Two longtime schools ending football programs?

By Ron Brocato
Clarion Herald

While Greater New Orleans area high schools prepare for another school year and sports season to begin, one small high school apparently has ceased its football program, and another may follow.

According to Skip Chatelain, the assignment secretary for the Greater New Orleans Football Officials Association, neither Ecole Classique nor Ridgewood Prep have submitted football schedules to him for the 2021 season.

In addition, the Louisiana High School Athletic Association has neither school listed in its 2021 master schedule, whose pages for the two small private schools remain blank.

For a history buff, it’s a sad day for two programs that were once stalwarts among the area’s Class 1A schools. The final games of the schools’ storied past were played in 2019, when they faced each other twice. Ecole won both games, 18-8 and 41-12.

Ridgewood did not play a game last year. Ecole played one, losing to Fisher, 25-6, before a second against St. Martin’s was canceled.

Ecole Classique principal David Federico said he doesn’t know if there will be another football season at the private school his family owns.

“It depends on how many students show up and want to play,” Federico said. “I can’t say just now if that’s going to happen. We’ll just have to see.”

But it seems doubtful that the stadium lights will be turned on in 2021 or thereafter.

The two schools are members of a Class 1A district that includes Country Day, St. Martin’s, Riverside Academy, West St. John and Crescent City, which also no longer fields a football team.

Twenty-two small, private and public schools have put on their football gear since 1908. With the probable ending of these two programs, just four remain.

The oldest is Newman, which has enjoyed continuous seasons without interruption since 1908. Yes, the Greenies will have played football for the past 114 seasons. And they’ve fielded such great athletes as Cooper, Peyton and Eli Manning; Miles Clements; Reggie Reginelli; Omar Douglas; Claude “Monk” Simons; Odell Beckham Jr.; and the list goes on.

John Curtis, an Adam’s rib of the former Mid-City Baptist, has been the most successful in athletics with 26 state titles in various classifications since J.T. Curtis took over as head coach in 1969 from his father, for whom the school was named when it opened on South Carrollton Avenue and Nelson Street in 1963.

Country Day, which has been playing on its campus in Old Metairie for 76 consecutive seasons, and St. Martin’s, which has fielded a team each season since 1950, have maintained grid programs.

Ridgewood and Ecole Classique were once part of a district with these schools.

Originally, Ridgewood’s campus was on the corner of Friedrichs and Northline, walking distance to Country Day when it opened in 1948. While at that location, the Eagles enjoyed five consecutive winning seasons (1961-65), which included a Class B state championship earned in 1964 by beating Kinder, 20-7.

But since moving to Pasadena Avenue near Airline Drive in 1972, the football program has not enjoyed the success exhibited by girls’ basketball and volleyball. The school has scheduled fewer football games over the past five years, concentrating on playing opponents of comparable ability (St. Martin’s, Ben Franklin and Ecole Classique, scheduling the latter in 2017-19). Its final year in a district (2016) resulted in a 0-8 record.

Before the Federico family purchased the 11-acre plot it now occupies from Sam Barthe in 1979, Ecole Classique was located near Samuel Square on Napoleon Avenue and Saratoga Street in the city. The football team played just two seasons – nine total games – in 1964 and 1965 – then put away its red and white uniforms for good, noted its first and most successful coach, Al Weidenbacher.

When the owners relocated the school to its current site at 5236 Glendale St. in Metairie, the Spartans adopted Barthe’s colors of blue and gold and used the former team’s uniforms and equipment.

Under coaches Weidenbacher and later Tap Bentz, Ecole enjoyed eight winning seasons (1979-86) and was competitive against district opponents. The 1986 team won 11 straight games before losing to Plaisance, 14-7, in the regional round of the 1A playoff.

Ecole was also winning state baseball championships between 1981-85. And the volleyball and basketball rivalry with Ridgewood is legendary.

The two staunch rivals collided in the Class 1A state finals four years in a row, with Ridgewood beating the Lady Spartans in 1992 and 1993, and Ecole avenging the losses with victories over their Metairie rival in 1994 and 1995.

The 1992 game was a 33-32 nail-biter in which Chuck Dorvin’s Lady Eagles (38-2) prevailed over Bentz’s 30-9 squad. But while the ladies were grabbing the headlines, football began to regress. And, in the post-Katrina years, the regression reached its low point.

These are two of several historic small football programs that faded into history. Some are names long forgotten, including Rugby Academy (1896-1967), New Orleans Academy (1914-1985), Maumus (1937-53), Holy Name of Mary (1951-59), St. John Prep (1967-84), Kehoe Academy (1972-78), Lutheran (1975-2010), First Assembly (1976-1986) and Ganus (1983-2000).

Crescent City Baptist, which opened in 1975, played its last football season in 2016, forfeiting its final two games in a 1-9  season. It was reclassified in Class C, where its basketball teams continue to enjoy success.

And long forgotten are the “Jefferson six,” three of which (Kenner, Metairie and Jefferson) consolidated in 1955 to become East Jefferson, and three others (Westwego, Marrero and Gretna) merged into West Jefferson.

Metairie was the most successful of the bunch, posting a combined 108-57-5 record between 1933 and 1954 because it was the only Class 1A school. The other five Riverside League members were in Class B.

But Metairie never won a state title. Kenner did in 1952 by beating Donaldsonville, 19-6. Its head coach was a future parish president – Joe Yenni.

rbrocato@clarionherald.org