Hall of Honor: these guys could flat coach
Trio led RHS teams to glory in many decades

By Mike Brown
Reporter Editor

(Editor’s note: On Friday, Nov. 7, the next 16 honorees will be inducted into the Rockdale Sports Hall of Fame. This year’s “class” represents athletes or coaches who played or began their coaching careers at Rockdale High School or Aycock High School before 1965. This is the first of a five-part series.)

 Rockdale’s Sports Hall of Honor will include three coaching names so legendary they hardly need introductions.
 Ernie Laurence, Duane Vincent, Ray Birchfield.
 Between them they coached four “final-four” basketball squads and took one football team to the state finals.
 And their teams in between the landmark years were successful, competitive and always ready to play.

Ernie Laurence
(Coached RHS 1955 to 1973, girls basketball, baseball, one season boys basketball)

 Ernie Laurence coached Rockdale teams to district titles, and more, in girls basketball and Tiger baseball in addition to being a legendary junior-high principal.
 Laurence ended his overall high school coaching career with over 100 wins in those three sports, plus 100 wins in varsity football, which he coached before coming to Rockdale in the 1954-55 term.
 He’s a member of the Texas Sports Hall of Fame.
 Laurence came to Rockdale to be junior-high principal but was immediately pressed into service to coach boys basketball after Tiger coach Charlie Martin was drafted into the army.
 One year, Laurence coached both boys and girls basketball teams at RHS.
 His Rockdale girls teams never lost a district race. That’s right. Never.
 He coached Rockdale girls basketball for 16 seasons, 1955-56 and 1958-71. All 16 won district titles.
 Laurence’s girls cagers, then called “Tigerettes” went to the state tourney in 1958, 1965 and 1970.
 In addition to the state appearances, Laurence’s girls basketball teams went to regional three times.
 His Tiger baseball teams enjoyed the same spectacular success. Laurence’s Tigers won regional titles five consecutive years.
 That would have been five straight trips to state but the UIL did not offer a state tourney for Class 2A (which later became 3A) teams in that era.
 Laurence’s baseball teams won district eight of nine years and compiled a record of 155-32, a won-lost percentage of .852.
 His combined RHS girls basketball-Tiger baseball legacy, 24 district titles (in 25 seasons), 11 regional appearances and three state tournaments.
 He died Jan. 22, 1981.

Duane Vincent
(Coached RHS 1960-63 and 1976-79, boys basketball)

 The winningest coach in RHS basketball history and it’s not even close.
 In 16 seasons as the Tiger head coach, 1960-73 and 1976-79, Vincent compiled a 359-151 record, a .704 winning percentage.
 He won nine district championships including eight straight between 1961 and 1968.
 Vincent’s 1966 team was Rockdale’s first boys team to ever go to state. At the time of his induction (2008) there had only been two.
 That team got to state by pulling off one of the biggest upsets in Rockdale sports history, a win over unbeaten, No. 1-ranked Del Valle.
 Vincent also coached a regional finalist and two bi-district champs.
 Eight of Vincent’s teams won 20 or more games and the 1966 state final four team was 30-9.
 Vincent was in the Rockdale ISD for a total of 22 years, including six non-coaching years as a match teacher. He passed away Feb. 5, 2007.
 He was highly-respected by his peers and was regarded as one of the most knowledgeable basketball coaches in the state of Texas.
 But Vincent’s proudest accomplishment remained that his teams were always ready to play. Always.

Ray Birchfield
(Coached RHS 1961-1966, football)

 He’s as much a part of memories of the early to mid-1960s in Rockdale as JFK, black-and-white television, crew cuts and thin ties.
 Ray Birchfield coached the Tiger football team from 1960 through 1966, never had a losing season and Rockdale finished first or second all seven years.
 His 1962 team, the Cinderella of all Cinderella teams at Tigerland, went all the way to the state finals, piling up dramatic, and unexpected, victories in the post-season, the first post-season wins ever at RHS. The team finished 13-2.
 Birchfield’s 1963 Tigers were a perfect 10-0 in the regular season and his defense did not allow a touchdown in any of those games. Rockdale gave up one field goal and one safety, outscoring its regular season opponents 337 to 5.
 That’s still the only Tiger football team with a perfect regular season record.
 His 1960 team was a district co-champion.
 Had he coached in a later era, all seven of his Tiger teams would have made the post-season.
 Birchfield posted a 53-22-1 record at RHS, a winning percentage of .707.
 His district record at RHS was 26-7-1, a winning percentage of .788.
 He was also 4-3 against Cameron.
 Four of Birchfield’s Tigers were named to all-state teams.

Comments
Jaime Boswell
jboswell@sintonisd.net
Subject: Coach Vincent
Great article and about time he was inducted. Class act and great coach.

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