LAKE CHARLES - For R.C. Slocum, this past weekend was a celebration of a legacy that stretches from Lake Charles to College Station. On Friday, Texas A&M honored the Hall of Fame coach by unveiling a statue of his liking at Kyle Field's Zone Plaza.
 
He's the first former McNeese athlete to have a statue erected in his/her honor regardless of affiliation.
 
"It's an honor and I'm proud of it but like anything, I told this story at the recognition," said Slocum. "I said 'there's a story I heard years ago from Dr. Red Duke. He said, if you ever ride down the highway and you see a turtle sitting up on top of a fence post, you know he didn't get there by himself. He's had a lot of help.' I'm like that turtle on the fence post. I had a lot of help starting with McNeese."
 
A four-year starter for the Cowboys in the late 60s, Slocum still ranks among the top receiving tight ends in school history, ranking third all-time with 74 catches. He was inducted into the McNeese Sports Hall of Fame in 2004.
 
His Hall of Fame status continued as a 2005 inductee into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame, then in 2012, the College Football Hall of Fame.
 
Slocum gives a lot of credit to McNeese to paving his journey into the coaching ranks.
 
"I had great coaches at McNeese," he said. "I stay in touch with Hubert Boales who was my position coach my last two years. Coach (Les) DeVall, Coach Jim Clark, all the guys. We had good coaches there. The school was good. I ended up getting two degrees (at McNeese). I got a Master of Education before I went to Kansas State. McNeese had good faculty, people that cared about kids and cared about teaching. I've got nothing but great feelings about McNeese."
 
McNeese gave Slocum the chance to be the first one in his family to go to college.
 
"It was a great place for me."
 
Slocum got his coaching start at Lake Charles High School while student teaching, and while going to summer school prior to the school year starting, LCHS head coach Johnnie Emmons gave him a call and asked Slocum to join his staff. Although hesitant at first because he just started grad school, Slocum agreed to take the job. After one season, Emmons left LCHS to take a coaching job at Northwestern State. New LCHS coach Thomas Mitchell promoted Slocum to defensive coordinator where he spent a season in that capacity.
 
Kansas State came calling but so did a head coaching job offer at a new high school in Lake Charles - Barbe High.
 
"I went in to tell our principal I had an opportunity to go to Kansas State and he told me he was leaving to go be the principal at Barbe and he had me penciled in to be the head coach. That was a great opportunity but I told him I really wanted to get into college coaching."
 
From there, the legend of Coach R.C. Slocum was born in the college ranks.
 
After spending two seasons coaching freshmen at Kansas State, he joined the Texas A&M staff for the first of two stints in 1972 receiver's coach then from 1973-78, on the defensive side of the ball. He was named the Aggies' defensive coordinator in 1979.
 
"Moving to defense was the best thing I ever did," he said. "I worked for a guy named Melvin Robertson, and after all these years, he was the best coach I think I was ever around either who worked for me or who I worked for. He was a brilliant football coach. I just tried to learn everything Melvin knew."
 
Having built relationships with other coaches around the country during his few years at A&M, he met USC coach John Robinson and in 1981, was hired by Robinson to become the new defensive coordinator at USC.
 
"That move to Los Angeles was a pretty good move," said Slocum. "I told someone out there I grew up and lived in Orange County, Texas. That's a whole lot different than Orange County, California."
 
Slocum's defense led the league that season while on offense, Marcus Allen was putting up a performance that led to him winning the Heisman Trophy.
 
After that season, Jackie Sherrill was hired as the new head coach at Texas A&M and gave Slocum a call asking to return as DC.
 
"I was ready to get off those freeways (in California)," laughed Slocum. "I worked with some great coaches like Norv Turner and Johnson Robinson. All that was good, but the lifestyle was hard. I was spending three or four nights a week in downtown LA in a hotel because it was too hard to get back-and-forth."
 
Slocum spent the 1982-88 seasons as the Aggies' defensive coordinator, then in 1989, was elevated to head coach until 2002. Slocum won more games at Texas A&M (123) than anyone in school history and coached some of the greatest players to play the college game. He also had remarkable coaching staffs, many who are currently head coaches in the NFL.
 
"I had some great assistant coaches. Gary Kubiak (Houston Texans and Denver Broncos head coach and Super Bowl 50 champion), I gave him his first job. Dennis Allen was the head coach of two NFL teams (Oakland Raiders and New Orleans Saints). Dan Campbell at Detroit (Lions) right now is one of my guys. Aaron Glenn at the Jets is one of my guys. I had David Culley with Houston. Mike Sherman coached for me here (A&M) then became the head coach at A&M and was head coach with the Green Bay Packers. I'm leaving people out I know, but I had a whole bunch of great coaches.
 
"I was surrounded by a bunch of really good people. If you have good players, good coaches at a good place, probably good things are going to happen."
 
In 2001, Slocum brought McNeese to Kyle Field, marking only the second major school for the Cowboys to face (Miami in 2000).
 
"I went into the AD office, we were bringing all these people in and paying them pretty good to come in here and play. I said, what about McNeese? I wanted to help them out. I thought it'd be a great opportunity for them. I told the AD, we bring people in from all over and they don't bring any fans. McNeese comes, they'll bring some fans. It's a close enough drive and they got people in Houston. So we did it. I was doing it to try and help McNeese was my motivation. Well you know what, they came over here and played their tails off. I thought 'man, I don't know what I got myself into. It was a good game and it was helpful for them, exposure-wise and financially."
 
McNeese lost that game 38-24 in front of 71,000 fans, the most fans a McNeese team had every played in front of at the time.
 
"I've been blessed my whole life. I grew up in a poor family with good Christian people and hard-working, it's just there was no education. Going up through junior high, high school and college, coaches along the way changed my life. The game of football changed my life. I had a chance to have a great career from the standpoint I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it every day. I had chances to do other things and offers to go work at companies to make more money, but I got up every day to go with a bunch of kids and I enjoyed it."
 
Slocum fought the toughest battle of his life in 2021 when he was diagnosed with stage four lymphoma. He was a winner in that as well.
 
"I lost 30 pounds then. MD Anderson did a great job of treating me but there was not a day went by I did not have one of my players call and pray for me. I had so much support. I said at the time, if this is the end of it, I've got no complaints. I've had such a wonderful, blessed life. If it's my time to go then so be it. That was five years ago and the cancer has been in remission and I've gotten to do some more fun, meaningful things."
 
Coaches like R.C. Slocum, and people for that matter, are a time a dozen. Legends like Coach Slocum are extremely rare and well worth remembering.