The Baytown Sun (Baytown, Tex.), Vol. 88, No. 122, Ed. 1 Friday, May 2, 2008 Page: 4 of 16
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OPINION
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THE BAYTOW SUN
Friday, May 2,2008
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
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teacher’s certificate (at the time a degree was- he declined, something he would later say he
n’t necessary to teach in West Virginia), and regretted. Robinson scouted some of the ,
ESL woes
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SEE WILSON • PAGE 6A
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Saluting Baytown^ new
police chief Keith Dougherty
Editorial written by David Bloom,
managing editor of The Bay town Sun, on
behalf of the newspaper’s editorial board.
David Bloom
Managing Editor
Luke Hales
City Editor
M. A. Bengtson
Community member
WRITE TO US
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of up to 300 words and
guest columns of up to 500
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THE 7
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Publisher Emeritus
1950-1974
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HOW TO REACH US
Clifton E. “Cliff” Clements,
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Government officials
Federal
George W. Bush,
President
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president®
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Vice President
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EDITORIAL BOARD
CWtonE. “Cliff” Clements
Edrtor/Putfcter
Jim Finley
retired Managing Editor
Jay Eshbach
Community member
West Virginia State in
1937, (later earning a mas-
ter’s degree from the
University of Michigan),
Robinson moved to
Pittsburg, working at a
neighborhood recreation
center and coaching bas-
RAY WILSON ketball.
———-—- In 1943, Robinson got his
first high school coaching
job at Chicago’s DuSable High School
coaching basketball and swimming. A year
later, he began a 26-year coaching stint in
Detroit where his teams would dominate
NBA championships in 1989 and 1990,
including Isaiah Tomas, Dennis Rodman,
John Salley and Joe Dumars.
Robinson’s life disproves the adage that the
writer.
We publish only original
material addressed to The
Baytown Sun bearing the
writer’s signature. An
address and phone number
not for publication should be
included. All letters and
guest columns are subject to
editing, and the Sun
should include a photo of the reserves the right to refuse
1
Chief Dougherty
Attention citizens of Baytown:
Please become acquainted with our
new Police Chief Keith Dougherty.
He is well qualified and is always
there ready to assist us any way he
can. I have known him for a number
of years and he puts his whole being
. into whatever job he is assigned to
do. He was chairman of the Police
Scholarship Fund when I first met
him
Congratulations Keith and we are
pleased about your appointment as
Baytown Police Chief.
Velma J. Ansley-Nelson
Baytown
successfill coaches in Michigan history. His
Pershing High School teams won the state
basketball championship in 1967 and 1970.
Five playefs of the 1967 team became profes-
sional athletes including Spencer Haywood
who would later change the dynamics of pro-
fessional basketball.
In the early f960s, Robinson began work-
ing part-time as a scout for the National
Football League’s Detroit Lions, becoming
the first black professional football scout.
The Lions assigned him to the black colleges,
. where in 1967 he recommended a young
Jackson State University, (Mississippi) defen-
sive back named Lem Barney who became a
perennial all-pro and NFL hall of famer.
In 1969, the University of Detroit offered
Robinson the head basketball-coaching job,
abruptly withdrew the offer. A year later in
1970, Robinson made basketball history by
becoming the first black coach to head a
N.C.A-A. Division I basketball program
when he was named head coach of the
Illinois State University basketball team
where he coached for the next five years,
never having a losing season. One his play-
ers, Doug Collins made the All-American
team and played on the ill-fated 1972 U. S.
Olympic basketball team. Collins had a suc-
cessful National Basketball Association
career as a player and coach, and is now a
NBA basketball TV analysis.
In 1975, Robinson left coaching to work
full time for the Detroit Piston as assistant to
the president of basketball operations and
head of scouting. He would work for the
Pistons for the next 28 years, retiring in 2005
at the age of 92. The Pistons once offered
Robinson the team’s head coaching job, but
What is wrong with the ESL pro-
gram? Are you kidding?Go to an ele-
mentary school in GCCISD that has
ESL. The problem with the ESL
Program is that they do not teach
English!
When the ESL program was at
Crockett Elementary many years ago,
I was appalled that the students that
were in the ESL Class were taught in
Spanish. When I asked about it I was
told that they had an English
Language Class in their curriculum
but the rest of the subjects were
taught in Spanish.
Some of these students were the
same students from kindergarten to
5th grade and by their 5th grade year
they still did not know enough
English to communicate with the
other students. They even had their
parties separate from all of the rest of
the students. It was a real eye opener
forme as I thought that the purpose
, of the ESL class was to teach the stu-
dents to speak, read and write in
English so that they could be inte-
grated in with the rest of their grade
level students.
Disns Robberson Beckham
Baytown
The danger of
Prom weekend
First I want to thank the Sun for its
continuing coverage of the possible
rebirth of the Castle Fun Center -
building as a safe, firn, and nurturing
place for the youth in our community
to go. With God’s help and the com-
mitted efforts of us, the concerned
citizens of the Baytown, Highlands,
and Mt. Belvieu area, it will happen.
Today, however I wanted to address
a danger that is upon us and the
opportunity we have to do something
about it. For the next 3 weekends a
number of our High School Seniors
will experience the fun that is Prom
weekend at the Beach. Unfortunately,
there will be a number of them that
will also receive a mixed message
from their parents and the parents of
their friends. All year long they have
been told that under aged drinking is
wrong and illegal.
But on this weekend some of our
kids will be told that it is all right, as
long as some adults are there to
supervise. I have personally seen this
three times as my own children made
their way through the High School
experience. Each time it scared the
dickens out of me that someone was
going to get hurt or die. No one did,
but what did occur was a horrible
message was conveyed to them by of
all people, their parents.,
We all care about the kids in our
community, even those who don’t
live under our roof. Most of the time
we cannot help other parents protect
their kids or influence their attitudes.
Here is an opportunity to do just that.
I implore you parents of the Seniors
who about to spend a Prom weekend
at the beach to talk to your kids and
the parents of the other kids and
change this ridiculous tradition. For
the sake of your children make a pact
to eliminate the alcohol on this week-
end as you have tried to do on the
other 51 weekends during the year.
Let’s not wait until we lose one of
- these future leaders to an accident or
drowning to come to bur senses and
take the alcohol out of prom week-
end. Let’s stop giving our kid’s the
mixed signal that it’s OK to violate
the law if you are with an adult. The
child you save may be your own.
Mike Wilson
Baytown
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This past Monday, April 28, Will Robinson
a legendary African-American sports figure
died at the age of 96 in a Detroit hospital.
Although well known in sports circles, espe-
cially in and around Detroit, few people out-
side the sports world knew Robinson and
how he helped changed the face and dynam-
ics of college and professional basketball.
I had the privilege of meeting Robinson in
the summer of 1962. At the time, he was the
basketball coach at Detroit’s Pershing High.
School. His teams played an up-tempo, but
discipline, style, pressing full court on
defense. Robinson’s teams began using full
court pressure in the 1940s, and he believed
that they were the first to use it throughout an Detroit basketball, becoming one of most
entire game.
Bom William Joseph Robinson in 1911, in
Wadesboro, N.C., Robinson moved to
Steubenville, Ohio with his grandparents
after the death of both his parents.
Steubenville, a southeast Ohio industrial
town located just across the Ohio River from
West Virginia, had only one high school,
where both black and white students attend-
ed. A versatile athlete, Robinson earned 14-
varsity letters in. five sports, football, basket-
ball, baseball, track and golf. He became the
school’s first black quarterback, one of the
many first he accomplished in his lifetime.
-Steubenville went undefeated his senior year,
not allowing a point all season.
While in junior high, Robinson began
working as a caddie at the local country club.
There he developed a love for golf and under
the tutelage of the club’s golf pro, Robinson
became an outstanding golfer. During his
senior, year, Robinson captained
Steubenville’s golf team to the high school '
state championship tournament. However;
when the team arrived in Columbus, tourna-
ment officials informed them that the tourna-
ment site did not allow blacks to play. After a
protest from the team’s coach, a compro- ■
mised was reach and Robinson was allowed
to play the course by him self-beginning at 7
a. m., with the rest of the team beginning
play after he finished. Despite playing alone,
with just a tournament official observing,
Robinson Scored low enough to finish second
■_ in the state tournament.
After high school and with the country still
in the throes of the Great Depression.
Robinson moved to West Virginia, obtained a
"NOT ME/" . . . "IDAKNOW?"
began teaching and coaching at a segregated piayeis that led the team to back-to-back ’
black school. After two years, the school dis- ‘ ........
trict lacked funds to pay him, Robinson quit
and enrolled in West Virginia State College,
earning 15 varsity letters in four sports, foot-
ball, baseball, basketball, and of all things
gymnastics.
After earning a bachelor’s degree from
X—^apt. Keith Dougherty, 50, has headed
■ the Baytown Police Department since
Feb. 1 as interim chief. We think the
decision to keep him there is a great one.
City Manager Garry Brumback announced
Tuesday that Dougherty had
been selected to take the
P°l’ce position perma-
I nently. Baytown City Council
|| must approve Dougherty, but
we expect full council support
for the 25-year veteran of the
nniirunnv Baytown Police Department.
Brumback is enthusiastic
about his decision: “He’s intelligent, he is a
tremendous leader and he has been part of
this community and the police force for a
long time. He’s held every position you can
in the department, except chief. But what
impressed me the most was that since becom-
ing interim chief, he has done exactly what I
would have expected him to do. He’s made a
gigantic statement. He’s energized the depart-
ment.”
Chief Dougherty, 50, came to BPD in
1982. He has worked in the patrol, investiga-
tions and internal affairs departments.
Dougherty has been named the Officer of
the Year by the Baytown Chamber of
Commerce, and earned special commenda-
tions earlier this year for entering into a burn-
ing building and to save a life and for captur-
ing an armed robber on foot who had stabbed
a store clerk.
Dougherty said his top priority is reducing
crime and increasing public safety, and he
hopes to strengthen the initiatives he has
already put in place. He also wants to make
officers more visible in the community, get-
ting to know citizens and allowing them to be
more attuned to anything out of the ordinary.
Baytown is likely to keep growing in the
next several years. It’s going to face new
problems. We need a chief with an open and
creative mind to deal with problems as they
arise; yet we also need a chief with old-fash-
ioned respect for the law.
Our new chief has a reputation as a man ,
who’ll go beyond mere enforcement of the
law to try to solve community problems. He
also has a reputation for being forthright and
determined.
There are many reasons to believe Chief
Dougherty will be just the person to guide
the force, and the city, into a new phase.
We congratulate Dougherty for his selec-
tion and wish him well as he officially begins
the job of Baytown police chief.
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Clements, Clifford E. The Baytown Sun (Baytown, Tex.), Vol. 88, No. 122, Ed. 1 Friday, May 2, 2008, newspaper, May 2, 2008; Baytown, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1191414/m1/4/: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Sterling Municipal Library.