Coach Stall remembered for kindness and magical voice

“It’s the biggest play of the whole season now. Fourth down Tarpons. 10 yards to go. And Hebert is at quarterback. … C’mon Hebert. Here’s the snap. He looks. He looks. He throws.

“HE GOT IT! HE GOT IT! HE GOT A TOUCHDOWN! WE GOT A TOUCHDOWN!”

That was the official radio call of the 1977 Class 4A State Championship football game between the South Lafourche Tarpons and Bonnabel – one of the most memorable prep football games in the history of prep athletics in the Houma-Thibodaux area.

The Tarpons won the game 21-20, thanks to Bobby Hebert’s last-second touchdown pass that was deflected into the hands of Scott Bouzigard. It was the school’s second-ever football state championship, and it’s a call that is recited over and over among people south of the Intracoastal Canal in Lafourche Parish.

The man behind the mic on the call was a familiar voice to Tarpons fans – Gaspar Stephen Stall. Today, he is a local legend – the man who will always be considered as the Voice of South Lafourche athletics.

Stall died on Dec. 27 after a lengthy battle with Parkinson’s disease. He is survived by three sons (Stephen, Kendall and Gregg Stall) and two daughters (Ann Meyer and Ellen Stall). He leaves behind thousands of memories – both for his legacy calling games for South Lafourche and also for his love for everyone around him.

Stall was a retired educator with the Lafourche Parish School System and a grandfather to 10 and great grandfather to six.

“My dad was all of the above – funny, loving, caring and very empathic to others,” Ellen Stall remembered of her father this past week. “He was always giving to others. He was all about family. He loved to tell stories, and he was so very positive.”

“He listened to people,” Ann Stall Meyer added in remembrance of her father. “He touched them with his respect for whomever he was speaking. He remembered and always went back to visit those people.”

A New Orleans native at birth, Coach Stall always put family first – a motto that was really easy for the Golden Meadow resident to execute because almost everyone who encountered him considered him family after a while. Stall was a teacher, coach and principal throughout his academic career at several schools in the area.

Maybe his most memorable stop was at Golden Meadow Middle School (then Golden Meadow High School).

Stall was a coach at the school and made such an imprint on those around him that the school’s gymnasium is now named in his honor.

As a young adult, Stall met the love of his life – his wife of more than 60 years, Juanita Durocher Stall.

Ellen Stall said her father lit up for his family. She added that it was never difficult to see that he deeply loved his children and wife.

The daughter remembered the family’s old Sunday morning/afternoon routine, adding that those days were among some of the most memorable in her life.

“He was all about family time,” Ellen Stall said. “On Sundays, we all went to church and after church, we would huddle around the living room after lunch so he could tell stories.”

Ann said she often took trips on the water with her dad, listening to his philosophical ideas.

“We spent many hours talking while he attempted shrimp trawling,” she said. “It’s funny – I don’t think it mattered so much if we caught anything. He loved the idea of trawling and being outdoors. … He loved to share his knowledge and had such a great memory. He was a great historian, which made him a great teacher.”

On Sunday and throughout boating trips, he told stories to family. On Friday nights, he told stories to radio audiences all throughout Southeast Louisiana.

As the voice of South Lafourche football later in adulthood, Coach Stall was simply the best, according to almost anyone in the Houma-Thibodaux area.

His radio calls were always exciting, entertaining, witty and, of course, slightly slanted toward South Lafourche – the team he loved to his core.

Ellen Stall shared a note Tina DeSalvo wrote about her father, detailing DeSalvo’s thoughts on Coach Stall’s career just after his passing.

A former sports reporter and commentator in the area, DeSalvo worked with Stall on countless games. She said he was unlike any other.

“He made me laugh in the press booth so many times over great stories and his unique way of telling them,” DeSalvo wrote. “He was a gem. A real treasure to our community and to me. … He showed – didn’t tell or preach – how (to) love the people you broadcast to and their children on the field. Wow – what an amazing gift.”

Ellen Stall said she and her siblings joke about her father’s hobby, touting that the passion in his voice is undeniable.

“My brother posted the 1977 Championship game, and he was yelling at the top of his lungs,” Ellen Stall said with a laugh when asked to critique her father’s call. “It’s very funny now.

“But it was very embarrassing at the age of 15 then,” she added again with a laugh.

“He absolutely loved announcing those games,” Ann Stall Meyer said. “It brought back his coaching days, which I think were some of the most important times of his life.”

Coach Stall was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease later in life – the ailment that eventually took his life.

He spent the final years of his life in a nursing home where he frequently fielded visitors from friends, family and all of the loved ones that he touched throughout the years.

Perhaps it was Ann Stall Meyer who said it best. She said she thinks her dad would use a quote to illustrate that he led a good life.

“I would like to think he’d say in that deep voice full of advice, ‘Remember Ann – Timothy 4:7 ‘I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith,’” she said. “He always had a good quote for every occasion. … My dad was wealthy in his love of life. He was wealthy in his spirit, which was the spirit of a whole LSU football team, and he was wealthy in his determination – the determination of a man on a mission to assist anyone who crossed his path who needed help no matter how big or small the task.”

Golden Meadow resident Gaspar Stephen Stall was beloved by almost anyone he encountered. Pictured with a grandchild, Stall was considered a loving family man, who was also the Voice of South Lafourche athletics.

COURTESY PHOTO