From the desk of Wally Dawkins, Athletic Director:

Lueders, Texas.

Have you ever heard of Lueders?

Thirty miles north of Abilene?  Fifteen miles west of Albany?  Population 528?

Did you ever see the movie “The Last Picture Show”?

The “Picture Show” movie was filmed in Archer City, Texas.

Compared to Lueders, Archer City is like New York.

The metropolis of Lueders and Lueders School consolidated with Avoca School to form the Lueders-Avoca School District.

It was there I had my first teaching and coaching job.

I was the Language Arts Teacher for 6th, 7th, and 8th Grade, as well as the Head Girls & Boys Basketball Coach.  In my Language Arts classes, we diagramed sentences like crazy.  My charge to the students was “We are going to diagram it until we diagram it right”!  Typical coach huh?

Now don’t sell Lueders, Texas short.  We had The Café, Farmer’s State Bank, a post office, Smith’s General Store, and a full service Texaco gas station… and don’t forget the lumber yard.

It was at The Lueders-Avoca school that I experienced the first of many ironies in my coaching career.

Lueders and Avoca were both farming communities.  Cotton farmers mostly.  Only a handful of residents actually owned property while most were laborers being employed in service areas.

When a good crop of cotton came in, everybody bought new cars, tractors, and went to Six Flags for a weekend.

Bad Crop?  The line at the local banks was long as the faces of those who were standing in the line.

Being hired to be the Head Girls and Boys Basketball Coach at Lueders-Avoca was challenging.  The girl’s team had not won a game in two years, while the boy’s team had a strong tradition in winning.  I got the job because longtime Head Coach Milton Martin was moving into the Principal’s position, and the only open spot for teaching was the Lueders Junior High Language Arts Teacher.  Which I could do because I graduated with an English minor from Abilene Christian.  Being a college basketball player at ACU, and being able to teach English, I was just what the district needed and I was hired!

I was so excited to be a Head Coach, even if it was at a high school of 68 students.  I tackled both the girls and boys job going full steam ahead.  Our nickname was The Raiders and the school colors were red and black.  Our first practice was the Tuesday after Labor Day, and before I knew it we were two weeks away from our first game.

The boy’s team was going to be very good.  We had height, ball handlers, and some good shooters.  One of the boys on that team was a kid who I will just call by his first name which was Gary.  Gary was only a freshman, but he was cat-quick, could handle the ball with the best of them, and could shoot it from anywhere.  Gary was a good looking kid with short jet black hair, and a hard worker.  Gary was also  a shy, quiet kid, but had a big smile and everyone like him.

One day, one of my seniors, a boy named Mark McNair came to me after practice and asked if we could talk.  He started by telling me that he had collected all the players money for their game shoes except one.  Lueders-Avoca didn’t pay for the kids shoes, so each boy had to pay $20.00 for a pair of black, hi-top Converse Chuck Taylors.  Mark went on to tell me that it was Gary who couldn’t pay for shoes because his family had no money, so the rest of the team pitched in to pay for Gary’s shoes so he would have a pair.

When I asked Mark about Gary’s situation he said “Coach, you know they live in a house with a dirt floor…right”?

Wow.  I didn’t know anybody in the United States of America had a home with a dirt floor.  But I was thankful that I was coaching a group of kids with hearts so big that they would take up a collection to help one of their teammates.

It did make me worry about Gary however.  What else did Gary not have that he needed…or for that fact his two younger sisters.

I decided to talk to Gary one afternoon and we talked about how he was doing in school, and then a little about basketball, and then I asked Gary about his family.  He smiled big when he talked about his two little sisters.  The smile went to head down and frown when I asked about his parents.  He told me his mom had run off and left them with a guy who worked for his dad.  He had not seen his mom in two years.

Here is where the irony comes in.

When Mark McNair brought in the money for the team’s shoes, and informed me the team had pitched in to pay for Gary’s shoes, while telling me that Gary’s house had a dirt floor.

Hard to believe, but if Mark said it, I was inclined to buy it.  So I asked Gary about where he lived.  He embarrassingly told me about his house, where it was, and the dirt floor…a fairly depressing description.

I then asked where his dad worked and what he did for a living.

Ready for the irony?

Gary responded to my question with this answer “He owns his own business…he is a cement contractor”.

I couldn’t believe my ears.  Here is a kid who lives in a house with a dirt floor, and his dad is a cement contractor.

I know my mouth fell wide open.

One day shortly thereafter, and before we had even played our first game, Gary and his family left.  They had moved.  Didn’t check out of school and didn’t say anything to anybody.  It was almost as if they had vanished into thin air.

It saddened me to lose Gary.  I have often wondered what happened to his family.  I’ve never heard from him or of him.

As coaches, we tend to get involved in the lives of our kids, and Brook Hill Coaches are the best at it because of how much they care for their athletes.  I have been amazed at how the Brook Hill Coaching staff willingly mentors to, advises, and leads by example for each player.  Our coaches invest themselves fully in the lives of Guard and lady Guard athletes, and that’s the advantage of going to a private Christian school that employs full-time coaches.

One more thing about Lueders-Avoca, and being the Head Girls Basketball Coach.  After going winless in two straight seasons, I worked our girls’ basketball team extremely hard.  We practiced long and with a purpose.  We strategized, did drill after drill to improve the fundamentals, and I preached to them daily about being winners.  I put in offenses and defenses that fit our personnel.  As one might expect, all of the hard work by our team and their coach would prove to pay off in the end.  We ended the losing streak in a big way.

We finished the season 1-22.

“ALL ORANGE” All The Time!