Meet Fast Eddie: Tulane vs. Tulsa
In this story:
I guess you could say we've been "friends for a while." You could also say we've "known each other." Either way, I have seen him around for decades. He has never given me his real name. I've always known him just as Fast Eddie.
Somehow or other, he finds me. I could be at a bar, a coffee shop, a small restaurant, you name it. When I least expect it, he'll pull up a chair, a bar stool, whatever, and start talking. I usually don't get in a word edgewise. There's probably a "Fast Eddie" in your life. This one's been in mine a very long time.
This time, I am enjoying a roast beef po-boy, dressed, with a glass of water. I can't drink soft drinks anymore. It's the first thing Eddie notices as he pulls a chair from a nearby table without asking and plops down.
"Joubert, you've given up on the sweets?" Eddie starts in his thick Ninth Ward accent. "Man, I've seen you put away some Mountain Dews and Dr. Peppers in my day. I didn't think you'd ever stop with those."
"I had to, Eddie," I replied. "Health reasons, you know."
"Yeah, I'm not too worried about that. I'm as svelte as the next guy," he says as he pats his paunch around the belt line. "I'm in shape. Round's a shape, ya know?"
I nod my head, hoping to just finish my po-boy, but Eddie pushes on.
"I know it's been a while since I've seen you," Eddie tells me as he punctuates his pronouns with an unlit cigar pointed in whichever direction he desires. "I've been doing a lot of traveling lately." His voice dropping to a hoarse whisper, "It's not always because I want to,"
Then, as he always seems to do, he changes subjects rapidly.
"Look, I know you are interested in this Tulane-Tulsa game," Eddie says as he picks up the pace of our one-way conversation. "This Tulsa team ain't bad. I mean they beat Okie State last week, and got the Cowboys coach fired."
I nod as I take another bite.
"But Tulane is ticked," Eddie says as he taps the table where I'm sitting. "That was not the Tulane team anyone was expecting to see against the Rebs. I've been watching them." I am assuming he means the Green Wave. He backs up my assumption.
"I'm not gonna say it'll be a blowout," Eddie wraps up, "but I can see the Greenies covering the spread, easy."
And with that, he pushes the chair he had been sitting in back with the table that it belongs, waves his cigar-holding hand at me, and exits more quickly than a man that size should be able to.
- Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem and wants help, call 1-800-GAMBLER.
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.