Joanette Batiste Boutte
In 1975, the first African American woman to play varsity basketball and volleyball at LSU. She ranks 4th all-time at LSU in rebounds with 1,017 in 121 career games. Our Living Legend discusses the impact of Title IX on her life, and becoming a professional athlete, educator, mother and wife.
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Count Time Podcast Living Legend Joanette Boutte
Selected quotes and notes from Count Time Podcast with LD Azobra Interview with Joanette Boutte
Good evening. Good evening. Good evening it’s 4:00 PM. Stand up it’s count time, time for every man and woman to stand up and be counted. Welcome to another edition of Count Time podcast. I am brother LD Azobra. Thank you for joining us today.
Today, we have a living legend here, someone I’ve been knowing for quite some time, a friend, confidant, agitated at times. She’s a wonderful, wonderful lady friend, worked with me quite some time ago, too, and I’m so excited to have her here. She’s been dealing with her own situations in life, but guess what? She’s a strong overcomer of a lot of things. And we want to welcome Miss Joanette Baptiste Boutte to Count Time
JBB
Thank you, LD.
LD
At New Iberia High, you excelled to the level that you were able to gain a scholarship.
JBB
Well, this is what happened. I think it was my junior year when I heard about title Nine and female athletes being awarded scholarships to college. And I remember thinking, and that’s why I kind of relate to what Coach Cador said. Because for me, I mean, you know, I used to say my family was poor, without the R you know what I mean? Po! My sister keeps saying, no, we weren’t. We were who we were. And it really makes sense because until I got to LSU, I didn’t know we were poor because everything we needed, my mother provided, and that was it. I was a very loved person. I was taken care of. I’d not been molested by anybody. You know what I’m saying?
But I knew that if I was going to go to college, because I was the oldest of my mother’s children, my uncle, my mother’s younger brother, had gone to college, Wiley College HBCU, and actually was drafted by the Saints to play football, but ended up with a foot injury that stopped that from happening.
LD
What was his name?
JBB
Charles Schredit. That’s my grandmother’s last name, married name. But I knew that I was going to go to college then I needed to impress some coaches, so that was kind of my goal for my senior year.
LD
You were thinking that? Because you knew your mama could not afford to send you to college.
JBB
Correct. And if they were going to give women scholarships, then I need to earn a scholarship. But let me tell you how dumb I was. Maybe I told you I had a boyfriend. So my boyfriend you may need to cut this out of the thing.
I have scholarship offers from different parts of the state and outside of the state, right? My husband wants to marry me. He’s a military person. He’s in Florida, right? He tells me that he tells the university, wherever it is, that he would talk to the coach and they would give me a tryout. So I decided to get married and trust the idea that he would talk to a coach. Left all my scholarships behind. You hear me? I’m serious as a heart attack. God is good. He takes care of the stupid ones.
October 29, 2022 @ 12:16 pm
Awesome story me and Jo played high school volleyball together and plus we grew up together.. our mothers were best friends..