Three Terrebonne coaches appointed

The Terrebonne Parish School Board OK’d the appointment of three head coaches on June 3: a boys’ head varsity track coach at Ellender Memorial and girl’s basketball and cross-country team coach at H.L. Bourgeois.

Tawaskie Anderson, head football coach at Ellender Memorial, will replace Terry Freeman as the new boys’ head varsity track coach.

Anderson was an assistant track coach during the 2007 season, working with distance runners. He said his biggest challenge next year would be recruiting kids for the team.

“The name of the game is numbers,” he insisted. “Last year, we only had seven to nine guys on the boys’ varsity track team, and we still managed to win state in one event (Bradford Matthews in the triple jump).”

Anderson, who teaches ninth through 12th grade algebra, hopes to field a team that can break Vandebilt’s five-year streak as district 8-4A champions. That will not be easy without Matthews, who accepted a track scholarship at Northwestern State, and sprinter Jesse Turner, who will play football at Nicholls State.

He does have Kenyatta Smith and Glen Smith returning next season in individual and relay races. For other events, Anderson thinks he knows where to find potential track athletes.

“I want to get those football players on the track [team],” he declared. “The more athletes competing in each individual event, that’s going to help us win district championship and ultimately a state championship if we have enough guys make it to state.”

Marjorie Cotton, head girl’s basketball coach at H.L. Bourgeois, knows nothing about last year’s team except “they had a pretty rough season.”

That is an appropriate description of the 7-16 record (3-9 in district 8-5A play) during the 2007-08 season under fired coach Crescent Williams.

Cotton wants to play at a fast pace on both sides of the ball.

“If I have the personnel, we’ll run an up-tempo, full-court pressure defense,” she said. “I’m more of a flex motion coach when it comes to offense. In order to run that style, you have to be disciplined in everything you do.”

Cotton has been a coach for 14 years. Last season, she led Port Allen High (9-14, 6-2 in district 9-3A) to the playoffs where they lost in the bi-district round to second-seeded Ursuline Academy.

Before that, she coached at Wossman High School in Monroe for five years, Delta Junior High in Mer Rouge, La., for five years, and Carroll High School in Monroe for a year.

“I went from one extreme to the other, and the styles are completely different, but I don’t change mine,” Cotton proclaimed. “I’m anxious to get down there and get started.”

James Landry has spent the past nine years coaching freshman boys’ basketball at Evergreen Junior High.

Next season, he will be a volunteer assistant for the boys’ varsity team at Bourgeois, but it is his head-coaching job of the cross-country team that will be a challenge.

“I don’t know a whole lot about cross-country yet,” said Landry, who has never coached or run cross-country before. “They needed a cross-country coach. It was kind of a two-for-one deal.”

Bourgeois athletic director and head boys’ basketball coach Andrew Caillouet is confident Landry possesses the qualities needed to put the team on the right path.

“If you’re a good coach, you can coach anything once you have the fundamentals down,” he contends. “We have some people that are going to give him some help with workouts.”

Those people would be Thea Dillard, the previous cross-country coach, who teaches physical education at Evergreen, and former H.L. Bourgeois cross-country coach Leo Folse, who is activity coordinator at Bourgeois.

“I already contacted them, and they told me to feel free to get with them on rules or certain meets, running meets or what to do in practice,” Landry said.

Besides learning the sport from the ground up, the ninth and 10th grade algebra and geometry teacher has another aim from the outset.

“H.L. didn’t have as many female runners as male runners,” he said. “My goal is to field a team of 12 boys and 12 girls or whatever the norm is. I think I motivate kids pretty well.”

The other sports-related appointments approved by the school board are Martin Driscoll, assistant varsity football coach at Bourgeois; Joseph Clement, assistant varsity football coach at Terrebonne High; Tamara Murphy, softball coach at Montegut Middle School; and Holly Boudreaux, drill squad sponsor at Oaklawn Jr. High.