At 85 years old, Leta Andrews may no longer be winning basketball games as a coach, but she still knows how to win hearts, as evidenced by her recent appearance before the Zonta Club of Parker County.
I’ve known Leta for almost a quarter century. We first met when I covered a basketball tournament in Granbury for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in the late ‘90s. Over the next few years occasion called for us to speak on the phone a time or two for this or that, and then I became the sports editor at the Hood County News, which is when our friendship really took flight.
By the way, I keep hearing her referred to as the winningest high school basketball coach in history. Unless somewhere on this planet there is someone we haven’t heard of that has more than 1,416 wins, Leta is the winningest basketball coach in the world, including the NBA and all levels of college.
But as much fun as it was watching her win basketball games (she won 80%), hearing her address a crowd has always been just as enjoyable.
And it was nice to see she hasn’t lost her spark as she was joined by former Miss Texas (1982) Gloria Gilbert Barron onstage at North Side Baptist Church in a question-answer format. on Oct. 5. It should also be noted that Barron came extremely well-prepared with great questions.
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Women of Power Hour!” Barron exclaimed as the interview began.
Barron said it was an honor to meet one of her own heroes and recalled her own daughter and herself meeting Leta for the first time.
“She influenced me when she was supposed to be influencing my daughter,” Barron said with a laugh.
Leta never misses an opportunity to reflect on her upbringing and the structured environment that she has often said helped make her the success she became. She recalled how every day she and her sisters had to pull 50 pounds of cotton before dinner.
“My basketball girls can never complain about how hard I worked them,” she said, then reflecting on a time when they were late to a game because they had to finish work first.
“He (the coach) knew we weren’t out getting in trouble, that we were working,” she said.
Before she was a coach, Leta was an outstanding basketball player. In back-to-back years (1953-54 and 1954-55) she led the Granbury Lady Pirates to a berth in the state championship game.
She credits much of her playing ability to her father putting up a basketball goal - and where he put it.
“He put it up in the chicken pen. It made all of us good rebounders,” she said, drawing a laugh from the crowd.
Along with being a great coach, Leta was a great English teacher. She was named the Walt Disney National Teacher of the Year in 1993.
One of her pet peeves as a teacher? Reciting the pledge of allegiance.
“Don’t pause after ‘One nation.’ People will say ‘One nation,’ take a deep breath, but that’s not right,” she explained. “You say it straight through, One nation under God, with no pause.”
Before becoming a teacher, Leta was a counselor, a trait she carried throughout her career, helping her players learn much more than making baskets. She recalled the moment she decided to move from that to teaching, when she told a young girl her father loved her.
Leta said the girl lifted her skirt to show the top of her legs, which were battered and bruised, saying, “Mrs. Andrews, you call that love?”
“These kids tell everything to teachers, so you’d better be careful around the house,” Leta said. “Being kind isn’t always easy or convenient, but it has the ability to change everything.”
Leta was great friends with another legend, the late UCLA men’s basketball coach John Wooden. I had heard that he screened all his calls — which I found to be true. However, when I was leaving a message, all I had to say was that I was calling about Leta. Immediately, he picked up with a cheery, “Hello Rick! You bet, I can talk about Leta for a week.”
And indeed we did proceed to have a lengthy conversation about one of both of our favorite persons.
“He wouldn’t say, ‘Have a good day.’ He’d say, ‘You go make it a good day,’” Leta said was part of her favorite memories of Wooden. “I taught that to all my students. You have to work at it.”
She spoke almost in tears of her late husband David, who passed away in 2018 after 62 years of marriage. Together they raised three daughters who went on to great success of their own. Daughter Linda is also a retired high school basketball coach who is alongside her mother in the Texas High School Basketball Hall of Fame.
“He (David) was one of the best people on God’s green earth. He was a really good administrator because he was so kind,” Leta said. “He’d never raise his voice to a teacher.”
And when it came to her retiring, she recalled this conversation with him.
“I told David if we get beat today I’m going to hang it up. He said, ‘Let me get a piece of paper and write this down,’” she remembered with a chuckle.
Leta has always known how to shock folks also. She recalled one time when she was driving the team bus back from Fort Worth and they passed through Whiskey Flats (aka Wheatland) on Highway 377.
Leta pulled the bus over next to a topless bar to the surprise of the team. When one of the girls asked why, Leta said with a straight face, “I don’t have any Christmas money. I’m going to go in and work here for a little bit.”
While she didn’t go in, she did hide out for a few minutes, continuing the joke.
“The next day girls were saying, ‘Mrs. Andrews worked at this topless bar,” which, of course, Leta quickly clarified, noting the joke was actually on her.
Mention Leta’s name anywhere in this big ol’ United States and odds are someone has met her or knows of her reputation. She’s good friends with so many, from the previously mentioned Wooden to Dr. Ben Carson to all-time great former University of Tennessee women’s basketball coach the late Pat Summitt and many more.
Leta reminisced on some advice from Summitt, who spent her latter days battling Alzheimer’s.
“Take coconut oil. You may not like coconut oil, but hold your nose and take it,” Leta said, adding in her typical fashion with a laugh. “I’d go eat cow manure if it would help.”
As the interview neared a close, Leta revealed news of a possible movie about her life. She said possible leads are Oscar winners Sandra Bullock as her (though Bullock is thinking of retiring to spend more time with her children) and Matthew McConaughey as David.
Personally, should Bullock withdraw, I could see Jessica Chastain in the role of Leta.
Leta said a group came down from Oklahoma City and did some preliminary shooting. “They told me I need to get an entertainment lawyer,” she said.
Leta is already the subject of a major documentary film titled “It’s All in the Game: The Leta Andrews Story.” It’s narrated by Hall of Famer Bill Walton.
Junell and I were there when it first screened — in Granbury, of course.
As for what lies ahead, expect Leta to keep inspiring and entertaining. As she told a coach in the audience who asked, she does not watch games thinking she might have called a play better — but she does catch as many Granbury Lady Pirate games as she can.
Her grandson Sawyer, who is now a freshman at the University of Texas, gave her inspiration when he was younger that she said she is now seeing to fruition. After asking her about how long she expects to live, he told her, “Don’t worry grandmother, you’ll go into overtime.”
“I guess I’ve gone into overtime,” Leta said.
And here’s hoping it’s still a long time before the final buzzer sounds.
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