Feb. 12, 2008

by Louis Bonnette

Edmond Lawrence is a former Cowboy who has come back to support the McNeese State basketball team this season.

You can't miss him in Burton Coliseum. He's the seven footer with the booming voice who sits behind the Cowboy bench on the east side of the coliseum.

"I'm a Cowboy and I want to support the program," the "Big E" said.

Lawrence, who spent 14 seasons playing professional basketball, played from 1973 to 1976 for coaches Bill Reigel and E. W. Foy at McNeese. He earned all-conference and all-Louisiana honors, played in the Aloha Classic and was drafted by Cleveland of the NBA.

His brother David and his nephew Martin Yokum followed him to McNeese.

Lawrence knows basketball and he doesn't mind sharing his opinions.

He said that he sees a lot of good things in this year's Cowboy team.

Of Kleon Penn, the Cowboy center and the league's top shot blocker, he says, "He's has the perfect basketball body but he's got to learn to keep the ball in play. You block the shot but you also want to wind up with the ball."

Lawrence knows what he's talking about as during his career with the Cowboys, he set all of the McNeese shot blocking standards. In his four year career he blocked 311 shots in 102 games for a 3.2 average, blocked 106 shots in one season and blocked 10 shots in one game - all school records.

In state history he's in the all-time top 10.

"I think that Dave (head coach Simmons) has a lot of good young players out there with good potential," he added.

On the sideline, Lawrence pulls for the Cowboys just about as hard as he played the game.

In the early 1970s, he was one of the premier players to come out of the state's prep ranks. He had been a standout at W. O. Boston and opted to continue his career at McNeese.

In his first season McNeese competed as an independent as the school was making the transition from being a member of the Gulf States Conference to the Southland. That was Reigel's second year as head coach and the "Reigel Roadrunners" went 21-5. The next year they posted a 20-5 record but were not eligible for conference honors.

Foy took over for Lawrence's third season and as he earned all-conference honors, the Cowboys won their first Southland Conference title. The next season Lawrence was again all-conference and the Cowboys finished second in the league standings.

While he had been drafted by Cleveland, Lawence decided to join the Harlem Globetrotters out of college and spent his next two seasons with them.

"I don'think that we missed a city in the continental United States," he said of his travels with the team.

He dined with kings and queens in foreign countries and played with such Globetrotter icons as Meadowlark Lemon and Curley Neal.

As could be expected, his main role as a Globetrotter was to be a shot blocker and rebounder.

After two seasons with the Trotters, Lawrence signed on with Cleveland for one campaign and then over the course of 11 more years played for San Antonio and Detroit in the NBA, in the Continental Basketball League and overseas in the Philippines and Uruguay.

He would go on to earn his degree in Education at McNeese and spend more than a dozen years as the athletic director at the Allen Parish Correctional facility.

Looking back on his days as a basketball player, Lawernce said his toughest opponents on the college level were Robert Parish at Centenary, Roy Ebron at Louisiana-Lafayette, Mike Green at Louisiana Tech and B. B. Davis at Lamar.

Lawrence and Parish used to pack them in when they played and there was always standing room only when Lamar and Louisiana Tech came to town.

His highest rebounding game came in the 1972-73 season when he pulled 26 against Lamar and Davis in an 85-79 win and during his junior and seniors years he scored in the 30s numerous times.

When he completed his career, he was the school's all-time leading scorer (since taken over by Joe Dumars) as well as the leader in rebounds and blocked shots.

In the pros he went up against such players as Dan Issel, Bob Lanier, Dave Courzine and Kareem Abdul Jabbar.

Now 55 years of age and a member of the McNeese Hall of Fame as well as the Louisiana Association of Basketball Coaches Hall of Fame, Lawrence is looking to give something back to the game.

"Basketball is what I know," he said, saying that he would love to be able to coach or teach the game on any level.