Nick’s note: TheDerisoReport.com continues a series on 2009’s inaugural honorees into the Grambling Legends’ Hall of Fame, to be inducted tonight:
Fred Hobdy’s players at Grambling would find themselves still huffing and puffing from drills, when he’d abruptly switch the subject.
There was more to life, the late coach would say, than just basketball.
“He wanted all of us to grow up to be productive citizens,” said Larry Wright, the Southwestern Athletic Conference’s 1975-76 Player of the Year under Hobdy. “He used to say that all the time: ‘Basketball is not going to last forever.’ He would always talk about that. When you first came, he made sure that you understand that basketball was a means to an education.”
Hobdy, already a member of the Louisiana Sports and Southwestern Athletic Conference halls of fame, is rightly remembered for his contributions as a basketball genius. After all, he remains the winningest college coach in Louisiana with 572 victories between 1957-86.
His teams won seven Southwestern Athletic Conference titles and the National Athletic Intercollegiate Association championship in 1961 — the last men’s national title from this state. But that’s not the full measure of Hobdy’s legacy at Grambling.
A three-sport letter winner at Grambling, he later served as athletics director before passing in 1998. He’s perhaps best known as a collegiate athlete for his contribution to a legendary 1942 squad that went unbeaten, even unscored upon, under Eddie Robinson.
His efforts as unwavering mentor to hundreds of players, often long after they’d completed their eligibility, only underscored those legendary achievements.
“He was tough as coach; don’t get me wrong,” said Wright, who would later win the 1978 NBA title with the Washington Bullets before returning to coach in the same office where Hobdy once sat at Grambling for nine seasons beginning in 1999.
“He worked your butt off,” Wright said, “but at the end of the day, when you needed him, it was all together different.”
Often times, Wright said, life lessons would come just after one of Hobdy’s now-legendary practices — sweat-drenched affairs that stressed preparation and conditioning.
“He would be drilling you, running you like there is no more tomorrows, but afterwards if you had a problem he would switch hats,” Wright said. “Instead of your coach, he became your father — so understanding of the problem, whatever it might have been. There was no way you could think a guy who had just been screaming at the top of his voice do that, but he did. I will always remember that.”
Wright, whose voice colors with emotion at the very mention of his mentor, is one of a chorus of those who continues to lobby in hopes that the new basketball arena on campus will be named after Hobdy.
“I could say so many things about Coach Hobdy,” said Wright. “When you start talking about the people who built Grambling,” Wright mused, “you have to say (former football coach) Eddie Robinson. You have to say (former school president) R.W.E. Jones. I think you also have to say Fred Hobdy. He should be mentioned in the same breath.”
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For more on the Grambling Legends’ Hall of Fame induction ceremonies, to be held July 18 at the Civic Center in Monroe, visit www.gramlingsportshof.com.
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