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Former American Press sportswriter Carl Dubois blogs about the games people play, in and out of sports, and the people you meet between and outside the lines.

Carl is an award-winning reporter and columnist based in Baton Rouge. He is associate editor of Tiger Rag magazine.

Looks like an OK Corral to me

Posted October 2, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Filed Under People, Sports | 1 Comment

I have a new neighbor here at my virtual blog cabin. Alex Hickey, who covers McNeese for the American Press, has joined the fold. You can find his blog here and on the home page of the Web site.

I look forward to reading his stuff. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it too.

Howdy, neighbor, and welcome.

Cue-pon or coo-pon?

Posted September 23, 2009 at 2:08 pm
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BATON ROUGE — How do you say it? I say it like it’s spelled: coupon.

But today I’m surrounded by the Cue-pon People.

(OK, I’m waiting for someone to reply that they say it as … “it.” But I sort of stole their thunder with this pre-emptive strike, didn’t I?)

Wait, there’s no foot in football?

Posted September 21, 2009 at 9:32 pm
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BATON ROUGE — Something in the Sept. 21 issue of Sports Illustrated caught my eye. If you haven’t seen it, check out this story about a high school football coach who’s stopped punting and instead goes for it on fourth down — all the time.

I don’t have much to add, except to say this is probably my favorite quote in the piece: “It’s like someone said, ‘[Punting] is what you do on fourth down,’ and everyone did it without asking why.”

Call me crazy (well, call him crazy first, then me), but I like people who aren’t afraid to challenge conventional wisdom. I’ve spent too much time around so-called leaders who live within the comfort zone of such phrases as “We’ve never done that before” and “That’s not how we did it last year” and other uninspiring sentences meant to justify stifling new ideas and doing as little thinking as possible.

I’m sure he’s keeping everyone at the games on their toes. Everyone, that is, except the punter he doesn’t have.

Remembering Coach Vic

Posted September 20, 2009 at 9:42 am
Filed Under People, Sports | 1 Comment

BATON ROUGE — I was here a year ago, so I didn’t hear about it until weeks later, but I wanted to acknowledge the passing one year ago today of longtime Southwest Louisiana football coach Charles Vicknair.

Coach Vic touched a lot of lives, as many of you know.

“He had a big impact on our community and all the coaches in this area,” said Barbe coach Jimmy Shaver, who worked for Vicknair before succeeding him as coach of the Bucs in the early 1980s.

“Some of them might not have been directly under him, but somebody on their staff has been or they worked with somebody before that was under Vic, so all of us (were affected by him). I can’t think of anybody that hasn’t been influenced somehow by him.”

Vicknair coached at Barbe, LaGrange, St. Louis, Sam Houston, Sulphur and Westlake high schools and at McNeese. He began his career at S.P. Arnett after graduating from McNeese in 1964.

“He’s been a part of every community,” Shaver said.

So much so that the Charles Vicknair Award, inaugurated last December by the American Press, will annually honor one assistant coach in Southwest Louisiana, symbolic of the impact Coach Vic had upon area coaches and their coaching trees.

I’m working on a project that will tell that story in far more detail than here, and you will be able to read it later this year. I will post a link here to let you know how to find it. I covered high school sports for the American Press for 14 years and didn’t come close to appreciating the many ways in which he touched people and influenced their lives.

Today is surely a sad day in some ways for the family he left behind, but I’m hopeful they will remember the things that made Coach Vic special to them, including one of his favorite quotes: “It was a slice of heaven.”

I’m sure they’d say the same.

Cowboys, LSU sign deal to play in 2010

Posted September 16, 2009 at 2:22 pm
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BATON ROUGE — The news comes from Louis Bonnette of McNeese sports information. The Cowboys and LSU Tigers have a signed contract for a football game between the two schools in Tiger Stadium on Oct. 16, 2010.

McNeese will become the first Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA) team from the state of Louisiana to play the Tigers. The second will be Northwestern State, which has a deal in place to play the Tigers in Baton Rouge on Sept. 10, 2011.

Cowboys win thriller, 40-35

Posted September 12, 2009 at 5:35 pm
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Josh Lewis kicked an 18-yard field goal to break a tie with 4 seconds left, and Appalachian State’s multi-lateral kickoff return ended in a safety as McNeese State defeated the Mountaineers 40-35 in Boone, N.C.

The second half lived up to my expectations. McNeese’s staff made some gutsy calls and didn’t let itself become too conservative in a big game on the road. The players make the plays, but give the coaching staff a lot of credit for this victory.

Lewis missed a PAT that looked like it could prove costly, but the Cowboys rallied from their only deficit of the afternoon, 28-27, to stun the Mountaineers at their renovated home facility.

This ESPN link is where you can find play-by-play details, including the crazy last play of the game.

Great game. Did you watch it?

Good first half for Pendland, McNeese

Posted September 12, 2009 at 3:53 pm
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BATON ROUGE — I’m watching the McNeese vs. Appalachian State game online, and I’ve been impressed with Cowboys running back Todd Pendland.

He’s scored both touchdowns for McNeese’s 14-7 halftime lead, and he’s looked sensational in doing so.

Appalachian State had a field goal attempt, a short one, hit an upright and elicit groans from the home crowd in Boone, N.C. The Mountaineers also fumbled inside the McNeese 2 in the last 30 seconds of the half, missing a great opportunity to tie the score.

Keep up online here.

McNeese’s offensive staff has a great game plan. Armanti Edwards and the Mountaineers are explosive on offense. It should be an entertaining second half.

Be like Mike?

Posted September 12, 2009 at 3:38 pm
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If you read this writer’s take, you wouldn’t want to be.

If you read this point of view, you don’t get a flattering picture of MJ either.

Yet, apparently a lot of fans disagree with these takes on Michael Jordan’s Hall of Fame induction speech.

What do you think?

I think it was, like his short baseball career, a big, hearty swing and a miss.

I’m not a big fan of ESPN baseball analyst Rob Dibble, but today he said this seemed like more of a roast than a Hall of Fame induction. Dibble said he was waiting for Dean Martin, Redd Foxx and Lucille Ball to get a turn at the microphone.

Jordan’s career was quintessential Hall of Fame stuff. Whatever his intentions were, this speech was not.

Brother, can you spare (another) dime?

Posted September 10, 2009 at 10:21 am
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BATON ROUGE — Late last night I walked out of a 24-hour-a-day drugstore and heard someone calling for my attention. When I turned, a gentleman around my age asked if I could help him.

He said he’d just lost his wife, he was from Bossier City, and he needed some money to help him get back home.

That was what he’d told me, with a few extra details, late one night two months ago in a different parking lot on the other end of town. At that time, he managed to work up tears and sobbing that seemed fake. I rewarded the effort with a couple of dollars and told him that’s all I could do to help him.

This time, he didn’t attempt the crying. I stuck to what I told him two months earlier.

“Can’t help you any more. Don’t you remember what I said two months ago when you told me the same story?”

We didn’t discuss the phenomenon of his wife apparently coming back to life, then dying again two months later. I also wondered about the grandmother, a detail about which there was no update this time. And, really, you’d have thought he could have gotten back to Bossier City by now.

Of course, maybe he really lost his wife. Maybe she didn’t die. Maybe he couldn’t find her, then he did, and now she’s missing again. To me, you can’t ask for as big a donation in that case.

He drove away in a really nice car, much more expensive than mine. Now I think I know how he can afford it.

Nine slash nine slash nine

Posted September 8, 2009 at 10:17 pm
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BATON ROUGE — It’s a good thing Obama didn’t schedule his speech to school children for 09/09/09. It would have been interpreted as even more of a sign of the apocalypse than it was on a random Tuesday.

So, is Wednesday going to be more exciting and significant than 08/08/08 was? Or 07/07/07? This link will take you to a story that says this will mark the last set of repeating, single-digit dates for nearly a century.

Double-digit versions? Well, we only have to wait until 10/10/10.

Do you suppose a lot of people will get as many nines as they can onto their lottery tickets on 09/09/09?

I’m reminded of a story (and this is one version of many) about a man who was born on the seventh day of the seventh month of the seventh year of the century, the seventh day of the week. He was the seventh son of a seventh son, he had seven brothers, and that made seven sevens, he noted.

On his 27th birthday, he went to the track. The seventh numbered horse in the seventh race was named Seventh Heaven and was handicapped seven stone. The odds against Seventh Heaven were seven-to-one, but the man bet seven shillings.

The horse finished seventh.

Have fun with numerology on 09/09/09, but don’t take it too seriously.

Unless you win the lottery. Then, I’d like a cut for reminding you to play.

Speaking of the seventh son of a seventh son, here’s a musical interlude. Have a good day.