Foe of Jesse Helms and the CNP, Lincolnesque Figure in Authentic Baptist Life, Randall Lolley has died

   A Lincolnesque figure of the last quarter of the 20th Century in Baptist life, Randall Lolley has died. Baptist News Global has a report this morning placing his denominational life in context for the best of the Baptist Tradition, easy google. He was ninety years old.

    In 1993 Cecil Sherman told me in Greensboro NC convocation of the CBF, Bill Friday, long time chancellor of the UNC system and popular weekend pundit across the state on NC PBS; Sherman told me Friday said the most significant event in the State of NC for the 80s decade was the fundamentalist ouster of Lolley from the Presidency of Southeastern Baptist Seminary in the little town of Wake Forest where the University was till early 50s when it moved to Greensboro.

    Friday said Jesse Helms right wing of the Republican party hardwired to the Council for National Policy knew that with replacing Lolley they could get into the headset of future generation of Baptist preachers and bend them toward the right that evolved into the Trump Base.

    His view was shared by Ellen Rosenberg who wrote about Southern Baptist in transition. In a personal letter to me late eighties she said when they got all their building blocks in place, "they will move."

    Bill Friday and Rosenberg were spot on. Churches like FBC Spartanburg SC, home of Trey Gowdy are struck mute about all this. This chapter in Baptist life is largely forgotten at historically Baptist schools like Furman, Mercer, Samford, Stetson. Few at Baylor know the significance of all this.

   Recently Robert Jones in Religion News had a piece Shutting Down the Critical Race Theory Debate. He quotes the Lee Atwater Nigger Nigger Nigger memo that helped shape the Republican party today on guns, abortion and CRT. Imami Perry in her recent book South Toward Home and Frye Galliard and Cynthia Tucker in the Southernization of Southern Politics are on to all this.

   As Dennis Hopper said in Paris Trout, All Ether County gonna hear about this

   And Lolley as a native of Troy Alabama and a graduate of Samford, many of us are gonna make sure Katie Britt, the hand picked successor of Richard Shelby to be the next Senator from Alabama, they know about all this so maybe they can distinguish a real Baptist and their voting dispositions toward Justice, can distinguish a real Baptist like Lolley and Judge Frank John and Hugo Black from a Hole in the Ground.

    My Father was a Seminary classmate of Randall Lolley. He loved the guy and the feeling was mutual, and they both loved the great Baptist Stewart A Newman who stood up to a racist WA Criswell in 1956 like Lolley stood up to Helms and his minions in the eighties.

    The summer before the fundies ousted Lolley, at the Baptist Convocation in Atlanta, Lolley addressed the Convention. My Dad and I were at a live stream TV set up in Rome Ga. About forty chairs set up with a big screen tv. My Dad and I were the only one in the room. Lolley comes on and starts telling the truth. My Dad goes up to the Big screen, is crying and in the best of Baptist enthusiams has his fist raised talking loudly to Lolley Onscreen, " You tell em Randall, You Tell em!"

High School girls Basketball

   Caroline Brannon of Collinsville Alabama facebook post today is she can't believe its been two years since they won the 2a state championship in Alabama. They got it in before the Covid Shut down but I had been knocked in the ditch on my bicycle and was not in Birmingham to see them win Glory.

     The year before they had a battle with Kirby Deboard's Sand Rock HS just seven miles away, four games that one year and it was Hoosiers every encounter. Packed house at both places. Collinsville was upset in a sudden death game and didnt make it to JSU where the regionals took place. I think Sand Rock came in second that year, lost in the finals.

    This year the player of note is McCall King whose great Grandmother is an Agnes Scott grad, a helluva a Rook player and a friend of my sister. McCall plays for Christ Church prep, the Darlington ga prep  of SC and is Miss 2a player of the year.

     I saw her yesterday in the Upstate SC semis played at Bob Jones University. She's as good as advertised, as close to a Larry Bird on the court/slash Danny Ainge, as I have seen in female flesh. She is going to UNC Wilmington next year.

    Last year McCall and her Episcopal preps were taken out by Mikala logan and the Blacksburg Wildcats, across the Broad River from Gaffney. Mikala's Grandfather Duck used to wander up from across the hwy in Gaffney and play backyard football with us. His mother worked at LYnns burger stand where my father helped during rush hour. Duck got good in HS and got a scholarship to SC State.

     I wish Bburg played em again but they got beat in first round.

    Is McCall as good as Kirby Deboard or Collinsville's Tyla Tatum, who is to say. Woulda been great to see these girls play against each other. I think NE Bama coulda held their own but woulda been exciting basketball to see Kirby Deboard's determination match the chess game and near perfect fundamentals of the game of McCall.

    And even better to have seen them in a Round Robin against Hayesville NC HS who were state champs three years in a row mid 80s.

    Best I ever saw was Fyffe Alabama Heather Mayes. Miss Basketball Alabama mid 90s who started varsity in 7th Grade. Susan Booger Weaver called me about the fifth year I lived in Bama and said go stand in the cold at the Safe Way store on the Insterstate. Me and Nah Nah will pick you up there and take you to Fyffe. I'm thinking why do I want to go to Fyffe Alabama near the end of the world, closer to Mississippi in cow land to see a girls HS playoff game. We get there. Place is packed out thirty minutes before the game starts. It gets quiet, game begins and it is pandemonium crackerland where you even think my daughter is not the greatest and its your ass. Then I saw this by then 8th grader throw a Larry Bird pass one handed from under the basket to opposite goal on target and I'm thinking Damn, she's for real.

    PS Its a shame the Gaffney girls of early 70s had to play rover ball half court. Lillian Ashley, Emily MCcraw, Susan Peeler coulda been contenders and near dynasty as Dinal Hamrick, LockHart Harris, Clark Price's Sister Anne and others came along. There was a lot of Drama when they asked for my money, The Coach who had a run with Jr High Girls bucking the old boys system all the way to a state hearing in a football town.

   MCall plays this friday at Noon on WMYA in Aiken. Mikala was supposed to be on the roster for Limestone this year, but a no show. Maybe she will turn up in the fall.