Lynn crossing guard makes his final stop

LYNN – They made him a sign, gave him cards and treats and, for one last time Friday, Cobbet School students crossed busy Franklin Street under Louis Sport Jr.’s watchful eye.Sport, a Lynn native, retired after seven years stationed outside Cobbet in good weather and bad, on freezing days like Friday, and on ones when the rain poured.”I love the kids, but I’ve had enough,” he said.The kids – and the teachers, parents and Cobbet Principal Susan Garrity – love Sport.”I hope whoever replaces him is as nice as Lou,” said Dennis Blaney.Five of Blaney’s children attended Cobbet, including Jake Hunt who slapped Sport a high-five Friday before crossing Franklin Street. Garrity said Sport earned respect from Cobbet’s 593 students while winning their affection.”His job was especially hard, keeping them all safe on a busy street,” she said.Sport decided to become a crossing guard after retiring from the MBTA as a bus driver.”I was stir-crazy, and I was driving my wife crazy,” he said.Cobbet was his first and only assignment, and he admits to a few standoffs with drivers over the years.”I try to treat people with respect. I got challenged once in a while and said to drivers, ?I’m trying to take care of these children,'” he said.Sport’s father, Lynn Police Officer Louis Sport Sr., and his mother, Bernice, lived on Brookline Street and sent Sport to the former Lynn Trade School. He worked as a mechanic and machinist with the late Abner Darby after graduating in 1964 and served in the Army Reserve from 1966 to 1972.After a stint at the GE River Works, he starting working for the MBTA in 1984 and helped his wife, Gail, raise their daughters, Rochelle, Tanache, Maisha and Markita. He retired in 2007. Once he was assigned to Cobbet, teacher Kathy Hood said Sport quickly won the affection of the school’s students.”He’s a great man,” she said.By the strictest of definitions, Sport is not retiring, but simply moving on to a new job: He plans to drive limousines for local funeral homes. The sign the Cobbet kids hung on a school fence praised him as “#1 crossing guard.””Without him, we could get hurt,” said Cobbet student Otniel Padro.