Legends

A Giant Among Us

/ cigarman501 / 13 Comments

Louie Golden no longer walks among us but his memory continues to cast bright sunlight over thousands of former players, peers, friends, and his family. I’m sure it continues to shine over people who never actually knew him.

Louie Golden was both jovial and ferocious.  A paradox at times. A mentor and an advocate for his players and his students. He was a defender of what he thought was right…even though I might have disagreed with him a time or two. Louie had the ability to let adversity and disagreement roll off his back although I’m sure he was bothered and, in some cases, cut to the quick.

When I wrote “Winning Was Never the Only Thing….” I dedicated a chapter to Louie…a chapter? The man deserved more than just a chapter. I owe him much although at the time I was too immature, or ego driven to realize it.

If you coached under Coach Golden you had a love-hate relationship. There were always currents at work.  Some were like gentle flatland streams, others like riptides from a hurricane kicking up just off the coast.  You either got a huge grin or a look that curdled milk. If it was about “monies”, it was the latter.

I was no longer a green behind the ears coach when I went to work at Riverside High School. I had been teaching and coaching for twenty years. I had been an athletic director in my own right. I was wise to the athletic world and knew it all, but I was never wise to Louie Golden. There was truly a right way, a wrong way, and Louie’s way. He was sly…sly like a fox with a big grin and an even bigger laugh.

Louie liked to give you the idea he wasn’t too bright, that you might be able to get something over on him. It was a ploy. I can’t remember a time when I was successful getting anything over on him. That speaks more to his abilities than my inadequacies.

He was never far from the young man who grew up hard in St. Matthews. Growing up dirt poor he survived by his wits and hard work, and it translated into how he did his job. As I realize now, it was a tough job, starting a program from scratch.

I was fortunate to sit down with him and listen to his stories about growing up poor, his time at Beck before integration. Being given the job at brand new Riverside with no “monies”, selling his soul to beg, borrow and steal the equipment needed. He believed he had been given the job to fail as the first person of color to be an athletic director in Greenville County. Someone miscalculated.

I knew Louie’s reputation, both as a successful basketball coach and as an athletic director who lorded over athletic assets if they were clasped in the jaws of a sprung bear trap. His reputation was not exaggerated. He was tight with a dollar…or a penny.

I found he could get you to do things you ordinarily would not think about doing. He had a certain charm about him and was quite artful when it came to arm twisting. Sell your soul to the devil? There wasn’t much left when Louie got through.

My bride, the Coach Linda Porter-Miller coached with Coach Golden longer than I did. I was in attendance when he talked her into coaching his tennis and JV basketball teams. We weren’t dating at the time; I was coaching at another high school and the conversation took place on top of a high school football press box. In some ways Louie might have played a bit of Cupid. She denies this but my memory is like Louie’s bear trap. She also held an exalted position for Louie, a position the rest of us mere mortals could only wish for.

The stories I could tell, but I won’t. As I look back, Louie was like a father who presided over a hugely dysfunctional family. We were all like bratty children waiting for an inheritance but somehow, he navigated around our egos and kept the athletic bus pointed in the right direction…if it happened to be running.

I never realized he was the glue that held everything together until after he was gone…and many of us with him. Louie was treated with less respect than he deserved, and athletics in general took a step back…but Louie didn’t. He went on to another school and won a couple of more state championships. More importantly, he was able to mentor another generation of kids and coaches.

I knew Louie was ill, but I thought he would rally one more time. Truth be known, I thought he might live forever. His memory will live on in the hearts of his family, his former players, his students, his coaching peers, and his opponents.

Many of the old guard from the Seventies and Eighties have transitioned to their just rewards. I have a mental image of old coaches sitting on even older gymnasium bleachers with Louie pontificating. I hope when it is my time, they give me a seat in the gym.

Rest in peace Louie.

Louie Golden’s at a glance: 699 victories, six state championships at three different schools, twelve upper state championships. Over an eight-year period, Louie played in the State finals, seven times. Thousands of players, students, and coaches touched.

Don Miller’s author’s page may be accessed at https://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM?fbclid=IwAR1zKfonhGNMrFp6OnO7_V5FmXgPR4ZPxyw9luWE-FOptgCCusleBa6euSQ

Image from WSPA News

Legacy

/ cigarman501 / 9 Comments

When the news came across my feed I felt as if I had lost part of my childhood.  Henry Aaron was dead at eight-six.  I knew his days were numbered at that age but still.  I had just seen pictures of him taking the Covid-19 vaccine to help other African Americans make the decision to do so.  Henry “Hank” Aaron was never just a baseball player. His legacy is much more than the game he played.

He was always larger than his historical moment.  The moment he hit Al Dowling’s pitch into the left field bullpen on April 8, 1974.  It was an early birthday present to me.  The day after Aaron’s name went into the record books as the “Homerun King” I turned twenty-four.  Since that date others have had their names etched in above his, but no one hit more home runs in the pre-steroid, pre-juiced up ball, pitcher’s era.  To me he will always be the “Homerun King”…and much more.

He was a quiet man…soft-spoken, a man who let his glove and bat do his talking.   He never liked the moniker “Hammerin’ Hank.” His mother named him Henry, that was good enough for him.  Aaron never doubted his own ability but never felt the need to toot his own horn.  He was a team player on some pretty bad teams.

He hit 24 or more home runs every year from 1955 through 1973, a pitcher’s era, and he is one of only two players to hit 30 or more home runs in a season at least fifteen times. He also earned three Gold Gloves during that period.  In 1999, The Sporting News ranked Aaron fifth on its list of the “100 Greatest Baseball Players”.  Considering the man, they ranked him too low.  He was so much more to a white kid who so much wanted to be a baseball star.

He was the baseball definition of grace.  There was an elegance just walking into the batter’s box or jogging around the bases.  Loping after a fly ball.  He had a beautiful, artistic swing, whether a swing and a miss or a ball roped into the left field bleachers.  It was about the finish.  Art frozen on a photograph.

Our Annual Birthday Tribute to “Hammerin’ Hank” Aaron
A young Henry Aaron, off and running baseballhistorycomesalive.com

My brother put it this way, “Mr. Atlanta Brave has passed away. As a lifelong Brave fan, it is a sad day. Been a sad month or so with Phil Niekro and Don Sutton passing before him. Hammerin’ Hank will always be the true Home Run champ, not the juiced-up cheaters who currently are ahead of him. I can see him now with batting helmet in hand, slipping it on his head, taking three practice swings before stepping in the batter’s box. It was a thing of beauty.”  I agree.

I remember when the Braves moved from far away Milwaukee to not quite so far away Atlanta for the 1966 season.  We finally had a team. I was an instant Braves fan…but it was hard.  Every season began with hopes and dreams, hopes and dreams that were usually crushed by the All-Star break.  But we had Hank, “Hammerin’ Hank”, Henry Aaron.

My father took my brother and I to a Sunday double header that first year.  I was stoked.  Not only would I get to see Hank but Willie Mays’ San Francisco Giants.  What a day.  To see two of my childhood idols.  Hammerin’ Hank versus the Say Hey Kid.  Baseball nirvana.  Aaron didn’t see the field that day and Mays only pinch hit late in the second game.  Instead, I got to see Atlanta pitcher Tony Cloninger hit two grand slam homeruns…I say that as if I have swallowed something unsavory.

When Vin Scully, the great baseball announcer, retired I wrote about Vin and his call of Aaron’s historic homerun. As Aaron rounded the bases, Scully said into his microphone, “What a marvelous moment for baseball. What a marvelous moment for Atlanta and the state of Georgia. What a marvelous moment for the country and the world. A black man is getting a standing ovation in the Deep South for breaking a record of an all-time baseball idol. And it is a great moment for all of us, and particularly for Henry Aaron.”

From YouTube

As I listened and cried a bit, Vin’s words troubled me because I have seen an increase in the words and actions that motivated his descriptions.  Aaron was subjected to a road littered with racial landmines as he moved closer and closer to Ruth’s hallowed record.  Racial abuse and death threats followed him around those bases but somehow, he managed to stay above it all.  As a man he was much greater than the stage he played on.

“I had many, many, many death threats. I couldn’t open letters for a long time, because they all had to be opened by either the FBI or somebody. I couldn’t open letters. I had to be escorted. In fact, just recently I went to a funeral, Calvin Wardlaw, who was the detective — the policeman — with me for two years, passed away just recently. He and I got to be bosom buddies really, but that was the hardest part. I wasn’t able to enjoy — you know.”  A real shame, “I wasn’t able to enjoy…”

I wish I had taken the time to have written Mr. Aaron.  From an old white Southerner.  An apology of sorts just to let him know how much his exploits meant to me…meant to most of us, I think.  I would remind him of the joy I received living through him.  He was a towering hero on and off the field.  Unassuming, quiet but forever inspiring.

There are many pictures of Henry Aaron, but I have a favorite.  It is not a picture of my idol wearing a Milwaukee or Atlanta uniform, hitting or fielding.  It is of a young Henry Aaron standing in front of a train car.  He is about to embark into his future…his destiny.  He would step onto that train and head to Indianapolis to play shortstop for the Negro League “Clowns” for two hundred dollars a month. 

https://themuseumfreak.wordpress.com/2014/12/31/young-hank-aaron/

I feel I HAVE lost a part of my childhood.  So many have transitioned over the last year.  Tonight, I will gaze at the night sky hoping for the flash of light.  Scientifically I know it is a meteor burning up in the atmosphere.  In my heart I will know it is Henry Aaron hitting another one out of the park. 

*** 

The image of Henry Aaron and Willie Mays is from https://www.talkingchop.com/2020/6/10/21285787/this-day-in-braves-history-hank-aaron-passes-willie-mays-on-all-time-home-run-list

Don Miller’s authors page may be found at https://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM?fbclid=IwAR0b6oFbr9QqtEYvWbOkHCcfv23IpoKgaxuRZd-nLM-fM1dmnch_2SGSfSY