Fast Eddie and His Take on Tulane vs North Texas
Fast Eddie must have been cold.
Although he said he is used to the cool, humid, bone-chilling temperatures in New Orleans, he apparently is not used to it enough. Here is was in Marshall's looking through the coat rack, hoping to find something that would fit. He had at least four coats of various styles in his basket, trying to find just the right one. I could see none of them would come close to being his size, but as usual, I couldn't get a word in edgewise to let him know.
"Good morning, Dougie," Eddie says, as I notice he's actually wearing gloves while pushing his cart. Yeah, he's cold.
"Back in 1970, I was there when the first Super Bowl was held in old Tulane Stadium," Eddie reminisced. "They said the temperatures were around 60, but it was wet and cold and miserable. Even Minnesota people were complaining." He shivers from the memory. "It feels like it now. Gross."
Eddie's right. We have that unique, wet cold that just makes your whole body shake. I don't like it either. Who does?
As I try to move around his cart to get to another aisle, Eddie pivots the conversation to this weekend's game for Tulane.
"The Greenies have their hands full Friday," Fast Eddie prognosticates. "That Mean Green team is loaded with offensive talent. Scoring, yards, they are the best in the U. S. of A. This team scares me, but what scares me more is whether or not the Greenies are gonna be distracted. I was worried about that earlier this year, too, and I was wrong. Now, things are real: Sumrall's leaving, no head coach for Tulane, yet. That distraction thing is on 'em."
Eddie piles one more coat into his basket. "I'm not sure which one of these I'm gonna keep. I hope their return policy is good"
"North Texas is a two-and-a-half point favorite," Eddie says, switching back to our Tulane conversation. "I think that's about right. Two things I noticed: Tulane's coach talked about the Greenies and signing day and how he wanted it to be successful; that Texas team's coach never mentioned signing day for the team he's coaching right now at all. I might have missed it, but it seems like that Mean Green coach is already in Stillwater. I say take Tulane and the points."
And with that, Eddie heads toward the checkout, guaranteed to be returning with every coat in that basket. He was, after all, not in the men's section.
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Doug has covered a gamut of sporting events in his fifty-plus years in the field. He started doing sideline reporting for Louisiana Tech football games for the student radio station. Doug was Sports Director for KNOE-AM/FM in Monroe in the mid-80s, winning numerous awards from the Louisiana Sports Writers Association for Best Sportscast and Best Play-by-Play. High school play-by-play for teams in Monroe, Natchitoches, New Orleans, and Thibodaux, LA dot his resume. He did college play-by-play for Northwestern State University in Natchitoches for nine years. Then, moving to the Crescent City, Doug did television PBP of Tulane games and even filled in for legendary Tulane broadcaster, Ken Berthelot in the only game Kenny ever missed while doing the Green Wave games. His father was an alumnus of Tulane in the 1940s, so Doug has attended Tulane football games in old Tulane Stadium, the Superdome, and Yulman. He was one of the 86,000 plus on December 1, 1973, sitting in the North End Zone to seeTulane shutout the LSU Tigers, 14-0. He was there when the Posse ruled Fogelman and in Turchin when the Wave made it to the World Series. He currently is the public address voice of the Tulane baseball team.