Courtesy Tonya Hall
Coach James Robert Hall, left, stands with the Tuffly Park Colts baseball team in the late 1960s.
The Houston City Council on Wednesday renamed Tuffly Park in Houston’s Fifth Ward neighborhood after a beloved coach who led free sports programming in the park for more than five decades.
The late James Robert Hall created the Tuffly Colts baseball team in 1964. Relying on business sponsorships and community fundraising, the free program was the first of its kind in the area.
“Kids pay a lot of money for other sporting programs, and he just never believed in that,” his daughter, Tonya Hall, said. “He did everything through donations. He gave his own money to keep these programs running — for 54 years, not a dime from any kid.”
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Courtesy Tonya Hall
Coach James Robert Hall, center, stands with former members of the Tuffly Park Colts baseball team for a reunion game.
The longtime physical education teacher for the Houston Independent School District also launched a free sports program at Kerr Park in Houston’s Northside neighborhood. The leagues expanded over the years to include football and track.
From the ages of 8 through 12, James Prince played on Hall’s baseball and football teams at Tuffly Park, which will now be known as James Robert Hall Park. Prince went on to launch Rap-A-Lot records in 1986 and became a prominent executive, manager and promoter in the hip-hop industry.
Prince said the free sports programing was foundational to his success as an entrepreneur “because that’s where I learned the tools of winning, and that’s where I learned the discipline and the importance of winning.”
“It wasn’t a lot of things to do after school, and I’m a firm believer, you know, idle time is the devil’s workshop,” he said. “That wasn’t the case with us. We knew after school that we could go to Tuffly Park and get these bags of sandwiches and milk and different things like that — and practice hard. On that field was life-changing experiences for me.”
Dominic Anthony Walsh / Houston Public Media
Tuffly Park boasts a baseball field, pool and basketball court.
According to Hall’s stepdaughter, Janice Prater, his teams were competitive.
“They were winning teams,” Prater said. “I can’t count the amount of trophies that he has from his little league football, baseball and track. We could fill a storage locker with all of the medals and trophies that he won because all of his teams were always winning — always winning.”
As her dad, Tonya Hall said, he was “a lot of fun.” As her coach on the coed tackle football team, he was “tough.”
“He didn’t pull any punches just because we were his daughters,” she said. “He made us work just as hard if not harder than the rest of the kids out there.”
Dominic Anthony Walsh / Houston Public Media
Tuffly Park hosted baseball games for more than 50 years under the leadership of coach James Robert Hall.
The effort to rename Tuffly Park began before his death. According to the city’s park department, more than 500 people voiced support for the renaming during a public comment period in early 2024.
The late community advocate Alvin Byrd spearheaded the initiative. His widow, Sandra Polk, spoke to members of the Houston City Council on Wednesday before they approved the change. She shared a letter in support of the renaming written by Byrd before he died in 2023.
In the letter, Byrd described Hall as “a father figure to most of the boys whose fathers were not present at the time.”
Dominic Anthony Walsh / Houston Public Media
Sandra Polk, the widow of community advocate Alvin Byrd, sits in the Houston City Council chambers before the renaming of Tuffly Park as James Robert Hall Park.
“Our area of Houston already had a negative reputation, and Mr. Hall taught us that we can change that one youth at a time,” Byrd wrote.
In recognition of his volunteer service, President Joe Biden awarded Hall the Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award in 2023.
Hall died in October 2024 at the age of 86. At the time, he had five daughters, 10 grandchildren and two great grandchildren.