West Memphis AD wins gold in Senior Olympics

Bray now a five-time win- er, and oh yeah, we play ner after latest victory with Arkansas Travelers

By Billy Woods

WM School District Larry Bray is a gold medalist again. At age 67, the West Memphis Athletic Director won his fifth gold medal playing for the Arkansas Travelers, who won the basketball tournament in the Senior Olympic Games last week in Albuquerque, NM.

For Bray and his teammates, they are the closest thing to a sure bet in their competition. They have won the basketball gold medal five times in the last six years.

“We’re just a bunch of great friends getting together,” said Bray, the former Blue Devil boys head basketball coach. “We enjoy a lot of the same things and one of them is basketball.”

The rest of Bray’s Travelers teammates include Joe Couch of Bergman, John Hutchcraft of Guy, Ken Andrews of Petit Jean, Dewey Lambert of Broken Arrow, OK, Rudy White of Arizone and Arnie Whitman of California.

The team blitzed the rest of the competition, going 8-0, which Bray said was the first time the team had swept through the tournament unbeaten.

“This is always like a vacation with a bunch of friends,” Bray said. “We always stay at the same hotel, go out to eat togethbasketball.”

The victims of Travelers basketball last week reads like a map of the U.S.

Bray squad defeated the Westendorf Bucket-makers 100-63, W.C. Bennett of New Mexico 59-44, the Meteors 96-30, the New York Legends 53-42, the Capo Classics 61-44, the BTW Sharks 86-57 and the final two wins came against W.C. Bennett 48-38 and 64-51 respectively.

Bray coached in West Memphis for 40 years before retiring and taking his current post as A.D. Anyone who played for Bray or who knows him well enough, knows that even at his age he can still stroke a basketball better than any current high school player.

He has been known to explain all that by saying, “It’s just muscle memory.”

Bray said he has been playing with the players on the Travelers squad for at least 12 years.

This year, however, Bray came ready to rock the Reddies.

The former Henderson State University All-American came dressed in the school’s gear and it went viral on social media last week.

“I realized I didn’t have any Henderson stuff at home, so I got online and purchased a lot of the school’s gear with Reddies on it,” he explained.

“Actually, there were a lot of Henderson people (at the Games) and they recognized the gear. It was something different and it sure felt good in those cold buildings.”

The Travelers have won the gold medal so often that their reputation preceded them last week.

“I heard some of the other teams groaning because they were bracketed with us,” Bray said with a laugh. This time, Bray said he was inspired even further by 103-year-old sprinter Julia “Hurricane” Hawkins, who competed in the the Senior Olympic Games again.

“She’s amazing to watch,” Bray said. “That just gives me the incentive to keep on playing basketball.”

Bray said his team’s secret to success is unselfishness by the entire roster.

“We just have a bunch of guys who don’t care who scores, really,” he commented. “There were some games where certain guys didn’t shoot much.

There were some games I didn’t shoot much. We’re not concerned about who’s scoring and who can score. If you’re scoring, we’re going to get you the ball. We also have an inside-outside mentality. Once the ball goes inside, it’s not like it’s going to stay inside. If you’re open on the outside we’ll kick it back out to you for wide-open shots.

It’s just fun to play with those guys because they're so unselfish.”

West Memphis Athletic Director Larry Bray won a gold medal (his fifth) playing for the Arkansas Travelers in the 2019 Senior Olympic Games last week in Albuquerque, New Mexico, along with teammates Joe Couch of Bergman, John Hutchcraft of Guy, Ken Andrews of Petit Jean, Dewey Lambert of Oklahoma, Rudy White of Arizona and Arnie Whitman of California.

Submitted Photo