The following column from the Best of West collection was originally published in the Port Arthur News on Sept. 2, 1982



     Alex Durley's football coaching credentials are what you'd call  impeccable.  A brilliant offensive mind, he paid his dues while making well-documented contributions as the top assistant on the staffs of Clifton Ozen at Hebert and Derral Davis and Steve McCarty at South Park.

     When the time came to name Ozen's successor at Hebert, Durley was not just the logical choice, he was the only choice.  Seven years later, a glittering record of 76-7-2, along with four district championships, three trips to the semifinals and one state title left no doubt he was the right choice.

     For all the success, however, for a won-loss record few coaches in Texas can match, Durley is a man on trial in 1982. As the first head coach of the West Brook Bruins, he'll spend the season trying to walk a tight rope between winning and keeping a football program in Beaumont's most affluent area from becoming too black.

     How well Durley is able to cope will be watched with considerable interest around District 22-5A. If the athletic merging of Hebert and Forest Park can be pulled off with only minor hitches, a dynasty figures to be in the making.

     West Brook will field three teams on the eighth grade level, two in the ninth and 10th grade and one junior varsity squad. That’s a feeder system guaranteed to make coaches drool.

     There is no guarantee; however, that major roadblocks, not minor hitches are going to impede Durley and West Brook. Beaumont-Charlton-Pollard, for example, a school born of similar circumstances to West Brook, has never been much of an athletic force.

     It has, though, been beset with problems, many of them racial in nature.

     Problems have been fewer at West Orange-Stark, but Steve McCarty, West Orange-Stark's first head coach after the joining of Stark and West Orange High Schools, recalls how shaky things were in the beginning. And McCarty wasn't dealing with an atmosphere where blacks and whites were forced together.

     "We were fortunate in a lot of ways, because we had some good linemen from Stark and some excellent skill position kids from West Orange who blended well together," remembers McCarty, now head coach at Nacogdoches. "But, even with a good mix of starters from both schools, there was intense pressure because some people just didn't want it to work.

     "We dominated our first game and lost 3-0, then PN-G blew us out the second week. The negative forces were saying 'Aha, I told you it wouldn't work.' If we hadn't managed to bounce back and have a winning season, I hate to think what might have happened. As it was, my weight dropped to 182 pounds and I hadn't been that low in years."

     Durley is well aware of the obstacles which must be overcome, cognizant that he's a black coach in a highly volatile atmosphere. Try to get below the surface with him, try to pry open his true feelings and he proceeds cautiously. But he's honest enough to discuss some of the realities confronting him.

     "It's a unique type of situation, and I'm having to do some things I wouldn't normally do to try and make it work," he begins.  "We're trying awfully hard to keep (white) kids in the program, so it won't go all black like some of the other schools have. I hear all the time West Brook will wind up just like French and B-C-P."

     One of the concessions Durley's made in practice is to not be quite as demanding, to not push quite as hard as he did at Hebert. But, as you might imagine, the approach didn't escape the notice of former Hebert players. They called his hand, asked why he was going soft.

     "Kids are sharp, you don't fool them," he says. "I told them to let me worry about the coaching and I think they accepted it. If I push as hard right now as I did at Hebert, I'm going to have some people quit on me. I don't want that to happen. Sometimes you just have to adjust. Our workouts will get tougher."

     Although he's making exceptions to try and encourage white participation, Durley is like most coaches when it comes to the bottom line. The team West Brook sends out against Lincoln Friday night will contain his best players. And approximately 18 of the top 22 will be black.

     "I know I'm going to get hit in the face with the number of white kids," he concedes. "But I also know I'm expected to win. If I don't win, the numbers won't matter anyway. What I'm looking for are quality football players. Right now we happen to have more good black players. It could change. I don't care about color. I'm looking for quality players."

     No matter how much he'd like to put the race issue in the background, Durley can't get away from it. Besides the whites who'll be upset with the overwhelming number of black starters, he returns to the black community to hear grousing about a varsity coaching staff with six white assistants and just two blacks.

     "The blacks don't understand the ratio. I hear lots of talk about it," he admits. "Just like the other kind of talk, there's not much I can do about it. My salvation is the kids. They're not as caught up in the racial stuff. They know who the best players are. I really haven't had any major problems with them."

     McCarty, for one, doubts there is a better coach in Texas for the West Brook situation. "He's a heckuva football coach, one of the best offensive minds I've ever been around. Most important for what he's facing there, though, Alex doesn't play favorites. The white kids who played for us at South Park would be the first ones to tell you that.

     "I know he's going to catch some heat, that's inevitable. But I also know he'll be able to sell those kids on the fact that they're the ones who are going to establish the personality, the tradition for the West Brook Bruins. What they do this year will be remembered for a long, long time.

     “This group of kids can set a good pattern or a bad one. I'm betting it's a good one. Alex will appeal to their pride, and he'll get the job done."

     If he does, rank the accomplishment right alongside side his 15-0 Hebert state champion. No, I take that back.  Rank it above those unbeaten Panthers. In comparison to the mountain that must be climbed at West Brook, winning the state title at Hebert was all downhill.

    Sports editor Bob West can be e-mailed at rdwest@usa.net. His Sportsrap radio show airs Wednesdays at 8:05 p.m. on KLVI (560-AM)