Never will be another team like 1998 state champs

A line about 500 deep stood outside South Lafourche High School’s doors on a Friday afternoon in the spring of 1998.

I was one of the lucky ones in the massive sea of blue and white.

A giant bell sounded the start of third period inside the school we had now swarmed and we could all hear the stirs inside as students shuffled to their next class.

No one where we were moved an inch.

School wasn’t important to this bunch of Cajuns on this particular day.

Heck, no more than a few hours earlier, I had been taken out of my fifth grade classes by my parents. I was one of the few who had even showed up that day in the first place.

Down the road at the neighboring school, they took the initiative and just let out classes early on this particular day.

It was the right thing to do.

Education could wait until next week.

There was a party that needed to be started right here where I stood in Galliano.

A few hours later with restlessness beginning to sink in, those in the front of the lines got creative and fired up barbecue pits to feed the masses who had now been in line for hours.

Others had begun to get blood pumping by tossing around footballs, while adults set up tables and played cards.

I looked down at my watch, 3 p.m.

I had been in line since before noon.

The South Lafourche boys’ basketball team’s quarterfinals playoff game with Jesuit still wouldn’t tip off for another four hours.

It was worth the wait, every last second of it.

With food in my belly and my watch reading 3:55 or so, I take a small walk to stretch my legs. As I do so, I see TV reporters roaming up and down the line filming this spectacle.

A camera ended up in my vicinity, as a young reporter came to a group of people around us who were making noise.

“Why are you all here today?” I can remember the reporter ask us. “You guys are on live TV.”

“BECAUSE WE LOVE OUR TARPONS,” screamed virtually everyone in the line.

OK, so maybe it didn’t sound exactly like that. It was probably more mumbled and probably sounded more like a bear roaring than a complete sentence.

Either way, the message got across and the state now knew why this massive group dropped their day-to-day lives and gathered here. We were here out of love for South Lafourche.

My parents and I were some of the lucky ones and we were able to get inside the gym, mad-dashing to get a seat.

We did just in time.

Within 15 to 20 minutes, every seat in the more than 1,000-seat gym was gone.

Another quick look at my watch, 5 p.m.

The gym sold out two hours before tip-off.

Like 11-year-olds tend to do, I immediately got hungry as soon as I got inside the gym.

After a brief haggle for money and a lengthier struggle to fight off the masses to get to the gym floor, I finally reached the exit of the now swollen gym.

I pushed the rusted blue door open, made a right turn and literally stopped dead in my tracks at what I saw.

There were hundreds upon hundreds of chairs in the school’s halls.

At the north and south ends of the chairs were big-screen TV sets.

Those not lucky enough to get inside the gym now had a backup plan, watching the game with family and friends from the hall.

Another quick glance at my now goose bump-filled left arm showed 5:45.

Forget just the gym, the entire school was now sold out.

Tip-off was still more than an hour and 15 minutes away.

I could go on and on, but the story remains the same: there will never be another team quite like the South Lafourche 1998 state championship team.

They were stars.

From former Georgia Tech standout Clarence Moore to fellow Yellow Jacket Ross Chouest, all the way to Nicholls State letterman Beau O’Quin, these guys were choked deep with talent.

Incredibly talented players like Blake Lee, Zyrone Richardelle, Ashton Dillon, Jamar Jones and Ryan Guillory also did their part to make this team exactly what it was, a force.

But woven inside of that God-given talent were also stories.

Tales like that of Moore, who came from nothing, but was adopted into the wealthy Chouest family at a young age to give him hope and a future.

Or the story of coach Scott Bouzigard, who was most known around the community growing up for football prowess.

The former Tarpon caught the game-winning touchdown pass in one of the Tarpons’ state championship victories in the 1970s.

Oh, how soon Bouzigard became a basketball man, as he won the state title in a second sport, this time trading in cleats for a clipboard.

But more importantly than all of those things, to the people of South Lafourche, these guys were heroes.

After winning the title, they had a championship parade up and down Bayou Lafourche. Yes, a championship parade … for a team full of teenagers, some of whom couldn’t yet drive on their own.

Days and weeks later, they visited local schools, signing autographs for youngsters like me and just showing our youth that, despite what others may think or say, success is realistic.

That was a message that inspired me for a lot of my teenage life and still does to this day.

If they can inspire, why can’t I, or anyone else, for that matter?

It’s a message that I know inspired several of my friends the same way that it did me.

More than 13 years have passed since the Tarpons’ magic was in full force.

The waiting lines have gone, the team is no longer at its peak of dominance and all of the members of that squad have gone their separate ways.

Some still live in the area. Others have moved away.

And while what that team did probably will never duplicated, those guys’ impact will never be forgotten ‘Down the Bayou.’

That bunch of kids changed things for my community, for the better.

I can look back and say I’m proud to have been one of the lucky 500 to wait in line to see them play.