Monica’s legacy of building winners is recognized

On the many Friday nights I drove the 25 miles from my home to the campus of St. Charles Catholic to watch the football team play, I did so with some trepidation.

I would be on the sideline with the grand tyrant of high school coaches, Frank Monica.

Opposing coaches feared him, in many cases because they understood and begrudgingly accepted that his knowledge and understanding of football and young people was superior to theirs.

Officials assigned to his team’s games feared him because he had the ability to cover an entire field with his eyes and find mistakes they may have overlooked. And, in no uncertain terms, Coach Monica let them know it.

During a game against Country Day, the visitors’ head coach at the time, Joe Chango, became so frustrated with the officials calling more infractions on his team than the host school that he yelled to the referee, “I know you’re afraid of Coach Monica. I fear him, too, but you’ve got to give us some decent calls.”

Instead, the referee gave him the boot.

So, you can understand my angst stepping on to the Comets’ field.

Because it is necessary for me to report and photograph the games I attend, I work from the sideline and not the usually undersized and stuffy press box. That puts me in close proximity to the team’s bench, coaching staff and players. Most coaches know that I interfere as little as possible with the mass of humanity working between the 25-yard lines. I try to stay stealthy. They get that.

The first time I “encroached” into Comet territory, Monica gave me a stare I hadn’t encountered since the sixth grade when I spilled a bottle of India ink on the art teacher’s foot.

For the next 22 years I covered and photographed St. Charles Catholic games from the opponents’ sideline.

Like most of those who were not a part of the culture that Monica has built over 22 years at the LaPlace Catholic school, there is a learning curve involved in trying to understand the passion Monica has for making people better human beings as well as winning football games, for which he has been successful. I definitely misread him.

His was a fatherly style of coaching. During the pregame warm-up, he’d roam through the ranks of players, speaking words of encouragement or simply patting a player on the helmet in appreciation for the work he put in during the week to prepare for an opponent, win or lose.

And the Comets mostly won for the coach who was inducted into the Louisiana High School Hall of Fame the year before he retired with 284 victories over a 30-year career as head coach at Lutcher, Riverside Academy, Jesuit and SCC (since 1997).

He has become the most successful high school football coach in the River Parishes, with more victories than Tim Detillier (266 at St. Charles and Lutcher) and his own high school mentor Joe Keller (262 at Reserve).

In November, the St. Charles Catholic family presented him with an honor that will long endure by dedicating the Thomas Dupuy Stadium’s playing surface, “Monica Field.”

The coach told a gathering of the SCC Quarterback Club that he hopes his legacy is all about going the extra mile, and he reminded former and current players to always put the team first.

Honors are not collectables for Monica. Watching a student become a good person and a hard worker as a member of a team gives him satisfaction enough.

That philosophy has enabled the St. Charles Catholic coach to win three state championships (one each at the three high schools he coached). While at SCC, the Comets were class or division runners-up five times, and over his final 22 years, his blue-and-gold teams made 12 semifinal appearances. Today he stands away from the team on the sideline.

Outside the team box, where he stands today to watch the Comets play one year after retiring as the school’s athletic director and head coach, you see more of a Jeckyl than a Hyde.

He will watch the Comets’ offense set up for a play at the line of scrimmage, then reveal what play the offense will run.

He will also point out the weakness of a defense the Comets will exploit. And he’s usually correct.

Monica was simply a college calibre mentor who coached a high school team.

Years ago he could have taken a head coaching job at Nicholls State University. “But the school had little money back then,” he said.

His legacy is a successful program he has turned over to his nephew, Wayne Stein, as his successor as AD and head coach, and son Ty – two coaches who are as passionate as he was about winning. And it didn’t take long for Stein to win state championships in two sports during his brief tenure: a football title in 2021 which he followed with a state baseball championship in 2022.