By RYAN ARENA
L’Observateur

RESERVE — East St. John football coach Phillip Banko knows a big part of his job is to win football games, but he also embraces his role as a leader of young men.

Those two jobs, he said, go hand in hand.

“We get them as young boys, and we’ve got four years to help mold them into young men, who go off to college, who join the military, who enter the workplace,” Banko said. “We want to help them understand and know how to make the right decisions off the field. It’s not just about being an athlete, running, jumping and lifting, but being a thinking, rational person.

“And when you see kids who become that off the field, then you see them making the right decisions on the field. You do that, and the football part takes care of itself.”

Almost any conversation with Banko reveals that, like many coaches, his occupation is far from just a job. He’s coached at the NFL and collegiate levels (the Cleveland Browns and Miami Hurricanes among his stops) and he’ll often reference those levels when speaking about his team.

Banko referred to junior safety and playmaker Ahmani Martin as “The Honeycat” last season, a play on former LSU Tiger Tyrann Mathieu’s nickname; he paraphrases late Raiders former owner Al Davis’ “Once a Raider, always a Raider” with “Once a Wildcat, always a Wildcat” for his East St. John team.

Through all of his career stops, Banko has learned from great coaches and leaders. And one constant he believes in is involving his players in the process.

“That ‘my way or the highway’ stuff, in my mind, isn’t the way to go,” Banko said. “These kids have to buy into what you’re doing. They have to trust you. And if they believe in you and what you’re doing as a unit, then they’re going to do it. Incorporate them, show them a vision to succeed.”

A large part of his coaching philosophy comes from another highly respected football personality.

“I learned this from Eddie Robinson,” said Banko of the late, former Grambling State coach. “He taught me, whatever you try to teach them, whether it’s how to tackle, how to lift a barbell, whatever it is, tell them why. Tell them why it’s that way and why it works.”

Banko was named East St. John coach in early 2011, the first head-coaching job of his career at any level. After leading the Wildcats to a successful first season, his ability to lead in that role was tested immensely.

After Hurricane Isaac ravaged parts of St. John the Baptist Parish, it left many East St. John players without homes, the school itself largely submerged in water and the team’s athletic equipment and field house ruined. Isaac struck just before the opening week of the 2012 prep football season; the Wildcats didn’t even have time to adjust, their jamboree already played.

Nonetheless, after the storm passed, Banko called his players together to meet, not only as a team, but as a family. Remarkably, nearly the entire roster came together for that team meeting.

“We couldn’t even talk on the phone with them,” Banko said. “It had to all be through Facebook with phones down. And everyone said the same thing, ‘I can’t wait to get to practice.’ We had 97 percent of our guys there, so happy to see one another, hugging. We say it’s the Wildcat Nation. We’re all a family.”

After starting the season with three losses (the first of which the team did not have enough uniforms to dress a large part of its roster), East St. John rallied to win five of its last six regular season games to improbably reach the Class 5A state playoffs, despite moving from one practice facility to another, having limited equipment and, at times, nowhere to watch film.

Banko said it came down to his players pulling together to believe in a cause. And when young people do that, he believes, it keeps them on the right path in life.

“For me, a head coach is the patriarch of the family,” Banko said. “You’re going to have to punish people and make them toe the line. Sometimes you’ve got to be hard on them, but by the same token, when they do well you pat ‘em on the back, give them a hug. In a lot of ways, it’s certainly like being a father figure.

“Though, honestly, I feel like I’m still a pretty young man,” he added with a laugh. “I maybe kind of think of myself as an uncle, instead.”