BY KEVIN CHIRI

Publisher

EDGARD – Maybe it is the long run of success after some ups and downs in the early years of coaching.

But whatever the reason, West St. John head football coach Laury Dupont tries to downplay his success as much as possible.

“I’ve just had some good kids,” the Ram mentor said.

But looking at Dupont’s record as he guided West St. John into the 2A state championship contest on Friday night at the Superdome, it has clearly been more than “some good kids.”

Dupont is in his 18th year as the head coach at WSJ, and incredibly, has never missed the playoffs in his previous 17 years.

During that time the club has won 10 district championships, been to the state finals six times, and won state championships in 1998 and 2003.

“I guess it goes into the kids believing in the system, and of course, success breeds success,” he said. “When we came here, the program had just gone 5-5 and had not been in the playoffs. So when we got into the playoffs in the first year, kids got interested in joining up.”

Just how much participation does Dupont get with his kids?

Out of only 110 boys at the school, 75 are on the football team.

“We’ve got kids who pay the price year-round,” he added. “If they aren’t doing the weights in the off-season, they are in other sports. And football is no longer a seasonal sport, it’s got to be a year-round thing now or you won’t have this kind of success.”

Dupont had previously coached at E.D. White, Terrebonne High and Thibodaux before coming to West St. John.

But since joining the St. John Parish school, he has turned his 32 years of coaching into some success that isn’t easily rivaled by many state programs.

“I’ve just been fortunate,” Dupont added quietly.

If fortunate is what Dupont calls the tremendous success with the Ram program, many other state football coaches would like to have just half of the “good fortune” that he has had.