Give time to first-year head coaches in program transitions

The Tri-parish area is blessed with some of the best sports fans in all of Louisiana.

Passion, intensity, loyalty, our area’s diehards have it all and it’s a special thing to witness every week at various sporting events.

For the 98 percent of you that are all of those things, (and you all know who you are) go ahead and flip the page and read about something else, because nothing I’m saying here pertains to you because we already see eye-to-eye.

It’s the other 2 percent that I have a bone to pick with right now.

Here goes: Ease up on our first year prep football coaches.

They are all the right men for their respective jobs and before long, they will all see progression in their rebuilt programs.

This year, we welcomed five new coaches to the local prep fraternity.

In Lafourche Parish, longtime assistant coaches were promoted and Travis Douglas took over Central Lafourche and Chris Dugas took the helm at Thibodaux.

In Terrebonne, H.L. Bourgeois went local with former Vandebilt assistant coach Ben Powell and Ellender went experienced, hiring veteran coach Terry Washington.

St. Mary Parish’s lone rookie was actually not a rookie at all as the founder of Westgate’s program, Craig Brodie took over at Berwick.

None of the coaches had success in the win/loss column in their first seasons. Heck, both Berwick and Ellender went winless. Central Lafourche and H.L. Bourgeois continued to struggle. Thibodaux battled injuries and won just a couple of games.

That’s a tough thing to deal with. Trust me, I know. My high school won just two games my senior year. I never played football. I never had a horse in the race outside of school pride. I understand it’s doubly hard to accept defeat when it’s your son, cousin, nephew, friend or boyfriend on the field, I get that.

Most fans in the area did their best to be patient amidst the struggles for the rookie coaches this year, a trait that is admirable.

Again I state, we have some of the best fans in Louisiana.

But every pod of peas has a few that spoil quicker than others and the 2 percent have already begun grumbling about whether or not their team’s hire was the right one. Some have gone so far as to make up their mind, suggesting to me I write about how their team needs a new coach, a claim I always reply to verbally by saying, “you have one already,” before thinking to myself, “so stop being a pansy and be patient.”

The truth is no one should be judged in their first year rebuilding a program, because rebuilding is a three-step process that takes sometimes up to three or four years to complete.

The first stage is transition, this is the stage all of the first-year coaches were in this season.

It’s easily the hardest stage of the three. This is the time when a coach puts in his offense and defense, often times a source of growing pains within a team. This is also the stage where players become acclimated to not just their head coach, but the entire coaching staff.

Because of all of the “new” around them, players don’t perform as well as their potential mandates, which of course means the team is more prone to lose to polished programs, sometimes in blowout fashion.

See also: Central Lafourche, Thibodaux, H.L. Bourgeois, Ellender and Berwick’s 2011 seasons.

No matter how rough things get, a coach’s preaching eventually becomes gospel. When that happens, the first stage is ending and stage two is under way, growth.

This is the stage where players understand the system, but now need to learn how to win. This is where the little missed assignments in coverage begin to fade and the costly fumbles begin to occur less frequently.

Instead of dealing with tactual errors, programs may still struggle in the win/loss column in this stage because they must learn how to deal with pressure, the pressure of being in close games, playoff chases and all of the other workings of small scale success.

How soon one transitions from stage one to stage two is often the first tell-tale sign in whether a coach is having a positive impact on a program.

At Morgan City, it took Brandon Nowlin just one year, the same with South Lafourche’s Terry Farmer.

It’s far too early to know for sure if this year’s coaching crop will follow suit, but there’s signs of progress within all five rebuilding schools.

I’d venture to guess Thibodaux and Central Lafourche will be at stage two next season, H.L. Bourgeois might reach that point by the halfway mark of next season and Ellender and Berwick still have some work to be done, but both teams could easily be dangerous by the end of next season.

At some point, losing close games gets old and the players decide they want more. That’s when the final stage kicks in, consistent positive results.

Transitioning from stage two to stage three is what separates three or four-year coaches from the legacy coaches who are with a program for 10 or more years.

This is the growth stage when a coach has been with the program for a half decade or so and has coached every player on the roster their entire career.

It’s the time where conditioning shouldn’t be an issue (because kids know the routine) and strong chemistry is built, enough to power a team through the toughest of times.

This is the stage Patterson, Vandebilt, Central Catholic, South Terrebonne and E.D. White are in within their programs. All are annual playoff teams. South Lafourche and Terrebonne are both right at that same mark, as well, just notches below these contenders.

So with the playoffs beginning Friday and no local rookie coaches in the field, we can safely say that year one is done and our newbies are now officially sophomores in their quest to rebuild their teams.

Let’s just hope they are given a chance to go through the full cycle.

Because no matter what the 2 percent may think, one year does not a coach make.

It’s just a shame that sometimes it’s the minority’s voice that’s heard the loudest.

Their voice covers up the people who truly know what they are talking about, the people who see these people need more time to right the ship.