Former Apache Coach Randall Milstead Passes Away

BY PHIL HICKS
phicks@tylerpaper.com

Former Tyler Junior College basketball coach and longtime East Texas educator Randall Milstead passed away Sunday in Nashville, Tenn., after a long illness, his wife Mrs. Judy Waggoner Milstead said.
Services are set for 3 p.m. Saturday at Tyler Primitive Baptist Church, 6502 Old Jacksonville Highway in Tyler with Vernis Stanaland, pastor, officiating.

Visitation and refreshments will follow the service in the fellowship hall.
Milstead followed legendary coach Floyd Wagstaff as Apache basketball coach, taking over in January 1975. He coached three-and-a-half seasons, leading the Apaches to two Texas Eastern Conference championships and a record of 68-41.
He became Wagstaff's assistant coach in 1968 and served in that capacity until Wagstaff suffered a heart attack and retired at midseason to become fulltime athletic director during the 1974-75 season. The team was 9-4 overall and 2-0 in league play when he became head coach on Jan. 3, 1975. The team finished at 21-11 and 11-5.
During Milstead's first full season as head coach the Tribe posted records of 22-8 and 12-4, finishing in a three-way tie for conference championship with Henderson County Junior College (now Trinity Valley Community College) and Lon Morris College. TJC fell to LMC in the Region XIV Tournament semifinals, 67-65.
The next season, the Apaches won the TEC championship outright with marks of 21-9 and 4-2. TJC defeated Lon Morris in the Region XIV Tournament semifinals, 67-61, and lost in the title game to HCJC, 72-69.
His final season at TJC was 1977-78 when he fielded a very young team of 12 freshmen and two sophomores. The Apaches finished at 13-17 and 7-9.
Before joining TJC, Milstead was employed in the Tyler Independent School District as a junior high coach at Hubbard and Hogg. He was then a principal in the Bullard school district.
He was born Jan. 7, 1935, in Panola County to the late James Ernest Milstead and Julia Elizabeth Whitaker Milstead. He was also preceded in death by a brother, James Ernest Milstead.
Survivors include his wife, Judy Waggoner Milstead, of Nashville; sons, Keith Ray Milstead and wife Rhonda, of Bailey, Colo., David Abbott and wife Allison, of Nashville; daughter, Christie Osburn and husband Paul, of Tyler; six grandchildren, Julia Elizabeth Dickey and husband Bryce, of Tyler, Ashlie Faber and husband Rob, of Jacksonville, Fla., Heather Rey and husband Jordan, of Tyler, Emily Smith and husband Austin, of Tyler, Christopher Osburn, of Tyler and Coco Sage Abbott, of Nashville; three great-grandchildren, Uriyah Faber, Eliyana Rey and Ezra Rey; sisters-in-law, Elizabeth Milstead, of Nacogdoches, Gloria and Layden Hitchcock, of Amarillo, Barbara and Bob Wright, of Shreveport, La.; niece, Suzie Mayes, of Nacogdoches; and nephew, Jim Milstead, of Carthage.