by Doug Ireland
It’s always fun to look ahead to the next Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Induction Celebration, which is “only” three months away, June 26-28.
Those festivities include the annual BOM Bowling Bash at All-Star Lanes in Alexandria on Friday, June 27. Never too early to get your team together (or enter individually) by visiting the LaSportsHall.com website or calling the LSHOF Foundation office at 318-238-4255.
It’s always interesting to look around – and it doesn’t take long – and see what Hall of Fame members are doing. For example, it’s baseball season. All-time LSU greats and MLB stars Ben McDonald and Todd Walker are analysts for college baseball coverage on ESPN; McDonald also spends half the season in Baltimore as the lead analyst for Orioles MLB home games. Longtime Pineville resident Lyn Rollins is at his best as the play-by-play artist for a wide array of college baseball games on ESPN+ and the SEC Network+ package (focusing on LSU baseball and softball). Rollins and his wife Debbie left Cenla a few years ago to relocate to Auburn, Ala., where their son works; it’s one of the South’s hidden gems when it comes to lifestyle, even if it makes Lyn’s trips to Baton Rouge and elsewhere around Louisiana quite a bit longer.
That’s just the broadcasting phase of baseball and not the only LSHOF members involved in that sport or the announcing industry. Prime examples: 2023 inductee Ron Washington begins his second season as manager of the Los Angeles (formerly Anaheim, and California) Angels. And 2021 inductee Rickie Weeks is in Year 2 as associate manager and bench coach for the Milwaukee Brewers.
It’s inevitable and sad when we have to note the passing of a Hall of Famer. That happened in March when one of the state’s most remarkable high school football coaches, Alton “Red” Franklin of Haynesville, died at age 89 in his adopted hometown. He led 11 Golden Tornado teams to small school state championships, four more to runner-up finishes, and won 366 games (366-76-8). He coached eight undefeated teams who were part of 33 consecutive winning seasons. Franklin’s teams captured 27 district titles and owned a streak of 15 consecutive district crowns at the end of his tenure following the 2001 season. Haynesville reached the state playoffs 31 times in an era when only the district champion and runner-up qualified. In his last decade, HHS beat big school powers West Monroe and Evangel.
His high school coaching career began in the mid-1960s as an assistant at Marksville, near his college alma mater, Louisiana College in Pineville. An Alabama native who played his first season of college football for Paul “Bear” Bryant’s Crimson Tide, Franklin found his way to LC to get more playing time in an era when a young Billy Allgood was not only the Wildcats’ basketball and baseball coach, but an assistant football coach.
Most importantly in Red’s life path, it was at LC that he met and fell for his future wife, Beth, a Haynesville native. It was her love for her Claiborne Parish home that eventually led Franklin to pursue the vacant Golden Tors’ head coaching job while he was an assistant at nearby Minden.
It’s not enough to simply cite Franklin’s stats and career accomplishments. He took over a struggling Haynesville program in a community that had gone through significant population decline. Hard to imagine that in the 1950s, Hayneville competed on par with north Louisiana’s biggest schools in Shreveport and Monroe. But by the time Red brought Beth home, the school was much smaller and that was not the biggest challenge it faced.
This was the late 1960s, a time of desegregation, strife, stress, and uncertainty. Football had always helped define the town, and set the tone in the community. Now two schools were being blended, one with all-black enrollment getting closed, and merged into HHS. Faculty, administrators, students, and coaches had to find how to make that work. It is telling that
within hours of Franklin’s passing, the Town of Haynesville released a statement expressing just how impactful the coach had been in bridging gaps and bringing a community together in unprecedented times, and in how he continued for the rest of his life to stand for what was right and good, keeping Haynesville united and shaping the lives of generations of students, not just football players.
So as we paused to treasure the impact of Red Franklin a few weeks ago, we looked around to see how other LSHOF inductees are continuing to influence others, and make impacts, and there is no shortage.
We also are looking ahead to June 26-28, when a new class will be enshrined, with every inductee having a profound influence not only on state sports history, but on the people around them.
Because at its core, the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame is about celebrating excellence in Louisiana – it just so happens that it has to do with sports.
Between now and then, if you’ve got control of the TV remote, and it’s Thursday evening, take 15 minutes at 8:45 to catch Rollins on Louisiana Public Broadcasting in the excellent “Beyond the Glory” mini-series which spotlights LSHOF inductees in introspective interviews that often go far outside the sports realm.
And to get the best perspective, go ahead and make plans to bowl with the Hall of Famers in Alexandria June 27, or take in some of the other events – including a free La Capitol kickoff reception June 26, a free Rockin’ Riverfest concert presented by Rapides Regional Medical Center on Friday night the 27 th , and a free Saints/Pelicans Junior Training Camp presented by Natchitoches Regional Medical Center the following morning.
You might really enjoy who you get to meet and know.
