First in wins, as it turns out

The drama was palpable Monday morning as everybody's favorite assistant coach, Coach Black, drew the winning entry in the "identify these NSU track greats" contest staged last week.

Now we can provide the caption to the picture above: NSC head track coach Walter Ledet (left) presents the Outstanding Field Athlete in the high school division award to Byrd High School's Jerry Dyes for his performance at the 1959 Northwestern Relays.

Submitting the correct identification of Ledet -- nicknamed "Cajun" during his playing days for NSU as a track and football athlete from 1934-38, owing to his Abbeville roots -- wasn't as challenging as identifying Dyes. A variety of other familiar NSU athletes who went into coaching, including Tynes Hildebrand and Dan Poole, were suggested.

But it was Dyes, who became kiddingly known as "Ace" during his coaching career at NSU because of his penchant for referring to nearly everybody as "Ace" or "Champ," who was the skinny young man accepting the award. The meet ended early as a result of a big storm.

Dyes, who was NSU's head coach from 1970-82, was just honored at the Southland Conference Outdoor Championships, his last meet as a parttime assistant coach at Texas-San Antonio. He is stepping away from coaching. We'll see if that decision lasts! He was honored for his coaching career and for the fact that while competing for Abilene Christian, a charter member of the SLC, in the first ever Southland track championship in 1964, he was the high point scorer.

As the Demons' coach, Dyes tutored 14 all-Americans and led the Demons to a national runner-up finish at the 1976 NAIA Championships and an 11th-place finish at the 1981 NCAA Championships. His 1981 4x100-meter relay team, Victor Oatis , Joe Delaney, Mario Johnson and Mark Duper, won the NCAA title and set a then-Louisiana collegiate record time of 39.03 seconds. That foursome remains the only relay squad from a Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA) university to ever win an NCAA Division I national title.

Of course, Coach Ledet was our first football All-American in 1938, a No. 2 draft pick of Philadelphia in the 1939 NFL Draft, and is in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame chiefly because of his remarkable track coaching career, highlighted by five straight Gulf States Conference championships.

OK - enough history for now.

Correct answers in this contest were submitted by (in order) Gary DeBlieux, Leonard Endris, Leah Jackson, David Stamey, Elaine Guidry, Barry Aldredge, Dart Volz, and Lawrence Wilkins.

Those names went into a size 22 Shaquille O'Neal shoe that we have in the office (the shoe is a remnant of being the host of the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame). The first name drawn twice was the winner - and it was the first person to answer correctly.

But with all the weight Gary's lost, I wonder if he KNOWS his T-shirt size! Congrats to all the correct respondents and especially to our buddy "Dub."