As late as August of 1988, Wally Smith was in the news as an engineer and spokesman for a local firm that was a highway consultant for the City of Alexandria, but he changed jobs a month later.
He gave up a lucrative job as an engineer to be a coach and teacher at Menard, a Catholic high school that offered him a pittance of what he was making at his engineering job. He accepted, and 38 years later he knows without a doubt he made the right decision.
When he was among 10 people honored with induction into the Louisiana High School Sports Hall of Fame last Monday night in Baton Rouge, Smith said his life-changing decision came after reading “Armchair Retreat,” a book by Father David Knight, that spring during Lent.
“I came out of that Lent, after reading that book, knowing I was in the wrong job,” he said. “Come that September, I was at Menard. At age 45, I was a rookie teacher and a rookie coach. But what a great adventure it was. I never regretted a day.”
Having been a volunteer cross-country head coach since 1985, when his youngest son, Doug, was Menard’s best distance runner, helped him change his mind.
“I fell in love with the environment, everything about coaching,” he said. By the time he gave up the job in 2020, Smith coached Menard teams to 11 girls’ state championships and the boys to two state championships in cross country, and he coached the girls to a state championship in track and field. He has since received a lifetime achievement award from the Louisiana Track and Field Coaches Association as well as the prestigious Tom Nolan Distinguished Coach Award.
Four years after he started as a full-time coach at Menard, his 16-year-old daughter, Jenny, died in a car accident in which she was hit by a drunk driver, and thereafter it was as if he adopted all the girls’ runners he coached. He said he was touched when one of them accidentally called out to him as “Dad.”
It wasn’t too surprising since he became a father-figure to many of those he coached, some of whom, he said, didn’t have much of a family life.
“When you’re doing God’s will,” he said, “everything is a blessing, and dealing with those kids, all types of kids, every day is a great adventure.”
Among the other nine who were inducted with Smith, the honoree who had the largest and loudest group at the event was 91-year-old Gladys Edwards from Waterproof High School in a small, rural town in northeast Louisiana’s Tensas Parish. She coached girls’ basketball teams to six state championships in 33 years.
She said her philosophy was to be “firm, strong and fair with all” of her players. “I may not have been the very best, but I gave them the very best of everything I had.” Inspired by her mother who washed dishes for $3 a day, she repeatedly emphasized, “Hard work will pay off.”
At times, she tried to bring out the best in her players with praise.
“I told them they could beat the (NBA’s Los Angeles) Lakers,” she said, “and some were crazy enough to believe it.”
More awards
This last week was a big week for award banquets as six men were inducted into the Bolton High School Hall of Fame, including my longtime friend and journalistic colleague, broadcaster Elwood Lindsay “Lyn” Rollins Jr. (Class of ’68). The others were William G. “Bill” Bowdon III (’66), Jeffrey “Jeff” Carbo (’78), Richard R. “Dick” Clayton (’59), Edward G. “Ned” Randolph Jr. (’60) and Robert Beall “Buddy” Tudor, Jr. (’53).
Rollins, a member of the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame, is a veteran broadcaster of many sports at different competitive levels, but he is most comfortable calling baseball games, and he seemingly delivers some of his best lines in that venue.
“He’s hotter than a Rolex in a pawn shop.”
“He could throw a tater tot through an onion ring.”
“Pucker up and kiss that baby goodbye!”
Regarding his time at Bolton, he said he remembers the “expectations of excellence” there and the “genuine esprit de corps” among the student body.
Maj. Gen. Bowdon, while pacing the stage and standing erect, may have asked the most thought-provoking question of the night: “Is there a more important position in our society than a high school teacher?”
Patriotic night at the Riverfront
Can’t say enough good about the Rapides Symphony Orchestra’s “Pops on the River” Saturday night at the Alexandria Riverfront Amphitheater. Not only did it feature the always impressive orchestra musicians, but Alexandria native and Houston TV reporter Sherman Desselle did a nice job narrating quotes from our 16th president Abraham Lincoln during Aaron Copland’s “Lincoln Portrait.” And the Victory Belles trio from the New Orleans World War II Museum were spot on in evoking music from the 1940s, not to mention their frivolity and dancing with some men in the audience.
This was also the first RSO performance under the new Bandshell, which had its groundbreaking almost five years ago, and the pleasant spring weather couldn’t have been better. Another welcome addition was the new wide access stairway – festooned with red, white and blue bunting.
The whole thing felt like a live Norman Rockwell painting. The finish – Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture (ending) with incredible fireworks over the Red River and Mayor Jacques Roy punching the button of a gadget on cue to provide the sound effects for cannon fire – couldn’t have been more rousing.
The event theme was “Courage.” At a time in our state and country when the sound of fireworks at a public event has too often presaged something evil, this was an event without incident that unified us all — an audience of all ages — in the cause of courage and courtesy and patriotism.