It’s elementary, my dear Curley
Curley Hallman was LSU’s head coach from 1990 to 1993, compiling a losing record in all four seasons. This past Valentine’s Day, Hallman married Alabama State Rep. Tammy Irons of Florence. His last coaching job was at Muscle Shoals (Ala.) before resigning after the 2007 season. Today Hallman is a physical education teacher at McBride Elementary School in Muscle Shoals.
Faster than a speeding receiver
Xavier Carter came to LSU as a football player, but he made his mark as a sprinter. When he became only the second person to win four gold medals in one NCAA championship meet (2006), the X man left the gridiron to turn pro in track. He’s now training in Orlando with an eye on the 2012 Olympics.
Astronaut lands in a happy place
DeWayne “The Astronaut” Scales, so nicknamed for his leaping abilities while a starter at LSU (1978-80), played three seasons in the NBA—two for the New York Knicks and one for the then-Washington Bullets. Now, Scales drives 18-wheelers in Dallas. “He’s happy as a lark,” says former LSU Coach Dale Brown.
Hi on life in Baton Rouge
Howard “Hi-C” Carter led LSU to the 1981 Final Four. The Redemptorist graduate still lives and works in Baton Rouge.
Earl of his suburb
Lester Earl was a star at Glen Oaks and a significant recruit for LSU, but then the high-jumping power forward suddenly transferred to Kansas. An NCAA investigation ensued, ultimately putting LSU on probation. Earl’s career at KU was nondescript. He now lives in a Kansas City suburb.
One and won
Last fall, Warren Capone coached Christian Life Academy to the championship game of the Class 1A Louisiana state football playoffs. The All-American linebacker at LSU (1971-73) had a four-year pro career, but 2008 was his first coaching gig and marked CLA’s first trip to the Superdome.
Mobile Stromile
Stromile Swift came to LSU from Shreveport, and in his second season, he exploded into the national college basketball scene. He led the Tigers to the NCAA Tournament’s round of 16. Then, he was gone to the NBA, taken by Vancouver (but soon to be Memphis Grizzlies) as the second pick in the 2000 draft. His career has been up and down, at best—from five seasons with the Grizzlies to a season with Houston and two more in Memphis before being traded again, this time to New Jersey. Swift has averaged 8.7 points and 4.7 rebounds in his career.
Rehage still likes the hits
Few players hit harder and played with more reckless abandon than Steve Rehage, an LSU defensive back from 1983 to 1986. He’s now more interested in the musical kind of hit as owner of Rehage Entertainment, which produces the VooDoo Music Experience and Essence music festivals in New Orleans and the annual EIF Revlon Run/Walk for Women in New York City in May.
Self-made man
After growing up in New Orleans, Avery Johnson became a wayward junior-college transfer to Southern University. He sat out a season before leading the Jaguars to two of their best seasons ever while leading the nation in assists. He wasn’t even drafted, yet scratched out an incredible NBA career from 1988 to 2003 that included stops with six teams, including winning the 1999 NBA title with San Antonio. He was the 2006 NBA Coach of the Year for the Dallas Mavericks. After being fired, he’s now part of ESPN’s NBA studio analysis team.
Risher, not poorer
LSU’s quarterback from 1980 to 1982, Alan Risher went on to a career in the NFL and USFL. He coached the Baton Rouge Blaze indoor team in 2001, and now he’s a broker for the Baton Rouge company Sunbelt, which arranges sales of businesses.
Major overachiever
Few maximized their on-field talent like Catholic High graduate Major Applewhite did at Texas. Although just about everyone thought he was too short and too slow to quarterback the Longhorns, he left Austin as one of the winningest and most beloved players in school history. Since his playing days he’s gone on to establish himself as an outstanding coach. He started at Texas as a graduate assistant, was quarterbacks coach at Syracuse, offensive coordinator at Rice and then at Alabama under Nick Saban, and last year returned to Texas where he is assistant head coach to Mack Brown and coach of the running backs.
Pokey lands in Moscow
Pokey Chatman, the former LSU basketball star, longtime assistant coach and then head coach who resigned under fire right before the 2007 Final Four, is now assistant head coach of the woman’s professional team Spartak in Moscow. Chatman still makes regular visits to Baton Rouge, where her mother lives.
Hodson power
Tommy Hodson, the former star quarterback for LSU (1986-88), is a partner in a Baton Rouge electrical-utility sales agency. Hodson coaches middle school basketball in his spare time.
Dunbar making his mark
A product of Opelousas, Karl Dunbar enjoyed a nice career as a defensive lineman at LSU during some tough times for the Tigers (1988–1992) that launched him into a seven-year NFL and WFL career. But Dunbar has made his strongest mark as a coach. He’s now the defensive line coach for the Minnesota Vikings, but that came after being defensive coordinator at Beau Chene High School, an assistant at Nicholls State and then LSU, a stint at Oklahoma State (where he worked for current LSU coach Les Miles), two seasons as D-line coach for the Chicago Bears, and then serving as Miles’ assistant head coach in 2005.
Archer gets defensive in the Carolinas
LSU’s head football coach from 1987 to 1990, Mike Archer has been the defensive coordinator at N.C. State since 2007, capping a career in which he’s been, among other things, an assistant in various forms at the University of Kentucky and the linebackers coach for the Pittsburgh Steelers from 1996 to 2002.
DiNardo is in the booth
When he came to LSU, Gerry DiNardo did something no other LSU coach had ever done in the school’s storied football history: He won bowl games in each of his first three years, including one over his successor, Nick Saban, who was then with Michigan State. DiNardo was credited for reviving the program with his “Bring Back the Magic” tour. But two tough years ended his LSU career, and DiNardo coached elsewhere, including a short-lived XFL pro league in Birmingham, and then at Indiana University, where he lasted three seasons.
Now the affable DiNardo is an analyst with the Big Ten TV network and does radio work in Chicago, where he lives. He’s also branching out, teaming up with former Michigan coach Lloyd Carr at executive search firm DHR International. The pair will specialize in helping hire coaches.
Counting years instead of NFL dollars
His future was bright, but it faded fast. Cecile “The Diesel” Collins was so strong, so fast and so talented that Miami Dolphins Head Coach Jimmy Johnson picked him up after only a six-game career at LSU, and despite his past conviction for sexually accosting women.
But before Collins could make an impact on the football field in Miami, he broke into the apartment of a married couple to—as he told it—watch a woman he’d met at the gym “sleep.” Still on probation from his crimes in Baton Rouge, he was convicted of burglary and sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Today, Collins is a long-term guest at Hendry Correctional Institution in South Florida, 50 short miles from the Dolphins training facility. He’s scheduled to remain there until 2014.
“It’s a dream that passed me by,” Collins said of his NFL career in a 2006 jailhouse interview with a South Florida CBS affiliate.
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