We played in whatever we had, but we always won. “Sometimes we had on mismatched cleats, not the same shoe or same size shoe. “We had to borrow equipment,” said Perry Thomas, a quarterback on the team from 1964-67. He molded the hardscrabble young men he found in abundance at Richwood and delivered more than Goins or anyone else could have expected. The school at Terzia burned in 1960, forcing the move to the new Richwood High but Freeze was up to any challenge. When I got through, I had enough to play the whole year.” The coach at Neville and the coach at Northeast (now Louisiana-Monroe) sent for me. When they found I was having problems, the coach at West Monroe sent for me.
“There were some people around Richwood who were working around town and they started talking. “We had some good people around and they knew what was going on when I got there,” said Freeze, who began his coaching career at Montgomery High School. He was tasked to perform with a tiny budget, but a grassroots effort brought donated shoulder pads, shoes, pants and jerseys from area high schools and the local college program. Principal Goins challenged Freeze to mold something that would enhance the student experience at the rural north Louisiana school. The late Mary Frances Goins hired the former Grambling baseball star to start an athletics program at the old Terzia High School south of Monroe in 1954. Freeze, who becomes the oldest living person inducted at age 94, will enter the hall June 24-26 during the 2020 Induction Celebration which was postponed last year due to the coronavirus pandemic. Now decades after coaching his last game in 1967, Freeze has been selected for the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame. You teach them that if anybody can do it, you can too, if you try hard enough. “That old never-say-die attitude is what you have to teach kids. “I taught them about intestinal fortitude and the will to win,” the former Richwood High School coach said. What does it take to kick off a high school football dynasty?įor Louisiana coaching legend Mackie Freeze, the answer was a $300 budget, an assortment of hand-me-down equipment - and a unique brand of tough love that molded the willing into warriors.
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