HAMMOND — As the one-time sports editor at L’OBSERVATEUR, Errol Gauff spent a lot of time watching basketball games.

In his spare time, though, he also coached an AAU team. During a visit to watch a cousin play football, a former coach planted a seed, telling Gauff he should be a coach. After a move from the LaPlace newspaper to New Orleans in the early 1990s, Gauff got the final boost he needed to plant that seed.

“Coaching was always in the back of my mind as something I would like to try someday,” Gauff said. “My editor at the time told me, ‘You’re young. If you’re going to do it, now’s the time to do it.’”

So Gauff made the jump from journalism to an extraordinary career as a high school basketball coach. Two years ago, he made the jump to assistant coach of the Southeastern Louisiana University men’s basketball team.

Saturday he landed as the head coach of Southeastern’s women’s team, pending approval by the university’s board of directors.

Gauff, 47, is the sixth head coach in the program’s history.

“I’m too excited to be nervous,” said Gauff, a LaPlace native who graduated from St. Paul’s School in Covington. “I’m not really nervous about the gender switch or the cross-over. I plan on treating them the same way I would treat the male athletes, or  anyone — with respect. Just like the men, they just want to be considered serious athletes.”

Gauff certainly takes coaching seriously. He spent 18 seasons at St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Hammond, turning the Falcons into a state basketball powerhouse. He lead his team to its first district championship, first state playoff appearance and  first playoff victory before leading it to back-to-back Class 2A state championships in 2007 and 2008. His teams won eight consecutive district titles from 2007 to 2014, including six consecutive seasons during which they were undefeated in district play.

He was named the Louisiana Sports Writers Association Coach of the Year in 2006 after leading the Falcons to their first 30-win season in program history — the first of seven consecutive 30-win seasons. He was an assistant coach in the 2012 High School All-America Game.

Gauff’s stint at St. Thomas Aquinas was interrupted by one season spent at St. Stanislaus School in Bay St. Louis, Miss. That was cut short after his mother, Shirley Gauff , of LaPlace was among the 23 victims killed in the horrific Mother’s Day Bus Crash in May of 1999.

“I was needed back at home,” Gauff said.

Now Gauff’s skills are needed to revitalize the Lady Lions program, which has gone 11-47 overall and 6-30 in Southland Conference play over the last three seasons. The 2015-16 team finished 4-25 overall and 3-15 in league games and failed to reach the Southland Tournament for the fourth consecutive season.

Gauff said he is ready to hit the ground running.

“I hope to make a difference in the attitude, to make them understand how important it is for our school to have a successful program and how important it is for me to have a successful program,” he said. “The biggest challenge is, I’m getting started late and just getting up to speed on recruiting women after recruiting for the men’s team the last two years.”