MICHAEL KIRAL / L’Observateur / November 21, 1999

LAPLACE – The west banks of St. John and St. James parishes are quietcommunities, home to historical plantation homes and cane fields blowing in the breeze.

On Friday nights in the fall, they are also home to two of the most successful football programs in the state.

Going into the 1999 season, St. James had won 10 or more games everyseason since 1992. During that time, the Wildcats have made two trips tothe Class 3A championship game in the Superdome and two other trips to the semifinals. Their longest losing streak during that period was threegames and they once rolled off 16 straight regular season victories.

When the Wildcats lost to Lutcher this season, it snapped their sixth-year string of district titles and was their first district loss since the Lutcher game of 1995. St. James has not lost a district game to a team other thanLutcher since the E.D. White game in the 10th week of the 1992 season.West St. John has had similar success in the 1990s. The Rams have had awinning season every year since 1987. That year, they made thesemifinals and going deep into the playoffs has been an annual tradition since then. In this decade, the Rams have made four trips to the SuperdomeClassic, winning the Class 2A title in 1998. A loss to Riverside in 1998ended West St. John’s sixth-year winning streak in district play. The Ramswould come back to defeat Riverside, 28-23, for the state title.

West St. John has gone 68-22 (a 75.6 winning percentage) in the decadewhile St. James has a 64-26 (71.1 winning percentage) record, ranking theteams sixth-seventh in the metro area in terms of winning percentage.

What is the secret to their success? There have been a number of factors given, from the stability of the coaching staffs to community support.

Of course, the coaches will tell you the main reason is the players. Bothprograms have had a steady flow of talent, unusual for any area but especially for one that has a combined population of less than 8,000 residents.

“You are always prone to variances, ebbs and flows of talent,” St. Jameshead coach Rick Gaille, who has been at the school since 1992, said. “Wehave been fortunate that so far, there have been more flows than ebbs.”West St. John head coach Laury Dupont, who has been with the Rams since1987, concurs.

“We’ve had no down cycle with the kids,” Dupont said.

Both teams have had outstanding players over the years. West St. John’sDwaine Thomas (1994) and Donriel Borne (1997) and St. James’ MartinHarry (1996) and Chad Jasmin (1998) have been all-Metro MVPs this decade.

But it’s the overall talent that has made the programs successful. Gaillepointed out that it often comes down to the 22nd player being better than the opponent’s 22nd player. And those athletes possessed not only talentbut another characteristic that all coaches look for – coachability.

“Talent-wise, we’ve had a pretty strong string of talented players,” Gaille said. “Players who can play the game. Players who come into the programwilling to be coached and willing to the best of their abilities to put that coaching into play.”Where the programs differ is in the amount of experience the players have when they enter the high school level. St. James does not have a feederschool program. Although some of the players have played for the area’ssuccessful youth football teams, Gaille said almost two-thirds of the players have not played organized football before.

With the school system-wide boycott this year, the Wildcats also had to deal with not having the numbers to field a freshman and junior varsity squad, both of which were positives in the past, this season.

“We have to be very definite in what we teach them,” Gaille said of the players that enter the program.

On the other hand, West St. John has benefitted from a little leagueprogram that started years ago and is still around. The Rams also getplayers in the eighth grade who are able to practice with the high school and learn the terminology.

The programs also differ in the stability of the coaching staffs. Untilrecently, St. James had a lot of turnover on its staff but in the last coupleof years, the Wildcats have been able to keep its staff intact. West St.John’s staff has remained intact, so much so that Martin Sylvain, with four years of experience, is the newest coach.

Then there are the coaches. Each has won over 100 games at their currentschools. Gaille took over a team that was 2-8 in 1991 and led it to a 9-1record his first season. Dupont has been named the district coach of theyear on three occasions. “The difference Coach Gaille brought was more of a sense of discipline,” St. James assistant coach Daniel Shepard said. “He’s a real student of thegame.”Gaille quoted the Second Law of Thermodynamics (with an increase in energy, there is a decrease in entropy or chaos) in describing the work of the coaching staffs in building a successful program.

“It takes an extreme amount of energy by the coaching staff to demand the level of quality for a program to be successful,” Gaille said. “The naturalstate of nature is chaos. If something is organized, it’s because somebodymade it organized.”Both teams have also had the tremendous backing of their administrations and their communities.

“The administration allows the coaches staff development time,” Shepard said. “That staff development helps tremendously. The administration hasgiven us the instruments needed to build the program.”Dupont also credited his administration and school board for continuing to provide funding to improve the school’s facilities.

“Our facilities are first class, second to none, especially in Class 2A,” Dupont said.

The football teams also help bring the communities together, especially at playoff time.

“At this time of the year, it’s a big lift,” St. John councilman Perry Baileysaid. “It gets people pumped up.”The success of the programs doesn’t just stop on the field. Both teamshave had tremendous success recently in getting their players to the next level. Thirteen Wildcats and five Rams are on college football rosters thisseason. Another Ram, Ira Jackson, is a student assistant at Nicholls Stateafter suffering a career-ending injury.

Recruiters from some of the top programs in the country have found their way to the West Bank. The Wildcats’ Chad Jasmin was one of the toprunning back recruits in teh country last year and was signed by Clemson.

West St. John all-state receiver Donriel Louis verbally commited to LSUthis summer.

“Colleges can feel comfortable in recruiting one of our people because they can be really certain they will be somebody they can count on,” Gaille said.

Both coaches agreed that there are advantages and disadvantages of being in a small community. Most of the disadvantages are logistical, gettingstudents who often are spread out together quickly. But there is also acloseness involved.

“We know everybody here,” Dupont said. “Not only the faculty and theadministration but also the school board people, they know just everybody in the program.”West St. John quarterback Carl Gauthier noted that many of the playersthat played on the championship team last year grew up together.

“I knew exactly what everybody was doing on every play,” Gauthier said.

It’s also been said that success breeds success. The players in a winningprogram say they don’t want to be the ones that break that tradition.

“It means a lot,” Louis said. “In the past, we’ve been good. We want towork hard to continue that tradition.”Dupont said he sees that commitment in practice.

“Tradition comes from success,” Dupont said. “The kids take pride in it.They practice knowing they have to outdo what they did the year before.”The Rams and Wildcats have been accomplishing that goal in recent years.

And the players will tell you, no matter how successful the past may have been, there are always new goals to accomplish.

“We’ve had 10 wins all these years,” St. James quarterback Corey Webstersaid. “We don’t want to be the team to break that streak. “We are looking to do something even bigger, somebody nobody else has done recently and that’s win a state championship.”

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