Once a grand old rivalry, Jesuit vs. Easton is back

By Ron Brocato, Sports
Clarion Herald

History tells us that the 1 o’clock football game on Nov. 9 between Jesuit and Warren Easton high schools will be the 50th in the once-legendary rivalry between the city’s oldest public and Catholic prep football programs.

Reclassification has cast the two ancient rivals into the same District (9-5A) beginning in the 2024-25 school year. 

Easton will become part of what was not long ago a storied “Catholic League.” But it’s an unlikely moniker today with the additions of John Curtis (2013), Edna Karr (2022) and now Easton, which chose to play above its 4A class.

It’s hardly a reunion made in heaven: Jesuit considers Holy Cross and Brother Martin its main rivals, while Easton relates more to Karr as its No. 1 foe. But, for the first half of the 20th century, the Blue and White vs. Purple and Old Gold were the colors of the day. 

Between 1914 and 1955, the gridiron battle between the two was the premier match of the high school sports year, and (unlike today) covered like a glove by the city’s daily newspapers, which were ardent rivals among themselves.

But, the annual clash of titans came to an inglorious end following the 1955 season when the administrations of the two schools canceled the series because of the vandalism students from each school had perpetrated on the other’s campus during the weeks prior to the games, according to news reports.

So, the great series ended with Easton ahead, 21-16-4, until it had a brief resumption several years later.

Jesuit won the 1955 meeting, 23-7, which was also the last game between local public and Catholic rivals in the same league. The Catholic League was formed in 1956.

Although the end of a great era was at hand, neither school fretted over the series’ demise. Jesuit turned its attention to its annual game vs. Holy Cross, a school that had been its main parochial rival since 1922 and that it would go on to meet every year thereafter.

Warren Easton also benefitted when the “Public League” was formed as a result of Jefferson Parish consolidating several smaller schools into East Jefferson and West Jefferson. Between 1956 and 1960, the Eagles won 23 consecutive games against their public counterparts. That ended in 1961 when the competition caught up and Easton suffered tie games with Nicholls and East Jefferson.

In 1960, fate thrust the Eagles and Blue Jays against each other in the semifinal round of the Class AAA playoffs. Played before a crowd of 17,500 on a muddy City Park Stadium turf, Jesuit sloshed to a 12-0 victory and a berth in the state championship game.

The rematch enticed factions in the Jesuit and Easton camps to see the “great rivalry” renewed. By then, the two Jefferson Parish behemoths had replaced the city’s premier public school as the best of its class, and three schools from “down the bayou” joined the city’s five Catholic schools, a situation no one was happy about. 

So, perhaps a new rivalry with Easton might not have been a bad idea. Easton won the game, 20-19, before an attendance reported as 12,000-plus. But, social and cultural evolution was about to bring a permanent change to high school sports.

Integration of every public school had reached all 12 grades by the end of the 1960s, and schools that were part of a former all-Black association joined the LHSAA and gave New Orleans three Class 4A districts – two public school districts and the Catholic League.

Easton’s demographics also changed, and by 1979 and with a smaller footprint, the state’s oldest high school dropped into a lower classification and remained in Class 3A until 1985.

There was no thought of recreating the rivalry until 2003 when the two administrations decided to “give it another go.” But, the results were conclusive: Jesuit won the next two games by scores of 37-7 and 23-0. Then came Hurricane Katrina.

Warren Easton became a charter school under a board of alumni, and for the next several years, every student who entered the school as a freshman graduated on time, said former board chairman and alumnus Arthur Hardy.

The football program also made a miraculous recovery after languishing through five more losing seasons. But that changed in 2013 when the Eagles enjoyed their first of 10 consecutive winning seasons and an 87-31 overall record.

Easton has been the Class 4A runner-up four times but has not won a state title since 1942. Jesuit has won eight between 1933 and 2014. The old rivalry will resume with Easton holding a 25-20-4 victory margin.

How long this new rebirth lasts is anybody’s guess. But the pomp and glory of its days of lore has been lost in time.

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