Our old friend Karl Terrebonne from Lafayette walked on at Louisiana Tech and became an All-Southland Conference receiver. He’s a football historian, a lover of the game and its personalities and what it all “means.” It’s more than just scores to T-Bone. He has more old photos and films than you can imagine.

Here was Karl’s reply to DW’s column about world-class sprinters Pat Garrett and Billy Cannon after Dr. Cannon passed away in is sleep Sunday at 80.

Cannon amazed fans at LSU meets when he ran the 100-yard dash in the world-class time of 9.4 seconds, then trotted across the field to throw the 16-pound shot 54 feet, both SEC records at the time.

He also could bench-press 400 pounds, just 20 pounds off the gold medal effort for his weight class in the 1956 Olympics.

He won the Heisman by miles and was voted onto the All Decade Team of the 1950s as a running back AND defensive back. As athletes go, spectacular. Freakish. Beauty and power and grace. But also something else…

I’ve written a column for this Sunday the 27^th that has little to do with Billy Cannon the athlete. Neither does the note below, although after a quick first read, it might seem too. Pat Garrett wrote it Monday after reading on DW about his sprints against and friendship with Cannon. This is up-close from someone who crouched with Cannon in the blocks 60 years ago, someone with Olympic-quality speed who was twice nipped at the tape by our absent friend…

Something that doesn’t always come out is his will to win.

Sure, the strength, the build, the speed.

But Billy told me once he didn’t think anyone could beat him.

The will. He willed that TD against Ole Miss and all odds.

He willed the 100-yard dash finish.

Will is a sacred thing. Almost religious in its origin.

I think that is what made Billy Billy. To believe no one can beat you and then will it so is such a mysterious truth.

It was a privilege to compete with someone like that.

-30-

The NBA playoffs and silly arguments on the days between games go hand in hand because there is so much time to fill and, in this year in particular, no decent games to talk about.

But this argument caught my attention this week: Who would win a 1-on-1 game between each-in-their-prime Michael Jordan and Lebron James?

The cause was advanced by ESPN’s Jay Williams, who said James would win. Jalen Rose made (more of) an idiot of himself by getting out of his chair and bouncing around the studio in an effort to show that Williams had a ridiculous argument.

Predictably, Rose completely missed Williams’ point and launched into his counterpoint about how great Jordan was on offense, how great Jordan was on defense and had great Jordan was in winning six championships (and another in college, not that it had anything to do with this argument). Completely beside the point.

My only problem with Jordan has always been that people were to quick to anoint him as the greatest player of all time. Maybe he his, maybe he isn’t, but there are arguments on both sides.

Conversely, I don’t think James is nearly as accomplished as Jordan. But that’s not the point Williams is trying to make and one I agree with.

Do you realize how big James is? He’s Karl Malone size with moves like Jordan had. I don’t care about scoring titles or Defensive Player of the Year Awards — which was basically Rose’s weak argument — because the key to all of this is the premise that this was about a 1-on-1 game.

It’s much easier to see James being able to guard Jordan than the other way around. James is just too big and too strong.

People like Rose just go nuts whenever somebody tries to argue that Jordan wasn’t the absolute greatest at something (well, maybe not baseball). I’m no Lebron fan and I don’t care for these discussions about who is greater than whom.

But I do know this — there’s one player in NBA history who was as physically gifted with size, strength and athleticism as Lebron James and that was Wilt Chamberlain. There have been a lot of players through the years like Jordan (Elgin Baylor, Julius Erving, Clyde Drexler, Kobe Bryant), but he’s just better than any of them.

There’s no one like Lebron James. And in a 1-on-1 game, I’m taking him.

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