Lee Hedges

He was selected for the Louisiana High School Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 1987, the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame in 2010 in the "oldtimers" category, and the Ark-La-Tex Sports Museum of Champions, with induction ceremonies in the Shreveport Convention Hall on August 4, 2012.

His 1973 team at Captain Shreve was, as of the 2021 season, the last Shreveport-Bossier public school squad to win a state football championship. Hedges was head coach for three Shreveport public high school teams -- Byrd Yellow Jackets (1956–59), Woodlawn Knights (1960–65), and Captain Shreve Gators (1967–84). He guided teams from each school into state championship games.

Yet Shreve—which never trailed in the regular season—had to come from behind in each of its four playoff games, culminating with a 26–15 victory against Glen Oaks of Baton Rouge for the 1973 state championship.

The 1973 team was the first of three Captain Shreve teams with perfect regular-season records (the 1971 team went 9–0–1). The 1974 team extended the Gators' winning streak to 24 games before falling to Southwood in the state playoffs. The 1980 team also was 10–0 in regular-season play.

His 1971 and 1983 teams made it to the state semifinals; his 1973 team, with its 14–0 record and average margin of victory of 26 points, gave him his only state championship and is considered one of the most talented teams in Shreveport-Bossier history.

In 18 seasons at Captain Shreve, Hedges' teams had a 146–52–4 (.733) record, with eight district championships (the first in 1970, the fourth year of the program).

Hedges, in turn, returned to Shreveport to become the head coach at Captain Shreve High School, which opened in fall 1967.

In the 1966 season, Tech's quarterbacks were sophomore Phil Robertson—the future "Duck Commander" of the reality television series, Duck Dynasty—and Bradshaw, a freshman. The team had the worst season (1-9 record) in Aillet's 26 years as Tech coach, and he retired from football, but remained as athletic director a couple of months after the season ended.

In 28 seasons, Hedges' teams posted a 216–92–9 (.698) record and had 24 winning seasons, reaching the playoffs 19 times and winning 11 district championships. Five of his teams reached the state semifinals. Three teams which did not make the playoffs had either 9–2 or 8–2 records. The most prominent of the athletes Hedges coached was quarterback Terry Bradshaw, the four-time Super Bowl champion with the Pittsburgh Steelers and Pro Football Hall of Fame selection. He was a first-year starter on Hedges' 1965 Woodlawn High School team that reached the state championship game.

He was the state's "Coach of the Year" in 1965 when Bradshaw led a surprising team—with only one returning starter from the year before—to an 11–2–1 record. The district champions then won two playoff games before a 12–9 loss to Sulphur in Calcasieu Parish in the state championship game.

After the 1965 season, Hedges resigned from the Woodlawn job and accepted a position as offensive backfield coach at Louisiana Tech University under head coach Joe Aillet. At the time, a dozen former Woodlawn players had gone on to play at Tech, where Hedges also taught physical education for the academic year 1966–67.

In 1963, Hedges was chosen "Outstanding Teacher" by the Caddo Parish Teachers Association. In 1973, he was elected president of the Louisiana High School Coaches Association.

Hedges' record might have been more impressive if not for two seasons in which he started programs at brand-new schools. His 1960 Woodlawn team went 0–9, not scoring for the first six games, but the 1961 team went 9–3 and won the District 1-AAA championship. His 1967 Captain Shreve team went 1–7; the 1968 team finished second in its district and made the state playoffs. Without those two first-year seasons, his teams averaged more than eight wins per year.

A. L. Williams, part of Hedges' coaching staff at Woodlawn in the early 1960s and his successor there as head coach, describes Hedges as

In addition to Bradshaw, other star athletes whom Hedges coached (with school and senior seasons listed) included punter-receiver Pat Studstill (Byrd, 1956), linebacker Bo Harris (Captain Shreve, 1970), running back Roland Harper (Shreve, 1970), receiver Carlos Pennywell (Shreve, 1973), defensive back Robert Moore (Shreve, 1981), running back Derrick Douglas (Shreve, 1985). All played in the National Football League.

The next season, 1956, Hedges became head coach at Byrd at age 26 and his first team also went to the state title game. Istrouma again was the opponent and won 14–7, the fourth of Istrouma's eight state titles in a 13-year period.

After a stint in the United States Army, he finished work on his degree and in 1954 helped coach the LSU freshmen in football. He then began his coaching career at Fair Park High School as an assistant to Homer Prendergast in 1955. That Fair Park team went to the state championship game and lost to Istrouma of Baton Rouge, led by running back Billy Cannon.

An outfielder in baseball, he played two years professionally (1952–53) with the Baton Rouge Red Sticks of the Evangeline Baseball League.

He then played football and baseball at LSU. He was a quarterback for a time at LSU, then switched to running back and was part of the "Cinderella" 1949 Tigers team that won its last six games and took an 8–2 record into the Sugar Bowl, a 35–0 loss to undefeated and No. 2-ranked University of Oklahoma (coached by Bud Wilkinson, quarterbacked by Darrell Royal).

Hedges was a three-sport star (football, basketball, baseball) at Fair Park, an All-State running back in 1947 who help Fair Park run its winning streak against crosstown rival Byrd to five years in a row in the annual Thanksgiving Day game at Louisiana State Fair Stadium in Shreveport.

Hedges is a native of rural Fifty-Six in Stone County near Mountain View in northern Arkansas. In the middle 1940s, he played football at Fair Park High School in Shreveport. He then played at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. He coached at the high school level from 1955 to 1984, with the exception of the 1966 season.

Hedges was married for fifty-eight years to the former Nell Womack (1933–2013), who was born in Greensburg in St. Helena Parish in southeastern Louisiana. The daughter of Hollis Wilson Womack (1899-1979) and the former Alda Clark Bamburg (1901–1976), Nell was reared with her younger sister, Bobbie Jean Womack Toland (1934-2012), in Minden and graduated in 1951 from Minden High School and then Louisiana Tech. She taught in the Caddo Parish schools for twenty-seven years; Bobbie, in the Webster Parish schools for more than thirty years. There are two Hedges sons, Russell Wayne Hedges (born September 1959), the sports editor of the Bossier Press-Tribune in Bossier City, and Robert Douglas "Doug" Hedges (born August 1961), an oil and natural gas land man, and his wife, Lisa. Nell Hedges is interred at Forest Park West Cemetery in Shreveport. Her parents and sister are interred at Thomas-Wren Cemetery in Martin in Red River Parish. Nell Hedges's nephew, Michael Scott Toland (born October 1959), is a member of the Minden City Council.

Junior Lee Hedges (born November 2, 1929) is, with 217 victories, the winningest high school football coach in the history of Shreveport-Bossier City in northwestern Louisiana. In 2001, the Caddo Parish School Board renamed the football stadium at Captain Shreve High School in Hedges' honor. In 2010, he was elected to the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame in Natchitoches.