By BOB TOMPKINS

Louis Victor “Butch” Crenshaw knew how to weave a story with a smile and a drawl. He knew how to teach and coach in a way that made him beloved by former students and players. And he knew how to win friends and influence people as an insurance agent, school board member and city councilman.

That’s why tributes are flowing for Crenshaw, who died Wednesday morning after a long illness, surrounded by family at his home. He was 83.

“Butch was a longtime friend, spanning 60 years,” said 87-year-old Aubrey Sanders, who was the head football coach at Bolton when Crenshaw became the first head football coach at Alexandria Senior High in March of 1969. “It was a unique relationship because we were best of friends ’til Friday night, once a year, when we were fierce crosstown rivals. But we were always friends for life after the game was over.

“After he got out of coaching (in 1973) to become an insurance agent, and I was still coaching at Bolton, he still scouted for me,” Sanders went on. “He and Johnny Hunter would go to games on Friday nights to scout future opponents of ours. Those were some of the best years of my life. Butch will be greatly missed.”

A first-team all-state guard for Bolton in 1957 and one of two Alexandria guards (along with Dave Michiels) who blocked for legendary running back Tommy Mason at Tulane in 1960 and ’61, Crenshaw became the first head football coach at ASH at age 28. He had enjoyed success as an assistant football coach prior to that at both Menard and Pineville.  He helped both teams win district titles – Menard in 1964 and Pineville in 1967.

“Next to my father, he was the most important role model in my life,” said Haughton mayor Kim Gaspard, who first met Crenshaw at age 15 as a 5-9, 215-pound “butterball” in Crenshaw’s first year as the ASH coach.

“By the end of the football season, I was 5-10 ½, 175 pounds,” continued Gaspard, who, with help from Crenshaw, advanced to play center and guard at Northwestern State from 1973-76. “He was a molder of men. He taught us love and respect, gave us discipline. He taught us what loyalty was. His discipline probably saved many of us. I always wanted to do whatever would make him proud of me.”

In 2015, Bob Riley of Tallahassee, Fla., wrote a letter to the editor of the Town Talk, in response to a column about Crenshaw, as a thank you note to him as  his coach and history teacher at Menard. He praised him and other leaders at Menard “as they salvaged a young, parentless, at-risk boy, from the depths of poverty, despair and insecurity.”

Crenshaw told the Town Talk in 2008 that his coach at Bolton, Maxie Lambright, who went on to a glorious stint as the head coach at Louisiana Tech that led to his induction into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame, was the most influential person in his life, outside of his wife, Sandy. He said Lambright was a “father figure” for him while his father, Col. Ollie Crenshaw, was doing his second tour in Korea.

Grace High School athletic director Joe Moreau, a Louisiana High School Athletic Association Hall of Famer for his successes as a track and field and cross country coach at Pineville and Bolton, said Crenshaw “was like a father figure to all of us” on Crenshaw’s first teams at ASH. One vivid memory he recalled involved a 21-14 upset over top-ranked, defending state champion Natchitoches High. That came almost a week after a brutal 7 a.m. Saturday practice, which was the price to pay after a humiliating upset loss the previous night at Bunkie. “That was the first really big win in the history of the school.”

“He was easy to love,” said Alexandria city councilman Chuck Fowler, a duck-hunting friend who served with him during Crenshaw’s 12 years on the city council. “He loved to deal with the financial part of the city and was chairman of the finance council. I always sought his thoughts on things, even after he was off the council. He stayed interested and kept up with everything, and he had crystal-clear memories of things we did when he was on the council.”

Visitation at Kramer Funeral Home in Alexandria will be Sunday, May 5, from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. and a Rosary will be said at 5 p.m. The funeral service will be held at St. Frances Cabrini Church on Monday, May 6, at 10 a.m.