By JERRY BYRD JR., Journal Sports
When my father was a sophomore at Bossier High, my grandmother heard about a remedial speech program at Fair Park High School. She encouraged him to transfer and he did.
During the interview with Fair Park principal E. L. Alberson, he asked for my father to tell him his name.
“I couldn’t get the words out,” my father wrote in a column about the incident years later. “As usual, I clinched my fists, tilted my head back with veins bulging out of my neck.”
Several times, his mother tried to tell Mr. Alberson his name, each time Mr. Alberson held up his hand.
When my father finally got the words out — “My name is Jerry Byrd” — Mr. Alberson smiled and said “Jerry, I think you’re going to like it at Fair Park.”
Mr. Alberson was right. My father did like it.
However, during his senior year my grandmother would accompany my father to school again when he applied for a vocational rehabilitation scholarship to Northwestern State College.
The director, Mr. Kahn, asked my father what vocation he was considering.
He raised an eyebrow when my father stammered something about writing for a newspaper.”
“Well, one thing’s for sure,” Kahn said. “You’ll never be able to interview anybody.”
“Oh, yes he can!” my grandmother shot back. “He can do anything he wants to do.”
I know that my father held on to that last receipt because I’ve held onto a couple of my own over the years.
In middle school, I had a football coach who told me I was the “worst center in the city of Shreveport.”
If what that coach said was true, i was probably Louisiana’s most improved offensive lineman as four years later I would make all-state and earn a full ride to Louisiana Tech University.
In college, a coach tossed me a dry erase marker and told me to get up on the white board and draw up the blocking assignments on a certain play.
Admittedly, I did a terrible job and he said “you’ll never make a football coach.”
If I’m being honest — at the time — I would’ve totally agreed with him. I wanted to be a sportswriter, like my father, but God had other plans.
I was an assistant coach at Byrd High School for seven years before taking over a North Caddo team which was 0-9 the year before. In 2003, that North Caddo team won the school’s first home playoff game and yours truly was The Times All-City Coach of the Year.
That same coach would see me in the stands while he was the field at Tiger Stadium as Tech was playing at LSU. He saw me and pointed at me. I’m no lip reader, but I know exactly what he said.
“I’m proud of you.”
When I spoke about my father Friday when he was honored at NSU’s Department of New Media, Journalism, and Communications Distinguished Professionals Award Luncheon, I didn’t mention his stutter — because he rarely did.
Some people mention it. Most don’t. Some saw it as a disability. For my father it was just another hurdle to overcome in doing what he loved to do — what God was called him to do.
(Editor’s note – Jerry Byrd covered sports from 1957-2013 and authored six books, earning status as one of Louisiana’s greatest all-time sportswriters. He became a professional writer at the Shreveport Journal in the early morning hours of the day following his college graduation from Northwestern in 1957. He passed away in 2016 at age 80, and Friday was once again recognized for his amazing against-the-odds career in journalism. Son Jerry Jr. is assistant principal at Byrd High School and has been a contributor to the Shreveport-Bossier Journal since its inception in early 2022.)
Contact Jerry Jr. at sbjjerry@gmail.com