Fred Haynes

Freddie Lynn Haynes, known as Fred Haynes (March 29, 1946—November 5, 2006), was an American football player for the Louisiana State University Tigers from 1966 to 1968, having climaxed his three-season career by successfully quarterbacking both the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans and the Peach Bowl in Atlanta, in calendar year 1968. Because of his stature and weight, he did not play professionally after college but entered business in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Early life

Haynes was born in Minden, the parish seat of Webster Parish in northwestern Louisiana, to Oscar Henry Haynes, Jr., and the former Freddie Louise Walker (born 1924), originally from the village of Ashland in northern Natchitoches Parish. Both his father and grandfather, O. H. Haynes, Sr., served as sheriff of Webster Parish: O. H., Sr., from 1933 to 1952; O. H. Haynes, Jr., from 1964 to 1980. Sandwiched between the two was J. D. Batton, older brother of later Minden Mayor Jack Batton. He was named "Freddie" for his mother and "Lynn" for his paternal grandmother, Lynn Burns Haynes (1889–1971). Haynes' father was also the Exxon distributor in Webster Parish.

State championship in high school

The house at the intersection of Pine and Clerk streets in Minden, where athlete Fred Haynes grew up

Haynes graduated in 1964 from Minden High School. He was a class officer each year of high school and played both offense and defense in football. He returned kickoffs and punts. In his senior year, Haynes scored sixteen touchdowns. For three years he started at quarterback and defensive back. He earned All-District designation in his junior year and both All-District and All-State in his senior year. He quarterbacked the team that went undefeated and won the AA state championship, 28-21, on December 6, 1963, over the strong competition from the combined census-designated places Larose and Cut Off in Lafourche Parish near Thibodaux in south Louisiana. The game, played in the Minden stadium, since named for principal W. W. Williams, Sr., climaxed Minden's first ever perfect football season and its fourth state grid championship. Haynes received the Joe Oliphant Award in both 1963 and 1964, an honor named for a late Minden coach, athletic director, and teacher. He was selected the "most valuable back" for three years, and he was a Louisiana State Football All-Star in his senior year. Haynes' father had also been a star Minden High School football player.

Other athletic activities

Haynes also lettered for four years in baseball, with a .400 batting average. He was All-District his freshman year. He started playing American Legion baseball at the age of fourteen and hit a consistent .400 plus for four years.

He lettered for two years in basketball and three years in track. He was All-State in track for two years. The Minden track team won its first state championship in 1964, with senior Fred Haynes leading the way. He won numerous awards and was offered many track scholarships.

In high school he earned a total of twelve letters in various sports. He received offers of scholarships from many universities, but accepted his most preferred choice, LSU in Baton Rouge.

Haynes: "The Littlest Tiger"

The LSU Alumni News called Haynes the "mini-brute from Minden." The publication noted that Haynes did not impress scouts because he was too short and too light in weight. In the Southwest Conference, "Little General" Haynes, as he was affectionally called, led LSU to consecutive victories in 1967 over Texas A&M University in College Station, Rice University in Houston, and Baylor University in Waco. That was the same year that his father was elected to a second term as sheriff. Coach Charles McClendon, in relying on Haynes as quarterback, said that duplication of the 1967 success in passing would be LSU's goal for 1968.^[1]

Haynes led LSU in total offense. He averaged 142.7 yards a game on 67 offensive plays and completed 20 of 30 passes for 249 yards and a touchdown. Against Baylor, he moved the Tigers to four touchdowns. In October 1966, he first quarterbacked the Tigers after Nelson Stokely was injured in the September 24 game with the Rice Owls of Houston.^[2]

Haynes gained national attention when Sports Illustrated published an article entitled "The Littlest Tiger". At the time of his death, Haynes still held the LSU record for the most rushing yards as a quarterback. He holds this record even though he missed the last four games of his career because of a hand injury. On New Years Day, 1968, he quarterbacked the 34th Sugar Bowl, when LSU defeated the University of Wyoming at Laramie, 20-13. He played in the Peach Bowl on December 30, 1968, when LSU defeated Florida State University at Tallahassee, 31-27.

A Baton Rouge newspaper once described Haynes as "the quarterback who looks like a choir boy." Despite his success in sports, Haynes was said to have been a modest man who downplayed his success. His starting quarterback record for 1966 was 5-4-1; 1967, 7-3-1, and 1968, 8-3-0. He graduated from LSU in 1969 with a degree in education but entered the pharmaceutical sales business after college graduation.

Later years

Twice divorced, Haynes left Baton Rouge in the mid-1990s and returned to his hometown of Minden to help with the care of his father, whose health began to decline. Having a degree in education, he also coached for a time in Webster Parish public schools. On the death of former Sheriff Haynes, Fred Haynes took care of his mother until his own health went into steep decline. After months of medical tests, hospitalizations, and nursing home care, Haynes died in Minden Medical Center of long-term esophageal and renal problems. Haynes lacked health insurance and was unable to qualify for Social Security disability. Friends established a health fund in his name at the Minden Building and Loan Association.

The late Juanita Agan, a Haynes family friend and a columnist for the Minden Press-Herald, wrote in October 2006 that Haynes was probably the most successful all-round athlete to come from Minden, although the city also produced a star of the former Houston Oilers, Charles T. "Charlie" Hennigan (born 1935). And David Lee, who grew up less than a mile from Haynes, played for the former Baltimore Colts from 1966–1978 and won the National Football League punting title on multiple occasions. There was also the basketball giant, Jackie Moreland.

Haynes was first married to the former Jeanette Marie "Jan" Headstream (1950–2014), a native of Batesville, Arkansas, who was reared in Minden. Later Jan Hoke, she had at the time of her death been living since 1989 in Asheville, North Carolina, with her husband, Forney Moore Hoke, III. She died of Progressive supranuclear palsy, a rare neurodegenerative brain disease. From this first union, Haynes had two surviving daughters, Elizabeth "Beth" Haynes of Baton Rouge and Nicole Haynes Lundy (born 1974) and her husband Scott E. Lundy of Dayton, Ohio.^[3] From a second marriage to Mary Ann Spencer (born 1954), Haynes had a third daughter, Darby Lynn Haynes (born 1981). Haynes was also survived by a then two-week-old grandson, Garrett Scott Lundy; a second grandchild, Kate Lundy, was born after his death. In addition to his mother, Haynes was survived by three brothers, Oscar Henry Haynes, III (born 1943), and his wife Deborah Vaughan Haynes (born 1945), Jerry Wayne Haynes, Sr. (1952–2014), a pharmacy graduate of the University of Louisiana at Monroe, and his wife, the former Angela Joan Brumfield (born 1952),^[4] and Gary Walker Haynes and his wife, the former Sarah Modisette (both born 1961), all of Minden; six nephews, and three nieces.

Grave of athlete Fred Haynes in the Minden Cemetery

Services were held at the First Baptist Church in Minden on November 8, 2006 with the Reverends Wayne L. DuBose, Bill Crider, and Bill Ichter officiating. Burial was in Minden Cemetery in the Haynes-Walker family plot. Pallbearers were former Minden teammates or classmates Mike Brewer, Ronnie Brown, Dennis McClure, Stan Belton, Carl Shaw, Bobby Ashley, Dr. Richard Campbell, Lane Davidson, and Bobby Walker. Honorary pallbearers included his former Minden High School coach James Steven "Steve" Jordan (1936–2013) of Shreveport, the veterinarian Tom Alley of Minden, and former coaches and teammates from Minden High School, LSU, and Lakeside High School in south Webster Parish, where Haynes did some coaching in his later years.

The following anonymous poem was printed in a Baton Rouge newspaper at the height of Haynes' success as an LSU player:

He's only 5’9" or 10
Statistics tell us all;
But Mr. Freddie plays to win
Like he is ten feet tall.
No man is ever measured by
The feet or inches part;
But by the spirit that the "guy"
Has in his fighting heart—
And if he isn’t tall enough
To touch the Moon, afar;
He may become, when things get rough,
A most outstanding star

References