There is an old saying that you don’t miss what you never had.

Until the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Highland Baptist head football coach and athletic director Rick Hutson had become somewhat immune to his profession’s constant grind.

In the years leading up to the pandemic, Hutson said he had noticed a little more fatigue than normal. As a veteran coach, he was aware that his patience might have dwindled a bit.

But Hutson had never had an ample amount of free time until 2020. He found it enjoyable.

“I got to unplug a little bit during the pandemic,” he said. “It was so different. There were months off without anything pressing to do. It dawned on me that I had never had more than a week, even during vacation, where I wasn’t at least on the phone, checking on things.”

Hutson said the lengthy break planted a seed, “an itch,” as he calls it, to take a respite from coaching. He recently announced that he would step down at Highland Baptist at the end of the school year, his 40th as a coach.

“Forty years doesn’t have any significance to it,” he said. “It is a nice, round number. My dad coached 50 years of high school football. When I told him I was quitting at 40 years, he said, ‘you’re still a young man. Why are you retiring?'”

Hutson said he knew a 50-year coaching career wasn’t in the cards.

Simultaneously, he’s leaving the door open in case there is an urge to return. Though busy tending to his parents’ health, his four dogs and spending time with his wife, Penny, Hutson is open to new opportunities. A job where he can be home around 5 P.M. would be ideal.

“It seemed like it was time to take a break, catch my breath, and see what life would be like without it,” he said. “If I miss it, I can come back.”

A native of Hope, Arkansas, Hutson obtained two degrees from the University of Louisiana-Monroe and took his first job as an assistant at nearby St. Frederick. He quickly ascended to the head coaching job at the age of 23.

“I wasn’t ready for that,” he admitted. “I learned through trial by fire.”

Stints at Bastrop, Ouachita Parish and Kilgore (Texas) followed. When Penny got a job offer in Opelousas, Hutson made the rounds with interviews at several area schools. New Iberia Senior High was among them.

He spent 20 years at NISH, retired from the state’s public school system, then took the job at Highland Baptist.

His second year at NISH provided unforgettable memories in the form of bizarre football games. In the second week of the season, a thunderstorm in overtime postponed a Thursday game against St. Martinville Senior High at Lloyd G. Porter Stadium.

“We decided to call it a tie,” he recalled. “We woke up the next morning and found out that the game had to be made up by Monday, if possible. Westgate had the stadium on Friday. We returned on Saturday. We ran four plays, they blocked our field goal, and they kicked a field goal on third down. Then we all went home.”

A couple of weeks later, shenanigans struck again at Lloyd G. Porter. NISH played the first half vs. Sulphur with 50% of the stadium lights functioning. At halftime, a crew was dispatched to make repairs, but they had to turn all the lights off first.

“They turned the lights out to fix them and couldn’t get them to come back on,” Hutson said. “Sulphur isn’t a local team that could conveniently return the next day, so we waited for Catholic High to finish their game and played there.”

There was also the fourth game of the year against Acadiana. Trailing 40-14 at the half, the Yellow Jackets staged a rally to win a wild, 61-60 shootout.

Dre Fusilier, Daniel Lewis, Michael Sam and Jordy Joseph are among the most talented players Hutson coached at NISH. Fusilier and Joseph are college coaches. Lewis works in the political field, and Sam continued his football career on the professional level.

“Mike Sam might be the best athlete we ever had,” Hutson said. “Barbe had the No. 1 receiver in the nation who was averaging 150-160 yards a game. Mike held him to 32 yards, and Daniel scored the winning touchdown.”