Leslie Broadhurst keeps an upbeat spirit amid life's toughest challenge

When the Randall Raiders play their semifinal game of the Class 4A state tournament on Friday in San Antonio, Leslie Broadhurst will be there, same as he's been for nearly every Randall game ever played.

The school opened in 1988, and Broadhurst is the only head coach the Raiders have had. It's been 36 years now. With more than 700 career victories, Broadhurst undoubtedly could have left for other jobs somewhere along the way.

But that wouldn't have squared with the advice his father gave him at the start.

The son of the Rev. Charles Broadhurst, a Baptist minister, Leslie was born in Lockney, but then lived in Denver, Hale Center, Borger, Friona and Lubbock before he graduated from Monterey in 1977.

"People ask me, 'Why do you stay there so long?'" Leslie Broadhurst said last week. "I can remember asking him when I took the Randall job, 'What's the best advice you can give me?' And he sat me down and said, 'If I had it to do all over again, I would go to a church — or a school, for you — in a place that I liked, and if the administrators are good and you feel like they're giving you opportunities, then I would just plant myself and stay and just give your life to the place.' And so that's kind of what I've done."

More: Leslie Broadhurst, K.J. Thomas and Randall are state-bound again

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No. 3 Randall (34-3) plays No. 6 Silsbee (28-9) at 1:30 p.m. Friday in the UIL state tournament.

Broadhurst's well-being has been on the minds of many for several weeks. Last month at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, surgeons removed a portion of a brain tumor that pathology later showed to be malignant. Shortly after the state tournament, Broadhurst is scheduled to begin radiation and chemotherapy for another portion of the tumor that's inoperable, his wife said.

Going into the state tournament, Broadhurst had been with the team for four of their five playoff games. He returned from Houston shortly before Randall started the playoffs with a win over Andrews on Feb. 19 at Frenship. Among those to greet him that night was Ron Reeves, a teammate on the 1976 Monterey state semifinal football team.

"It was good seeing him, and he was in great spirits," Reeves said. "He's always been upbeat. He doesn't seem to let things get him down. He's got a lot of faith, and I know he's got a lot of people praying for him that maybe he can get some more time."

Randall took a chance on a young coach

Leslie Broadhurst was 29 when he got the Randall job after one year as head coach at Morton. From 1981-83, he'd been a Lubbock High assistant, his first coaching job. Then he moved to Borger under Duane Hunt, who twice led the Bulldogs to the state finals.

When Broadhurst learned a new school was going to open in Canyon ISD, he wanted the job. As Broadhurst tells it, though, head-coaching experience was a must for athletics director Mike Wartes.

"What if I get some?" Broadhurst asked.

"Well, then I'll interview you," Wartes said.

"So I left Borger and went to Morton," Broadhurst said. "I followed (former Morton coach) Tony Mauldin after they won all those state championships."

Broadhurst led the Indians to the regional tournament in his first year as a head coach, and then he circled back to see about the Randall job.

"It was a brand-new school and so we were working hard to try and find the right fit," Wartes said. "I guess he's testimony that we found the right fit with him."

Told of Broadhurst's recollection that Wartes wouldn't hire him without head-coaching experience, Wartes didn't remember that conversation, but said, "We had good applicants that we were going to be able to hire someone that had some head-coaching experience. We thought that was important, and evidently Leslie listened to me and went and got him a job.

"But we've been fortunate to have Leslie all these years. He's a mainstay at the school, and what a great example for kids to play under and be around."

Leslie Broadhurst made his mark in Lubbock

The July 15, 1977, edition of the Avalanche-Journal contains a photo of Leslie Broadhurst reading a Bible. The caption notes that the minister's son "has plenty of Bibles at his home and his father's church," but business and community leaders gifted Bibles to more than 1,900 graduates of Lubbock high schools that spring.

The caption also notes that Broadhurst won the Miles Langehennig Award, named after the late Texas Tech running back. The adult chapter of Lubbock's Fellowship of Christian Athletes presented it annually "to an outstanding Christian athlete from one of Lubbock's seven high schools."

Broadhurst must have seen the photo.

"Since I've had this (health) deal," he said, "I've spent a lot of time awake thinking about your life, and I can remember as a kid getting the Amarillo paper, the Lubbock paper, on Saturday mornings. I'd be the first one to get it. I'd wake up at 6:30 in the morning, because I wanted to read the little capsules about all the games."

He could see his picture and read about himself in there a lot, even though the Broadhurst family didn't move to Lubbock until Leslie's sophomore year. His name came up frequently in coverage of Monterey football and basketball.

"I was an average Joe," Broadhurst said.

According to the A-J's reporting at the time, he was a two-year starting defensive back and a team captain in 1976. That year, the Plainsmen were 13-0 before Temple stopped them one game short of the state finals. Before the season started, Monterey coach James Odom said Broadhurst was "real smart and gets to the ball well." One account of a Monterey victory named off several outstanding performers, then lumped together "a group of bone-crushing Plainsmen defenders led by Leslie Broadhurst."

In a Monterey basketball preview, coach Joe Michalka said, "Broadhurst is an adequate ballhandler and an average shooter, but he's a good competitor."

Evidently, Broadhurst could hit a guy, help him up and maybe even make him laugh. He did with teammates anyway.

"He was a good athlete, good teammate, hilarious," said Reeves, the quarterback who went on to start for Texas Tech. "Just a good combination of fun and being a great teammate both."

Broadhurst didn't stop being funny when he finished high school. The personality carried over into his coaching career.

"We were in church together and at parties together," said Deanna Hunt, wife of the former Borger boys basketball coach, "and he just had a unique sense of humor that, I think, kids related to a lot.

"We went caroling at Christmas, and he would sing Elvis Presley's 'Blue Christmas.' Nobody could sing but him, because we were just laughing at him. He really is crazy, but it's a good sense of humor, too."

An emotional weekend back in the Hub City

Leslie Broadhurst is 65, taking Randall to the state tournament for the first two times in the past two years. He's still finding humor even in a darker situation. Trevor Johnson, the 10th-year Randall assistant, has taken on more of the load the past several weeks. He called it "maybe the toughest month of my life."

After Randall beat Canyon 56-53 in the regional final last weekend, Johnson described it as "such an emotional day for us all."

Out on the Rip Griffin Court amid the celebration, Broadhurst told reporters he had a peace that the Raiders were going to do well, then cracked, "So good, because my brain doctor told me, 'Don't get real crazy out there or anything,' so I didn't.' "

A little while later, after the ceremonial cutting down of the net and after the arena had emptied out, Broadhurst had been in the locker room with his teenagers showing another side. The Raiders filed out to the bus, and the coach remained on the landing at the top of a now-quiet stairwell.

"I just told those guys — I cried in there with them — 'You keep me balanced. You keep me young. You keep me focused, because of the way you live your life,' " he said. "Those guys in there, that's as high-character team as I've ever coached. They're good, good people."

The Raiders' run back to the state tournament, Broadhurst said, is not about him; it's about them, even though, this year at least, the players can't help but wonder otherwise.

This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Randall basketball's Leslie Broadhurst keeps upbeat spirit amid challenge