To possess a copy of “Remember the Trojans & the Lumberjacks” is a privilege. First thoughts:
- If I waited to finish a full read before posting this book review, it would be around Labor Day. That’s how jam-packed are the 650 pages.
- Coach Dave Slaggert, along with the support team he assembled, has offered a timeless contribution to Saginaw’s local history that goes beyond a century of prep basketball and touches the community as a whole. As an educator and a coach, he may not have attained personal or family wealth, as anyone who has performed career service in education will testify. If his effort, with all the details involved in such a project, were measured in “time dollars,” it would no doubt exceed six figures, several times over. And that’s before he donates all proceeds to scholarships.
- For sure, “Trojans and Lumberjacks” is not simply a bunch of newspaper clippings and photographs that are tossed together. Even if Dave’s teaching specialty was not language arts, it could have been. In addition to his own writing, we see chapters authored by the following coaches and players, in chronological sequence: Dick Goodman, Gary Lee, Marshall Thomas (including a Charles Coles tribute), George Kubiak, Greg McMath, Lou Dawkins, Julian Taylor, Tony Davis, Eugene “Fookie” Seals and Jason Richardson. Slaggert’s own section is the longest, as we might expect. His writing may not be as slick as from the contributing journalists Hugh Bernreuter, Jack Tany and Ryan Slocum, but it’s still top-notch.
- We cannot say “it’s the type of book you can’t put down,” because you won’t pick it up to read in the first place because it weighs so much. It would be like reclining in your easy chair and holding up a bowling ball for hours on end. Probably you’ll want to sit at a table and spread it out. We already can see the keepsake quality in the binding, which Dave describes as an “heirloom” that should endure for another century without shredding. It’s a coffee-table item not only for decorative display, but for serious reading and viewing.
- We all will have our personal reactions and so following are some of mine. My first memory is my father, Wally Thompson — Arthur Hill 1932, football but not b-ball — walking me the three blocks to their games at the newer building during the early ’60s. We would sit in the balcony’s top row, and prior to our first ballgame in 1963, he assured me that yes, Craig Dill really would be as tall as the ceiling. !!!
- My mother-in-law is Beatrice Culpepper, who passed away in 2005 but remains alive in my own heart. She worked the Saginaw High popcorn concessions for years during Mr. Charles McNair’s time as assistant principal prior to becoming Morley Elem’s headmaster, and upon seeing the book, my spouse asked about first-cousin Roy Hinton, SHS Class of ’65. Turns out that not only is Roy within the pages, but so is his mother, Inez, in a feature article about the Trojans’ moms. Denise and the daughter, also named Inez, still chat on occasion, and it was with great pride that I showed her not only Roy on pages 118 and 119 and especially 124, but mother Inez on 117 as well. “Wow!” Dee exclaimed.
- In my own tenure in Saginaw News sportswriting, 1973 to 1982, my assignments mostly were the small-town schools and the parochials. An exception was at age 19, a big chance to report on Tony Smith and the Trojans at the newly opened Civic Center in the 1975 districts, not based on reporting merit but because the No. 1 sports scribe, Bill Ayvazian, was with CMU (Dan Roundfield and company) in the college tourney. For me, this fill-in chance was like being sent to the Super Bowl. Later, moving on up, I followed Charlie Coles’ final ’81-82 season, when their fifth and final defeat was in the regionals at the hands of emerging powerhouse Flint Northwestern. Each loss on the scoreboard was by one or two points. It showed me Coach Coles’ true class, grace in the face of such frustration.
- Check this out: We may think of WSGW (790 AM) as the radio mainstay back in the old days, with Howard Finger’s “pushes one up there, it’s up, it’s in and it’s good!” But for W-3-SOUL (107 FM), Dante Toussaint and Kermit Crockett formed a team for a spell. So in a visit to Dante to show him the book, he had a guest I never had encountered. Turns out it was Kermit! This prompted a full hour of nostalgia, and general agreement that their broadcasts were superior to the one last February for the reunion Hillite-Trojan showdown at TheDow. “It was all ads and I kept listening for the game score, and they were not even updating the score,” Kermit fumed. “When Dante and me did the games, we were there to serve the community.” They both regretted that they had not preserved an audio tape from at least one of their endeavors.
- And speaking of media, let us consider that Coach Thomas in retirement (he never has really retired) was the analyst for a few years on the state finals telecasts, in a role that Greg Kelser now fulfills.
- Most recently, my honor was to speak with Ernie Thompson over the telephone when Saginaw High reached the 2023 Final Four at Breslin, to gain his retrospective. He was such a gentleman, and he described his older-age loss of vision this way: “I now listen to games on television” without a hint of self-pity. He made my feature story an easy endeavor, like he was writing it himself: Breslin for 2023 Trojans; Jenison for 1962 champs
- In closing, the book’s large type is easy on the eyes and the photographs are stunning. My hard-news side salutes Coach Slaggert for not avoiding (while also not overdoing) the historic racial issues and some of the individual controversies. There is a picture of a post-game fight and another of a game in a closed-off gym, deemed sadly necessary at the time to preclude any more violence. To me, a proper balance is at work.
Copies are available for a bargain price of $40, cash or check only, at the Saginaw Promise scholarship office in the Community Foundation’s downtown headquarters in Morley Plaza behind the Temple Theater. Call (989) 755-0545. Home shipping costs an extra $14.
