Morgan City High hires Bonnaffons as AD, head football coach

Morgan City High School has a new head football coach, but not everyone on the St. Mary Parish School Board is ready to roll out the welcome mat.

The board voted 8-3 for the immediate hire of New Orleans native Brett Bonnaffons as athletic director and head football coach.

A graduate of Holy Cross High School, Bonnaffons spent the past two seasons at Carroll High School in Monroe. Carrol went 9-1 this past season, losing only to state champ Neville High School in the regular season.

But not everyone on the St. Mary Parish School Board is happy about the hire because the board is still paying current athletic director and head coach Mark Millet through the end of the year, or until he officially resigns.

Bonnaffons will earn $25,000 for the remainder of the 2009-10 school year, according to Human Resources Director Ricky Armelin.

The move has drawn opposition from board members Marilyn LaSalle, Ginger Griffin and Edward Payton Jr., who said they were opposed to paying both men to do the same job at the same time.

“Aren’t we under a hiring freeze? So how can we have two people working, doing the same job?” LaSalle asked.

Griffin told board members last week she wanted to have Bonnaffons’ hire delayed until April 15, when he could take over as coach and athletic director because there is no teaching position for him to fill in the meantime.

To raise Bonnaffons’ salary for this school year, the school had to cut $25,000 from its supplies budget, Griffin said.

Board member Edward Payton objected to the hire given that Franklin and West St. Mary high schools both have vacant athletic director and head football coach jobs. “Since we have two people doing the same job at Morgan City, I’m sure the other schools would like to have two (athletic directors) as well,” he said.

Superintendent Donald Aguillard, defending his recommendation, said Morgan City’s football players had already started physical training for the next season, so the move now would be beneficial for Bonnaffons.

“He needs time to get to know the kids and get his game plan in place,” Aguillard said. “The move was made on the request of the principal (Mickey Fabre), who wants to take the program in a new direction,” he said.

School Board member Bill McCarty, who represents the Morgan City area, said the hire is good for the school. He said the new athletic director will help attract candidates for the open track coach and strength and conditioning coach positions.

“Morgan City High School is losing five to six students a year to private schools (because of poor athletic showings),” he said. “The new coach will keep the kids in our system.”

Board member Wayne Deslatte also supported the measure and said a precedence exists for having two head coaches on staff simultaneously.

“We’ve had overlapping coaches before in our system when it benefited schools and students,” he said. “This is something the principal wants to do to have a smooth transition.”

Bonnaffons, 27, will attempt to turn around a Morgan City program that has won just five games in its last two seasons. In 2009, the Tigers went 2-8 and struggled through a season of staff turmoil.

Conversely, Bonnaffons’ Carroll team went 2-7 in 2008 in a very tough Class 4-A. Last year, the team moved down to Class 3-A and finished the season 9-1, losing in the regular season only to eventual 4-A state champ Neville High. The Bulldogs lost to Bogalusa in the first round of the playoffs.