All paths lead back to Hall of Fame

Published 9:20 am Friday, June 24, 2016

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">NATCHITOCHES — There are usually a lot of odd twists and fortunate turns between growing up in Louisiana and being inducted to the state’s prestigious Sports Hall of Fame.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Take NBA star P.J. Brown.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It was the usual winding road from Winnfield … via Curacao, Tokyo, Ruston, Israel, Athens, Greece, not to mention all the familiar NBA haunts along the way.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But mostly it was from the outhouse to the penthouse.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Well, not an actual outhouse.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Winnfield High School had long since been introduced to indoor plumbing by the time his sophomore year rolled around.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Basketball didn’t much interest him at the time, even though he’d grown 7 or 8 inches in the past two years with one of those classic adolescent growth spurts, and was scraping 6-foot-6 when — how to put this delicately? — he was, shall we say, affording himself use of the school’s “facilities” between classes one afternoon when the school principal had a similar calling.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">They were, in fact, standing at adjacent relief stations, when the principal noticed how far up yonder the young lad’s head was.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“Young man,” the principal inquired, “why haven’t we seen you on the basketball court?”</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">They soon did and the rest was history for Brown, who’d eventually top out at 6-foot-10 for 15 NBA seasons.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But this is a Winnfield-heavy Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2016 that will be inducted here Saturday night.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">While his NBA career was taking off, Brown kept up with another budding Winnfield product, Anthony “A-Train” Thomas, who made his mark in the NFL after leaving the state to play for the Michigan Wolverines.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“Before anybody asks,” Thomas said Thursday. “Yes, LSU recruited me, but I just thought it would be good for me to get away.”</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It worked out fine, but he had some doubts early on, even though as a freshman he was on Michigan’s last national championship team.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“When I went up there for recruiting, it was a warm day,” he said, not really needing to explain much further.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Suffice it say it didn’t stay that way.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The first “snow day” on campus, head coach Lloyd Carr sent a special envoy to the football dorm to make sure Thomas didn’t get iced in.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But later that day, at a team meeting, Carr asked for any players who didn’t make class that day to stand up.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Thomas was the only one who stood, much to the amusement of his teammates.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Thomas spread his arms in the universal signal for, What do you expect?</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“Hey,” he told them. “I’m from Louisiana. All I got is a windbreaker.”</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But maybe Michigan was the perfect test track for the budding Hall of Famer.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">He made his name in the NFL first with the Chicago Bears before finishing in balmy Buffalo.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“I never did really get used to it,” he said. “I’m always a Louisiana guy.”</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It’s amazing the way a seemingly unconnected class can intertwine.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Jim Hawthorne, recently retired as the longtime “Voice of the Tigers” for the LSU radio network, is going into the media wing of the Hall of Fame.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">He thought he’d told the ultimate Warren Morris story when asked what was his fondest memory of calling LSU football, basketball and baseball for 35 years.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It was, of course, the famous two-out, two-run home run by Morris that won the 1996 national championship 9-8 over Miami.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Hawthorne said it was the most emotional he ever got on the radio and noted that color analyst, sidekick Bill Franques, was sobbing.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But what Hawthorne said he remembers is arriving at the LSU team hotel where quite the celebration party was in full bloom.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">He pushed his way through the crowd in the lobby and squeezed his way onto the elevator, alone.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But just before the doors closed, a hand stopped them.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It was, of course, Warren Morris.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“He was calm as could be,” Hawthorne recalled of the elevator ride.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Former Tulane coach Rick Jones remembered the epic event a little differently.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Jones, the longtime Tulane baseball coach, said his favorite memory was of beating LSU in the 2001 super regional played in Metairie for the first of his two Green Wave trips to the College World Series.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But he was also watching the 1996 “Warren Morris” game with interest.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">He’d been in Omaha a few days before, as the guest of Miami coach Jim Morris, his longtime friend and mentor while coaching under him at Georgia Tech.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">So it wasn’t any anti-LSU bias at work as pulled for the Hurricanes that day.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">In fact, he recalled, as Morris walked to the plate, Jones was dialing Jim Morris’ phone number, waiting for the final out hit the send button.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“I was making sure I was going to be the first one to congratulate Jim on winning the national championship,” Jones said. “I never got to make that call.”</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But they’ll all get the call Saturday night.</span>

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<p class="p1">Follow Scooter Hobbs on Twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/ScooterAmPress">twitter.com/ScooterAmPress</a>