I’ve known Nadir Dalleh literally since the beginning of his life because I lived next door to him when he was a baby. I kept a close eye on him when he became a Brownwood Lion basketball player. I honestly believe he may have been the hardest working basketball player I’ve ever been around. He made himself a player, then a good player, and then a VERY good player. He was good enough where Howard Payne wanted him and he played on their championship teams back in the day. He then became a coach, a very good high school coach with a lot of victories, and now is the Head Basketball Coach at Howard Payne. I have no doubt that he will do a great job there.
Interestingly enough, my story with Nadir has absolutely nothing to do with basketball – but football. Back in the mid ‘90’s, he also served a while as Sports Information Director at HP. One of his jobs in that capacity was to get me to the games and help with the broadcasts. We were playing Prairie View A&M down in the Houston area. So Nadir and I took off to do the first or second game of the season and it was unbelievably hot. We get down there, go to the stadium about two hours ahead of time to get everything set up, and we open the door to the press box. It was a concrete permanent press box that had windows that didn’t open but that’s okay because we knew it had to have air conditioning. After all, there was a large AC unit up top. Unfortunately, it was surrounded by workers.
One of the first things we found out when we got there was the press box had no air and they were trying hard to fix it. Our booth was on the south end and the last booth. You literally could step out of the booth and step into the crowd. So, it looked like we had a problem, but we also had an answer to the problem. That is, if it’s too hot inside, we’ll just sit outside. Here’s where I need to interject that Prairie View A&M had a lousy record. I’m not talking about that year, I’m talking about two or three decades. They had not won a home football game in about thirty years. Their football team, their basketball team, their baseball team weren’t anything to brag about, but their band was. The marching band at Prairie View had appeared many times on National Television. They were something to hear and something to see. So, the band shows up and unfortunately for us, they sat right outside our door. Now we were trapped. If we couldn’t broadcast inside there was no way with the band right there we could broadcast outside either.
It gets down to about five minutes before our broadcast time and you literally could not go in the booth because it was SO hot. The thing that crossed my mind was one of the few things I haven’t done in radio, to do a game nearly naked, because I was on the verge of taking my clothes off just to survive. I don’t know if Nadir started praying or what, but the Lord bailed us out. Just in the nick of time, the air conditioning came on. Nadir and I did the ballgame that turned out to be a historic game for Prairie View A&M. For the first time in all those years, they won a home game and beat Howard Payne that night. Trust me, the celebration was on. Students and fans tore down one of the goal posts and they ran with it into the parking lot and on to the campus. It was a great celebration! They were having a ball!
Those folks were nice as could be to us, maybe because they had beaten us. It turned out to be a memorable trip for Nadir and me and a memorable game for them as well. Certainly, it was one I will never forget.
Until next time, so long everybody.
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‘Out of the Box’ with Dallas Huston is published each Monday morning at BrownwoodNews.com. Dallas was the radio voice of the Brownwood Lions and Howard Payne Yellow Jackets for more than 55 years. He currently is Pastor of Center City Baptist Church and hosts a Men’s Bible Study in Brownwood on Monday evenings. Your comments are welcome at [email protected].