Hey! How about those Indians! The Fair Park High School basketball team won a state championship Saturday night by beating Wossman. It's the first state title for Fair Park since 1963. I'm not a fan. I certainly did not attend a Fair Park game this year, or for the last five years or so. Still, this is a tremendous accomplishment for the school particularly because it's an inner city campus. For the community the school serves, and for the city as a whole, this should provide a real morale boost.
There was a time when there were just two high schools in town: Fair Park and Byrd. While Byrd maintains a tremendous cross-generational sense of community and school pride, Fair Park is quite the opposite. Over the last 30 years or so, Fiar Park has become overwhelmingly African-American. That's simply an observation. Sadly, a lot of alumni simply aren't involved and just don't care anymore. Byrd boasts general reunions and is widely known as "The City of Byrd." Fair Park is just kind of the school across from the fairgrounds now.
This state championship will be deeply meaningful for Fair Park. The Indians' veteran coach, Ronald Preston, is a nice man and obviously an excellent coach. He has been close to achieving this dream several times. By all accounts, he has had teams which were much more talented. Coming down a couple of notches in classification may have helped, but that fact in no way diminishes this accomplishment. There's something to celebrate on Greenwood Road, and that has to be good for the whole city of Shreveport, with the possible exception of the City of Byrd.
Sunday, March 12, 2006
Something to Celebrate on Greenwood Road
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3 comments:
GO BYRD!!!
8)
Fair Park alumni can use a boost. After the consent decree in the early 1970s, the school became racially polarized. One of my friends who graduated from there around 1974 or 1975 told me that there were two 10-year reunions for his year, one being for black alumni, the other for white alumni. A lot of Fair Park grads haven't felt good about their school in a long time. Good going, Indians! Congratulations.
i went to fair park high school from 1989 to 1993.we had some good basketball teams . 1989- 90 won district title. doug williams fair park's star basketball was killed couple weeks after the indians lost in the playoffs .1992-93won district title .should have won state , lost in the semifinals .it felt great when fair park won state hoops title.would love to see the alumni black and white work together to return fair park to it's glory days.
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