There will be a new face on the sidelines when the Acadiana Christian School football team takes the field this season. Carroll Olivier, one of athletic director Brigette Boudreaux’s first hires at ACS, will lead the Lions in football and basketball this year.

For Olivier, the path to his first head coaching appointment hasn’t always been easy.

Beginning his coaching career with the 5th grade girls basketball team at Pesson Elementary, Olivier would eventually move on to coach in the NIRD league before starting up his own peewee football program, the New Iberia Hurricanes.

His success with the Hurricanes led to an opportunity to join legendary coach Glenn Fondall at Anderson Middle School.

“I learned a lot working under coach Fondal and coach (Gerald) Broussard,” he said. “The standards, the way to invest time in the kids, all of it. That was the first time that I saw a middle school with a true summer program that involved weightlifting, it was next level.”

Olivier stayed with Anderson for four seasons before moving into a varsity girls basketball coaching position at Westgate under Neka Jones. Olivier credits Jones for developing his motivational coaching style.

“I learned a lot under coach Neka,” Olivier said. “She’s really fiery, she has a lot of energy, and she always challenged me to be a motivator for the team. She never wanted me to come into the gym and be quiet, she wanted me to let my personality shine through.”

Following a one-year return to Anderson Middle, Olivier made the jump to Highland Baptist. He coached their football and basketball teams for two seasons alongside his former high school coach at NISH, Rick Hutson.

Now Olivier will lead his own program.

“I’m not going to lie, having an opportunity to run your own program and put to work all the lessons that you’ve learned is a blessing,” he explained. “When I got that opportunity, I knew that it was a blessing from god and I couldn’t turn my back on it.”

Oliver wasted little time getting to work with the ACS football team. Hosting sessions three day per week that regularly last seven hours or more, the team was given a crash-course in the Olivier style of football.

“I teach a lot of my kids off of my weakness,” Olivier said of his coaching philosophy. “I wasn’t a physical guy at all, if I could miss out on getting hit I was going to do it. I knew physicality was a part of the game, so when I became a coach that was always something that I wanted my kids to have. The better teams are usually the more physical teams, so you have to teach that.”

In addition to his hard-hitting style of play, Olivier’s programs are also defined by his faith in God.

One of his first acts as coach was to revitalize the team’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes program. FCA meetings are held first thing in the morning, giving Olivier and his team a chance to address their spiritual health before they begin working on their physical health.

“It’s a three-strand cord and you have to put God at the center of it,” he said. “I made a promise to God that if I ever had an opportunity to coach at this level, that I would use that opportunity to bring young men to him and build their spirituality. I believe that every great program should have a sense of faith and have God in the center of it. We’re building young men.”

Olivier said that there is a myth that christian athletes can’t compete as well as secular athletes, but he disagrees.

“That isn’t true at all, you can be a Christian and still dominate on the football field or the basketball court. I think that’s the best kind of athlete, a Christian athlete.”

For athletic director Brigette Boudreaux, Olivier’s faith and dedication was an important consideration in the decision to hire him.

“Carroll is very passionate and he’s big on developing players, which is exactly what we need at ACS,” she said. “The more time that I spend around him, the more that he inspires me to be a better coach. He always tries to see the positive in kids and doesn’t let them settle for what they are.”

Boudreaux said that she feels like Olivier is a perfect match for ACS because he enjoys player development so much.

“One thing that we both have to remind ourselves is why we are here,” Boudreaux said. “We love it because we like to develop players. Any coach can say that but until you deal with kids who are maybe less talented or motivated to work hard, you don’t know how true that is. At ACS, there is a smaller pool of athletes to begin with, so you’re going to have a smaller pool of talent to choose from and you have to see the potential and have faith that the kids can work hard to get results. At a small school, that’s a better fit because somebody who isn’t ready to do those extra things that Carroll is willing to do will get discouraged, but he never gets discouraged. He remembers why he is here and pushes the kids to their full potential.”

Olivier agreed, adding that his experience at demanding programs has helped him develop the standards he is setting at ACS.

“After having a conversation with coach Brigette (Boudreaux) and telling her what I wanted, it was understood that I wanted to build a culture of competition and success,” he explained. “I try my best to bring that mentality, having played 5A ball and coached with some really good programs. I want to bring that standard here. I want to build a program that isn’t predicated on being a small school, I want it to be predicated on football and playing the right way.”

Olivier may have his eyes on building a culture, but he isn’t losing sight of the need to win as well.

“Of course, you don’t coach and develop kids just for moral victories,” he added. “A successful program attracts people, people come and watch you and kids want to come play for you. Of course you want to have success on the field too, because those kids have been putting in a lot of hard work. To go out there and lose every game, it’ll be hard to get them to come back out and grind like they are this summer. If you have a good year, you win some games and you are competitive, the kids want to get back to the grind even harder so that they can get better.”

Boudreaux said that she was worried about how the ACS athletes would react to Oliver’s demanding style, but has witnessed the team fully buy in to the vision that Olivier has for the program.

“I was a little nervous at first because I know his style and I didn’t think that ACS would be ready for him, but the funny thing is that’s what the kids wanted all along, they just didn’t realize it,” she said. “I think that the kids have responded to him well. It took a couple of weeks to see that he was serious, but the bottom line is that he cares for the kids and when kids know that you’re in it for the long haul, they’ll do what you ask. The boys have really bought in to what he is about.”