Former THS, HJH coach Pugh hit it big long before Lotto

He played pick-up football games with Elvis Presley, swam in the Mississippi River and excelled in sports at Humes High School in Memphis, Tenn., in the late ’50s and early ’60s.

In time, former Terrebonne High School athletic director and head football coach Kelly Pugh would become a local legend in his own right.

“He was just an ordinary guy,” Pugh says, recalling the King of Rock’n’Roll. “He just drove up when we were playing football, asked if he could play, and joined the game.”

Pugh was a three-star high school athlete – lettering in baseball, basketball and, his favorite, football. It’s a bit ironic that one of Terrebonne Parish’s most successful football coaches received a scholarship to Nicholls State University for a sport he never coached in public schools.

“I got a scholarship to play baseball for the Colonels,” said Pugh. “I lettered in college and graduated with a degree in physical education and a minor in history in 1964.”

After college graduation, Pugh began teaching in Golden Meadow and then moved up the bayou to St. Joseph Catholic High School in Chauvin to begin his coaching career as an assistant to then-head football coach Sonny Jackson.

“I was Sonny’s assistant for three years until he got out of teaching,” Pugh recalls. “I took over as head coach and stayed at St. Joseph’s for two more years then left because the school was going to close. So I applied and was offered a position at Terrebonne High to coach the offensive line under head coach Peter Verret Sr.”

It was that 1971 move that would put Pugh on a collision course with his destiny.

After the Verret era, Pugh applied for and lost the opportunity to become the Tigers head coach to Larry Whatley in 1974; it would be another two years before he would be handed the reins as the head coach, a position he would hold for 10 years.

“We ran a split-back veer on offense and a 50 defense in those days.” Pugh explains. “We played ball control. When you rush for nearly 300 yards a game, the other team’s offense never really gets on the field and we had some success.”

But it wasn’t until the Class of 1983 started playing for the Tigers in ’81 that Pugh’s and Terrebonne High’s football fortunes began to change from good to excellent.

“That was a special group of kids. They were so close. They liked and respected each other as players and as people,” said Pugh. “They just got it in their minds that they couldn’t be beat.”

The Tigers gelled over the 1981 and 1982 seasons. Pugh said the players would do everything the coaches asked them to do because they wanted to be the best. But it wasn’t until 1983 that his team embarked on a season that would make history.

The ’83 team played football in District 8-4A (one of the toughest districts in the state) where it finished the regular season an outstanding 8-1. The team’s only loss came to district rival Thibodaux High School in a heartbreaking 13-to-9 loss.

It was after this setback that the character of the ’83 team showed through. “It was senior player Johnny Carter’s statement to the local press that I remember most,” recalled Pugh. “He told them that we weren’t going to lose another district game.”

Carter’s prediction was correct. The Tigers defeated district rivals and state powerhouses Central and South Lafourche, playing tough defense and their signature ball control, smash mouth offense.

The play-offs saw the Tigers defeat Abramson High (35-3), John Erhet (27-7) and Captain Shreve (21-14) on their way to the school’s first State Championship appearance in Terrebonne history against north Louisiana high school dynasty, Neville.

“That championship game week was crazy,” Pugh said, smiling. “The press and college scouts were all over us. The players deserved the recognition, but it was every distraction that a coach hates.”

The Tigers 1983 dream season ended with a 40-14 loss to Neville, but Pugh remembers the game fondly. “I wish all high school coaches could experience the feeling of playing for the state title. That whole week and the game is something I will never forget.”

Pugh remained the head coach at Terrebonne for another two years until he left the high school ranks and accepted the head job at neighboring Houma Junior High School in 1986. During his 10 years at the school, his teams only lost seven games – and three of those came in one season.

“It was the discipline on those teams that made them winners,” Pugh said. “Not just discipline on the field but discipline in the classroom and in the halls. You show me a team with no discipline and I’ll show you a team that can’t win.”

Now retired and living in Bourg, Pugh remembers his last two years in education. “I won the lottery and everyone expected me to quit; but I didn’t teach for 30 years and work that long and that hard to quit a year before retirement. So I stayed on through the 1996 school year and then retired.”

Pugh keeps busy these days hunting, fishing and working in his garden. Looking back on his life and coaching career and all its highs and lows, Pugh said he wouldn’t change a thing.

“It was 30 years of total enjoyment. I loved every minute of it.”

Former Terrebonne High School athletic director and head football coach Kelly Pugh reminisces about his year’s on the gridiron. * Photo by BRAD THIBODAUX