Surprisingly, when Catholic High coach Keith Menard and his son, CHS senior safety Ryan Menard, ride home at the end of the day, the conversation usually covers how the younger Menard did in school that day, not football practice.

And that arrangement works out fine for both of them.

In fact, Coach Menard makes it a point not to let the two roles he plays, coach and dad, conflict.

“The one thing that I promised myself was that I’d never let the two intermingle,” said Keith Menard. “We very, very, very seldom talk football on the way home.

“I feel like it needs to be father-son, not coach-player at that time.”

According to the elder Menard, there’s enough time at practice during the day for that conversation. But even in that case, there’s little interaction between the two because the CHS football coach handles the offensive side of the ball, but the football player is on the defensive side.

“I try to let our defensive coaches coach him and not be in a situation where a daddy-coach can be too hard or too soft on him,” said the elder Menard. “If he makes a mistake, I’ll get on him; but at the same time, if he makes a good play, why can’t I pat him on the back as a coach?”

Menard, the football coach, said that his son has done a great job for the team last year and through the first five games this year. But Menard, the dad, said he thought the whole transition coming from Many to Catholic High was going to be difficult but that his son thrived because the students at CHS made it easy for him to adjust.

The younger Menard came to Catholic High already having some knowledge of what defensive coach John Louviere wanted to run because he had seen some of the elements of it at Many High, said Keith Menard.

“He knew the basics of the defense,” said the coach. “But Coach Louviere has expanded the defense quite a bit and Ryan has picked up on it. What he has also done it brought the younger kids along in the defense as a mentor to the younger guys.”

Playing for his dad is a good thing for Ryan Menard, but he said that playing on the defensive side of the ball has its advantages because his dad is busy with the offense.

Taking the role of quarterback on the defense, the younger Menard makes it his responsibility to make sure everyone in the secondary is on the same page when it comes to that side of the ball.

“It’s not that hard,” said Ryan Menard. “We have good coaches here who teach us what to do and good players who learn what to do. I’ve been able to take the fact that I played some quarterback to the defensive side of the ball. It turned out to be not a hard transition at all. It’s the same thing without throwing the ball.”

He said that so far this year, Catholic High’s defense has stepped up a lot from last year. The team knows the defense now and the result is that the team is forcing turnovers and not letting opponents score.

“The offense scores two touchdowns a game and we are allowing 8 points per game,” said Menard. “We’re doing good. We want to keep forcing turnovers and mistakes for the other teams we play.”

One thing that is a little hard for the senior is that this week, the four other District 6-2A teams are playing each other while CHS drew a bye and plays host to Sojourner Truth Academy. But he knows that he and the rest of the Panthers, will get their opportunity to battle the rest of the district.

“All this does it help us get even more ready for district,” said Menard. “When we finally open district play next week,  we’ll be ready to go.”