Printable View
Our hearts and prayers go out to all the family and friends of @LATechSports Hall of Famer O.K. "Buddy" Davis. Buddy passed away this morning at age 72. We are forever indebted to our friend for the invaluable exposure he gave our school and our parish.
bit.ly/2LmdQg8
Such a great guy as well as a great writer. Buddy and I were neighbors my first six years, I've got a photo of me in a stroller being pushed by Buddy.Quote:
Originally Posted by sportdawg
Rest in peace good friend. You touched a lot of people.
Tech lost an icon -
I will greatly miss my text conversations with him about the state of the program and his thoughts about what were going on
I'm just glad he got to see Mike Green finally in the HOF before he passed on
He treated EVERYONE the same, with respect and kindness. Easily one of the best that I ever met and worked with.
Thoughts and prayers for a Louisiana Legend.
Buddy was a mentor to me and so many of us sports-writer types that came through Tech. As I thought about Buddy this weekend, I remembered an incident that made me smile. I was interning for Buddy in the mid 70s, covering prep sports. As part of my job during football season I wrote previews of upcoming games, focusing on the week's opponents for RHS and Cedar Creek. I was an RA on the 8th floor of Caruthers Dorm, using my dorm room phone to make the calls to interview the head coaches of the opponents. Buddy gave me a phone number to charge the calls to. After a few weeks I got a call from Ruston attorney Bert Hogg. He wanted to know who I was and why I was charging phone calls to his house phone number. I was mortified, and told him Buddy had given me the number. … It was the early days of Lady Techster basketball, and Buddy had been working for weeks, helping Sonja out in compiling her media guide. He was calling her so often the number stuck in his head when I asked him what number to charge the phone calls to. It all got straightened out, and we had a good laugh about it.
Buddy was a treasure for Ruston, Lincoln Parish and Louisiana Tech. Rest in Peace, Buddy.
I never met Buddy personally. But my late MIL adored him as a friend and mentor from her time at the RDL.
At age 22, I had the privilege of working with/for Buddy Davis at the Ruston Daily Leader for a few months before my graduation from LA Tech. For those of you that didn't know him, Buddy had a great work ethic, and he LOVED SPORTS. He was dedicated to his profession. And the man was a MACHINE, of productivity. In fact, Buddy's work ethic was exactly what I needed to see as a young adult about to enter the fulltime work force. As Sport Editor of the Ruston Daily Leader, it was not uncommon for Buddy to write 10 or 12 sports stories A DAY back then. I used to laugh because he had so many bylines. LOL! He also edited everyone else's' stories, and laid out the Sports page of the newspaper every night, usually until 1 or 2AM in the morning.
One of the assignments Buddy gave me back in the fall of 1979 was Grambling football. Thru that, I got to personally meet Coaching legend Eddie Robinson that fall. Later that same year, Buddy assigned me to cover the 1980 Sugar Bowl game in New Orleans between Alabama and Arkansas. That's when I met Bear Bryant. I'm guessing not a lot of 22-yr olds had the privilege of meeting two of the greatest coaching legends of all time in such a short time span and at such an early age. Thank You Buddy! Godspeed!
Wow! That's a great story!
He definitely was a machine. He covered junior high basketball, Dixie baseball and even reported on Tech and Ruston High Summer basketball camps.
My dad and O.K. Were friends back in the 70’s. The story my parents always told about him was not related to sports. They went to Blazing Saddles a couple of weeks after it came out at the theater in Ruston. On the way out they saw Buddy who proudly proclaimed that he had just seen the movie for the 18th time. Every time they saw him for the the next few weeks he would scream out a number. The last one they remembered was 47...
So funny! Was that The Dixie? It must have been late getting to Ruston. I went with college friends to see it next to the old mall on Louisville in Monroe.Quote:
Originally Posted by skilldawg
I think it was in the theater off of California, which would have still been relatively new then.
Rip bd
Buddy was an amazing guy. Gave me my start in journalism, and some of my most enjoyable moments were working for him.
The funeral was very nice. It was good to see so many faces. President Guice was there, as was Coach Barmore and Malcolm Butler. Jim Oakes did a great job with his eulogy and how important Buddy was to Louisiana Tech athletics over the past 50 years. Bert Jones also did a great job with his speech, as did Teddy Allen. Buddy was an institution and did outstanding work promoting all of the great athletes that came through Lincoln Parish through the years.
I have a lot of fun stories from my times with Buddy, but I wrote about my favorite story. I hope you enjoy reading it.
All great stories. Thanks, everyone, for sharing. I've enjoyed reading them.
My journalism experiences began with Buddy in 1974 when he took me to Grambling for a Tigers basketball game. The first guy he introduced me to? Former Prez R.W.E. Jones, a legend in his own right. And, then, Coach Eddie Robinson. THE Legend!
Saturday's funeral was a mini convention of all kinds of sports legends . . . or at least those who could attend. I sat with Mike McConathy, Lane Norsworthy and one of my favorite all-star restauranteurs, Dominic Cordaro. Baseballers George Stone and Eddie Holman were two rows ahead. That's just a sampling.
All the eulogies were heart-felt. Former AD Jim Oakes, former GSU baseball coach Wilbert Ellis, and writer Teddy Allen. I could hear Buddy is he walked in on the Presbyterian Church of Ruston on Saturday: "Dang, T-Mo. What a gathering."
Bert Jones was very close to Buddy, who started covering him in R-PAR youth baseball. "Bertram Hays Jones," Buddy would always call out to him.
Bert disclosed all his major speeches in his stellar NFL career were proofed and edited by Buddy (we always wondered how Buddy got "exclusive" advance coverage on Bert's honors).
All the thousands of people Buddy has written about will tell you seeing a story about them by Buddy was always positive and written in an upbeat manner (I'm still influenced by this process.
But Bert nailed it on his eulogy closer about the model community journalist : "Whenever I got copies of articles Buddy would write it was like receiving a letter from home."
Dang, Buddy, what are we supposed to do now?