He can fly: Thibodaux leaper wins big at Tiger Relays
April 13, 2016
Complete agate results for the Tiger Relays
April 13, 2016
When South Lafourche ended its 2015 season with Bastrop in the opening round of the Class 4A State Playoffs, Tarpons coach Dennis Skains ended his postgame interview with a simple, but powerful sentence.
“I love my kids,” Skains said with tears in his eyes. “I wouldn’t trade them for anything in the world. They are all loved like they are my own.”
That love and emotion was on full display throughout the week in the halls of South Lafourche High School.
Skains confirmed to The Times first last Tuesday morning that he had accepted the head coaching position at Cecilia High School – a program which went 10-2 last season, but which had an opening after outgoing coach Terry Martin went to Breaux Bridge.
His final day with the school was Friday – the final day before the Tarpons went on spring break. He spent the entire past week saying his final goodbyes to his colleagues, friends and, most importantly, his players – the very folks who Skains said complicated his decision, because he didn’t want to leave them behind.
Skains was 24-19 in four seasons in Galliano. He led the Tarpons to the playoffs in all four seasons he spent with the team, including in 2015 when the Tarpons were 6-4 in the regular season, despite losing their All-Everything starting quarterback Harvey Allen for the season in a car wreck.
He said the decision to leave is the hardest thing he’s ever had to do in his professional life.
“It’s hard to walk away. This is a great school – it’s a place I’m always going to hold near to me for as long as I’m around,” Skains said, pausing often during his words while tears rolled down his face. “This is a special place. The kids are great. The administration is the best that you could ever possibly ask for. South Lafourche High School is an awesome place, and I’ll always love and cherish my time here and the people that I met along the way.”
So with those words having been said, the obvious question is: Why is he leaving a place he enjoyed?
Two factors go into play in that decision – location and opportunity.
Skains was raised in Lafayette. He is a Teurlings Catholic graduate and former player, turned assistant coach at the school.
Cecilia is a small suburb of the southwestern Louisiana population hub. The two places are just 15.4 miles apart, according to GoogleMaps.
Skains said being closer to home is something he’d long envisioned for his future, though he concedes that over time, South Lafourche, too, had become like home.
Tarpons principal Gaye Cheramie also talked about Cecilia’s location advantage in a statement she released hours after news got out regarding Skains leaving the team.
“It is with a heavy heart that I let you know that Coach Dennis Skains has accepted a head coaching job at Cecilia High School,” Cheramie’s statement reads. “I wish him well as he moves closer to where he grew up. We will miss him, and we wish him well in his new position – except if he plays against us.”
The coach said he’d spoken with Cecilia administration several times in the past few weeks, turning down every inquiry they’d make into his interest in the program.
But Skains said the talks heated up last Sunday – the day that he said sold him that he’d accept the job.
“I wasn’t even interested in it at first,” Skains said. “I kept pushing them away and they kept calling. It ended up clicking, and getting somewhere.”
In those conversations is where the opportunity piece of it all comes in.
Skains said that Cecilia’s administration sweetened the pot for him by giving him a lot of the things that he asked for in negotiations.
The coach said that he will be able to bring several of his Lafayette-based colleagues onto his new staff – something that was a huge factor in his decision.
Skains lost several assistant coaches at South Lafourche in the past few seasons, and in 2016, he was in the process of replacing longtime Tarpons offensive coordinator Jared Landrum, who is getting out of teaching and entering the private sector at the completion of the school year.
The coach said Cecilia had more than 30 seniors last season, and he doesn’t know much about the players he’s inheriting.
“They just kept saying yes to everything that I asked for,” Skains said. “At a point, it became an offer that really became hard for me to turn down.”
But that still didn’t make it easy.
Skains said he thinks South Lafourche will be loaded in 2016 – a team that he suspects will easily compete for the district title.
South Lafourche returns quarterback Jaydon Cheramie, 1,000-yard rusher Corbin Allen and several playmaking weapons off a team that won six games a season ago.
He said the new coach will thrive with the talent the team has in place.
“Whoever comes in here is going to have success, because these kids coming up can really play,” Skains said. “We were figuring to be in a good position here for the next few seasons.”
The rush to find that new guy is ongoing, and the job has already been posted on the LHSAA site.
But a hire will not need to be made before spring practices begin, because the Tarpons have opted out of spring, and will instead utilize a newly passed rule that will allow them to trade spring football for five extra practice days in the preseason.
