a compliment as I can give.
I know many people are excited about the number of sacks. I would caution you from getting too excited on that end. We still need to take a wait and see approach. Many of those sacks are a result of blitzes against backup quarterbacks or lineman. I am still waiting for to see lineman beat a block one on one. Kikaha has shown flashes, but just flashes. The Saints also still need more consistent push in the face of quarterbacks.
On the other side, Ramczyk showed some ability in his debut at left tackle. Not surprisingly, after playing at Wisconsin (not much work in pass protection there), he gave up some pressures. I am not worried for two reasons. First, it was his first NFL game action. He will improve. Second, the rest of the offensive line is good enough to where Payton can game plan around most issues at one spot on the line. We have seen it happen before.
I am still waiting to see Bell, Vaccaro, the rookie Williams, or any of the safeties do something to make me stand up and notice them. Those are 2 second round and 1 first round pick in the last 4 years. I feel the same way about them as I used to feel about the linebackers. Diagnose a play quickly and then go make a play like the quality safeties in the league that were drafted in the first and second rounds.
Of course, the number one defense has received a lot of attention for their improvement. If the defense can go from one of the worst to just above average, then the Saints can have a great year.
One aspect that should be receiving more attention is special teams. We know the Saints lost at least two games last year because they couldn’t a kick past the line of scrimmage at one point. Over the last few years, a consistent place kicker has been an issue, there has been no yards to speak of in the return game, and at the poor coverage at the worst moments.
With guys like Nate Stupar, Chris Banjo, and a few others covering kicks, the Saints could be improved. Kamara may help the return game, but I wouldn’t put my money on it. Lutz may finally be the guy to end the revolving door at kicker.
There is still work to be done, but at least we can make some conclusions based off of our eyes. LSU practice is now open to the media for a few minutes, but that doesn’t tell us anything other than who was able to practice and who was injured. I have seen and heard enough though to where I will be ready to make some predictions next week.
HEY REF
This week’s column will be shorter than usual because, well? Seems some of the things I wrote about last week just didn’t sit too well with some people. It was the strangest thing in that the officials I talked to agreed on the not so positive words aimed at the coaches. And of course on the other hand a couple coaches also agreed on the not so polite things written about officials. Now how can that be?
Once again I was told coaches have no right being involved in the weekly official’s meetings. I knew that the same thing and opinion resonates with the coaches, they don’t need officials thoughts on anything. That’s not the exact words used but I’m not allowed by my editor to do that so let’s just agree the two sides agree that neither side should be involved with each other. Both sides told me there is a line that neither needs to cross.
But since I’ll have the last word here it’ll be this; coaches you don’t need to keep things bottled up all week just to release your frustrations Friday night on the officials. Officials; you don’t and shouldn’t put up this wall between your members and those coaches that are under emended pressure to win. I feel that as high school football is concerned every side needs to open up and talk things out so that all sides are better prepared on game day.
Each side needs to ask themselves a simple question then answer the question truthfully “Do both sides lose when communication breaks down or is completely absent from Aug. to December each year”. And there can be only one answer “Hell Yes”! So, for this week let’s just present the idea where coaches and officials sit down in the summer and go over what each side felt was the correct calls and those that weren’t. It can only help because I mean just how much lower can the atmosphere get between officials and coaches on Friday night.
I will end this shortened column by answering one question; Yes, without a doubt it’s a very long stretch of the imagination to think that the LHSAA is putting their best officials to work when playoff time rolls around and the championships. I’d love to hear from them so they can educate me on the process they use to grade their officials then reward them with playoff assignments. In just the last couple years the LHSAA hired an assignment secretary to one job, assign officials to games. He was a friend of mine and I knew him when he first joined our association. But I questioned the LHSAA putting into a position where he was in effect flying blind.
The LHSAA jump hoops to hire him simply because he was an SEC official. I asked him one day how he’d balance his SEC commitment and also go out to JV and varsity games in order to grade his officials. He couldn’t get out to watch his association and with so many of the members being those that he’d never met or worked with how could he in good conscious grade the very officials he was being paid by the LHSAA to provide for the games in the Baton Rouge association. Yeah, I know I should’ve just kept quiet and enjoyed working all the important big games in Baton Rouge but my loyalty resides with the association and not me. The following year I’d been made aware that he was very upset with me and the quote that got back was “Jose’ is like a fly in my soup”, which was explained to me that he felt I was undermining him and he felt I was trying to run the association.
Well, I packed my bags and have not returned to the field. I was toying with the idea of giving it another try this year but as hard as I tried there just wasn’t that “fire” or love for the job anymore. So, that’s how I’ll say Goodnight”…
Till next week…
Press Release
by
Jim Spring
The Denham Springs High School Athletic Hall of Fame and title sponsor Sport-N-Center are pleased to announce the Hall of Fame classes of 2016 and 2017 will be enshrined on August 31 at Forrest Grove Plantation in Denham Springs. The Great Flood of 2016 prevented the induction banquet for the Class of 2016 that had been scheduled for last September.
This year’s banquet will serve as the joint induction ceremony for both classes, plus one member of the Class of 2015 who has not yet been inducted. Tickets for the popular affair are on sale at the school office through August 29 on a first-come, first-serve basis. With such a large slate of inductees–13 in all—school officials expect a sell-out crowd, so the public is encouraged to purchase tickets early. The cost of the catered-dinner event is $50 per person. Advance ticket purchase is required.
Headlining the evening will be the most celebrated athlete in school history, two-time prep All-American and LSU basketball star Tasmin Mitchell, who will be the last member of the Class of 2015 to be enshrined. Since his international hoops career has come to a close after six seasons in the United States, France, Russia, and Israel, Mitchell has returned to his basketball roots at LSU where new Tiger head coach Will Wade recently named him assistant coach and Director of Student-Athlete Development.
The most heralded member of the Class of 2016 is legendary softball coach Laurin Byars Garrison who holds the distinction as the only DSHS mentor in any sport to have been directly involved in winning four state championships, while helping secure four state runner-up finishes as well. Thus far the Yellow Jacket softball program has experienced two golden eras, and Byars was pivotal in both.
Jeff Harris, a celebrated baseball and basketball star at DSHS, joins his dad Cecil Harris (Class of 2011) as the first father-son pair to enter the Hall of Fame. A former Mr. DSHS in 1993, the younger Harris was a Class 5A All State baseball pitcher who went on to participate in three College World Series, helping LSU win two national titles.
Other “bloodline members” of the Hall of Fame are the father-daughter duo of George Meadors and Sarah Meadors Mestepey, a pair of sisters in Nikki Dixon Leader and Sammy Dixon Hannaman, and cousins Kelvin Robinson and Drexel Robinson. Rogers Pope and Randy Pope, members of the Class of 2017, will be the first brothers to enter the Hall of Fame.
A rare two-sport All State athlete in basketball and track, in 1946 the late Bert Barnett became the first Yellow Jacket to receive a full athletic scholarship in two sports to LSU. At DSHS he participated in the State Track Meet where he was State Champion in the 220-yard dash, running in tennis shoes against sprinters from more elite schools. After a year at LSU, Barnett transferred to SLC (SLU) where he twice led the Lions to the NAIB (NAIA) national basketball tournament, while in track he became the Gulf States Conference Champion in the 440-yard run.
Susan Williams Chambliss will be inducted alongside her high school coach, Laurin Byars Garrison. Arguably the best shortstop to ever play for the Lady Jackets, Williams was Class 4A All State on the DSHS state championship softball team in 1986, following a remarkable 25-0 season. She played collegiately at USL (ULL), a four-year starter who earned first team shortstop laurels on the All Louisiana Collegiate Team in 1987.
The Class of 2016 boasts two gridiron greats in Van Foster and Todd Burks. Foster was a dominating defensive lineman named to the Class 3A All State football team as a senior. Honored by his DSHS teammates as Team Captain, he played in the prestigious LHSCA All Star Football Game in 1971, recording a sack and seven individual tackles against the state’s finest players. Foster, a star catcher in baseball and a unanimous pick on the All District team, earned an athletic scholarship in football to SLU.
Burks was a premier wide receiver who received Class 4A All State football honors in 1989. He was the first player in school history to amass over 1,000 career yards on pass receptions with 87 catches. A four-year letterman in football and baseball, he was also named to the All District baseball team as a senior. Burks earned an athletic scholarship to play football at LSU where he was a three-year letterman.
During its six year history, it has proven a challenge to be chosen to the Hall of Fame in the category of Supporter. Of the 50 sports figures already inducted, only two have been supporters, the late J. W. “Pee Wee” Day ( 2012) and Dr. Milton Hughes (2014). The Class of 2016 doubles that number with the addition of Anthony “Tony” Dugas and Dr. David Thibodeaux.
The seeds of his unwavering fidelity to DSHS were sown when the late Tony Dugas was a clutch scorer on the school’s basketball team that won the Class B state title in 1956. Best remembered as football’s “Voice of Yellow Jacket Stadium” from 1983-2005, he was a founding member of the original PARDS Board and one of the visionaries who saw that the superb sports complex imagined as North Park could serve both the community and his alma mater as well.
During the period 1955-1966, Dr. David Thibodeaux was a community treasure who gave himself to the Yellow Jacket football team every Friday night for eleven years, missing only one game to deliver a baby. Today’s exceptional sports medicine program at DSHS stands on the shoulders of this small town pioneer physician who served without pay at home and away games, aiding injured players on either sideline. It was Dr. Thibodeaux who started preseason physical exams for all sports at DSHS, Walker, and Live Oak free of charge.
The Class of 2017 is distinguished by the stature of softball coach Robbie Spangler whose Lady Jackets were state champions in 1998 and 2000, with runner-up finishes in 2005 and 2006, dominating the state’s highest level of competition for nearly a decade. A six-time District Co-Coach of the Year, her teams achieved 331 wins versus only 85 losses for a remarkable 80% winning percentage.
In 1950 basketball great Lancy Hill, an All State choice at Live Oak in the eleventh grade and at Denham Springs in the twelfth grade, led the Yellow Jackets to a state crown during one luminous season, defeating his former team for the title. He earned an athletic scholarship to play basketball at LSU where he and future All-American Bob Petit starred on the Baby Bengal freshman team, after which Hill left the Tigers to join the U. S. Navy.
Randy Pope was a two-sport star at DSHS in basketball (All District) and baseball (All State) in 1969, earning a baseball scholarship to William Carey College where he was the leading hitter and an All Gulf Coast Athletic Conference third baseman for the Crusaders. Older brother Rogers Pope was a versatile four-sport letterman and a Class A All State basketball player in 1959, and also the Jackets’ star centerfielder on two state championship fast-pitch softball teams (1958, 1959). Both were career educators who served as Superintendant of Livingston Parish Schools, shaping the destiny of the parish education system for nearly two decades between them.
A fifth selectee to the Class of 2017, USMC Colonel (Retired) Tom Kelly, a former Yellow Jacket and USL (ULL) football great, will postpone his induction until next year due to a scheduling conflict. Kelly was the first DSHS footballer to play at LSU (1960) as a walk-on quarterback for the Baby Bengals, before transferring to USL to become an honorable mention NAIA All-American linebacker. As a Marine Corps officer, he served two combat tours in Viet Nam.
Following the banquet at Forrest Grove on August 31, the inductees will be introduced to the public the next evening in Yellow Jacket Stadium during halftime of the first home football game between DSHS and Hammond.
For additional information, contact Jim Spring at jimspring53@hotmail.com or (225) 588-0366.
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