Accuracy in reporting:
I served in the Beaumont Chapter board of directors back in the early 80's as a Division IV representative and again in 2000 to 2008 as the Chapter Secretary.
Eddie King was a friend of mine. Eddie, in fact, was the BJ on my crew for several years.
Dr. B, a Buna native, before he was a EdD lived on the street behind me when he coached at Hardin-Jefferson high school (Sour Lake) and also Westbrook high school (Beaumont). I did not know him or of him at the time. I officiate football only.
I had never heard of Tony Timmons before this unfortunate take-over episode. I am quite sure he is NOT a Beaumont boy.
I'm sure Eddie did meet Dr. B through basketball, he was the Beaumont Basketball chapter president for some years. I don't know a whole lot about their relationship, but sure they were friends. I was a friend of Dr. B, too, back when I was the football chapter secretary.
Eddie was the Assistant ExecDir for the TASO back in Tim Crowley's day. In fact, he had applied for the ED job when Jim Blackwood resigned, but the football people wanted a football guy in charge and Tim certainly had higher football credentials that won him the job. However, most of us who have been around a while know what an unmitigated disaster Tim was for TASO.
Instead of running down Mr. King, I would suggest that he be thanked by the TASO supporters for his mostly unknown and unrewarded service to TASO. It was Eddie and his wife who packed up the files and furniture and brought the physical remnants and records of TASO to Austin, even though that move was arranged before then by Tim. I don’t remember exactly what year it was, but it was he who worked to support rules clinics and hold the central office together until the TASO BoD finally hired Bud Alexander to the top job. For example, Eddie drove the ultra-late-arriving rule books to Columbus to meet Sam Brown and hand them off just a couple of days before Houston’s June rules clinic and save that clinic. Sam had let them know that without new rules books, he would cancel the clinic. Again, I don’t remember the year. Sam personally told me that he was happy to have met Eddie and glad he helped save that clinic.
After a couple of years of service for TASO, Bud decided he didn’t need Eddie’s service and let him go. I wasn’t there, so I won’t speculate further on what brought that on. Eddie came back to SE Texas and continued to work football until his knees made that too painful.
To answer a question on a related thread, I have 32 years working football and was already thinking about retiring from the field before this TASO/UIL rift developed. This could easily help me with that decision. There was a time, back then, when as secretary and having to deal with Tim’s completely incompetent TASO office, I would have welcomed a UIL takeover. I know for a fact that we all worked one season without any insurance coverage whatsoever. We were fortunate that no San Antonio sideline incident occurred that season. I had made moves to purchase liability and accident insurance for my chapter the next season, but TASO pulled out of their graveyard spiral and I didn’t have to execute that task.
No, I am not for the UIL takeover now. They handled a matter that required time and surgical gloves with boxing gloves instead. TASO certainly does serve a very valuable purpose and I can not look forward to the return of the chaos as the UIL goes through that learning curve all over again if they succeed with their not so hidden agenda. But when discussing history I would like the record to reflect that rather than being part of the problems in the state office that led to this point in time, Mr. King was instead a narrow footbridge over a steep canyon upon which TASO crossed to survive this long. May it continue to do so.