Not even his return to north Louisiana spared Brian Fine from being on the receiving end of several jokes from New Iberia Senior High head football coach Rick Hutson at the annual Iberia Parish Sugar Cane Jamboree Coaches Luncheon held Tuesday at the Ramada of New Iberia.

Hutson and Fine, friends since both coached teams in North Louisiana before taking jobs at NISH and Westgate, respectively, waged friendly battles on the links and at the annual coaches’ luncheon each year since Fine became head coach at WHS in 2007. Fine resigned in May to become the first coach at D’Arbonne Woods Charter School near Farmerville, where he’d coached FHS to a state title in 2001.

“Just to let you know, I prep for this thing from the end of the season till now,” said Hutson. “And Coach Fine gave me so much material last year I really thought I was going to have to have additional time today (beyond the 10-minute limit) to tell him everything.

“And then of course he resigned and left like the sorry dog that he is. I really think one of the reasons he left was because he knew his day of reckoning was going to be today, and he didn’t want to face all the truth.”

Hutson won the “Not-So-Sweet Award” as voted on by representatives of the sponsors for the luncheon and the jamboree (The Daily Iberian, Community First Bank and Coca-Cola). The award goes to the coach who most successfully uses humor to take a look at the upcoming season.

Hutson said he’s been asked if he’ll have the same kind of relationship with new WHS coach Ryan Antoine that he had with Fine. Antoine served as defensive coordinator at Westgate under Fine before becoming head coach at West St. Mary the past two seasons. He returns to Westgate this year as head coach.

“Truthfully, I don’t think so,” said Hutson. “Coach Fine and I were approximately the same age, the same body type. I mean, he was a lot fatter than I was. And then Coach Antoine, I mean, look at him. He’s young and he’s got all this energy. Coach Fine and I liked to play golf together, and so when Coach Antoine came on I called him and I said, ‘Would you like to go play golf with me?’ And he said, ‘No, man, golf’s boring.’ And I could just hear it in his voice. ‘Golf’s an old man’s game.’ But to his credit, he did call and invite me to go with him on one of his activities. He asked me if I wanted to go jogging with him. Five K or something like that. But I politely declined because we all know how boring jogging can be.”

Both Hutson and Antoine referred to the alternating pattern of wins the city’s two 5A schools have shared since becoming district rivals. NISH has won the teams’ contests in every even numbered year, and Westgate has won in every odd-numbered year.

“Coach Hutson, just take it easy, I know it’s an even year,” said Antoine. “I already understand how that goes. It’s pretty much set in stone how things will go there. I’m going to sit back and take my lumps and we’ll try it again next year.”

Hutson joked later, “I told him about the arrangement that Coach Fine and I had, you know, that every other year we’d let the other school win. For those of you that don’t have the benefit of a highly-qualified math teacher, 2012 is an even year. So I explained this to Ryan and Ryan said he wasn’t down with that. He said he was going to kick our tail this year and every year. So, he did say, though, that if we were lucky enough to win this year, he’d be willing to reconsider it next year.

“Now, I don’t know if that’s an ethical problem, coaches getting together to do that, but the way Brian and I thought about it, that was called job security, because when your fans get mad at you for losing this year, about the time they’re ready to run you off, you win the next year and everything’s cool.”

Hutson also told Antoine he’s got big shoes to fill, since Fine led the Tigers to the semifinals three times in five years.

“Coach (Craig) Brodie was there, too, so somewhere on that campus is a big cap to fill, too. Look, look, Coach Brodie’s head’s so big, even he made jokes about his Superdome,” Hutson said to a big laugh, then asked to be sure the story was put on the online edition of The Daily Iberian, “just in case Berwick got the Internet this summer.”

Brodie is now head coach at Berwick, and Fine is a Berwick High graduate.

Hutson also “came clean” about New Iberia’s own version of Bountygate, the New Orleans Saints’ pay-for-injury scandal that’s led to the season-long suspension of head coach Sean Payton and linebacker Jonathan Vilma and shorter suspensions for other Saints coaches and current and former players.

“We did something similar and I’m not proud of it,” Hutson “confessed” to Iberia Parish Schools Superintendent Dale Henderson. “Last year in an attempt to get our players to be a little more aggressive, I told coach (Josh) Lierman, our defensive coordinator, that I would pay $5 for every big hit that our defensive players made to an opposing player. I told him to be quiet about it, don’t tell anybody. I said if anybody finds out, I’m going to deny all knowledge about it, and I gave him $50 to get started, and I said, ‘When you need more money, come and see me.’

“He never came back to see me, and so at the end of the year I went in to where our little stash was, and opened up the envelope, and there was forty-seven dollars and fifty cents left in the envelope. I said, ‘No big hits all year? Well who had a half a big hit?’ He said, ‘Rick, nobody had a big hit.’ He said, ‘Last week my dryer stopped and I had to go use change for the laundromat.’”

Though nobody got hurt, he said, he did wrong and deserved to be punished, asking to be suspended for the jamboree and week 5, when the Yellow Jackets play Westgate. He also advised Antoine not to use a similar bounty system, because he would go broke doing that at WHS.

First-year Jeanerette coach Ananias Johnson was the first of the six coaches to speak Tuesday, and said he has quite a task with a young, small team. He also has other issues to deal with, he said, relating a conversation he had with a player at the team’s first full-contact practice.

“One guy raised his hand and said, ‘Coach.’ I said, ‘What’s up?’” Johnson said. “‘Do we have to tackle?’ I said, ‘Do we have to tackle?’ ‘Yeah, because, we’re all good friends. I go to so-and-so’s house and we all play Playstation, and his mama bakes us cookies.’ 

“I’m like, ‘What?!?’ He said, ‘Coach, do we have to tackle? Because we’re all good friends out here.’ I said, ‘Yes, we have to tackle.’ So when it was his time to tackle, he just ran up and laid down on the ground. Laid on the ground. I said, ‘It’s going to be a long day.’” 

Johnson said the next day his team worked on punts, and he asked if anyone on the team knew how to punt. Everyone on the squad raised his hand, so he picked a player he thought looked like he could do it. The other players warned him not to let the player punt because, “He’s going to kick the ball backwards.”

Sure enough, the first attempt went 25 yards backwards. The next try went 35 yards backwards.

“I said, ‘No, no, no, no. This is what you want to do,’” said Johnson, who finished third in the Not-So-Sweet voting. “‘When you catch the ball, I want you to hurry up and turn around.’ And that’s what he did. He caught the ball, he turned around, and boom, went backwards. So, Delcambre, we ain’t trying for no trick plays on y’all. You see my punter do that, that’s the truth.”

Catholic High’s Keith Menard said his team seems to have more guys dressed in shorts and T-shirts (because of injuries) than in full gear. The Panthers haven’t hit much in practice, and still saw quarterback Joe Lissard break a finger, he said.

“The luck hasn’t been on our side,” Menard said.

He also jokingly referred to accusations by some Loreauville fans that CHS had watered its field to make it muddy before last year’s game against LHS.

“As long as we played at Catholic High I’m OK,” said Menard. “Last year I snuck into Lloyd G. Porter and I got the key to the watering system. That’s our only shot to beat Loreauville is to turn the water on, and I’m really hunting for those keys big time right now.”

Menard, entering his third year at CHS, said he’s enjoyed the support he’s gotten so far. Though people’s expectations are high, he said, the Panthers lost eight starters from last year’s offense and about six on defense.

“Joe Lissard is bigger than any lineman we have,” said Menard. “That doesn’t speak well for us. All that’s true, but I think we’re going to come out and play well. The big thing is for the people to have an entertaining night at Lloyd G. with some football. It’s time to get back into football.”

Antoine also said he’s found since his return to Iberia Parish, he’s discovered he’s not immune to criticism from Westgate fans — even his own parents.

“It’s always, ‘Son, you need to do this, son, you need to do that.’ I can have headphones on and everything, I’m going to always here them two, no matter what,” he said.

Darcy Delcambre, who narrowly missed out on the Not-So-Sweet Award, noted that his team is young. Of his five returning starters on defense, one is a lineman, one a linebacker and three are defensive backs, including the leading interceptor, who had two last year. One of those, the coach said, was a mistake.

“The way I look at it, I guess people are not going to throw the ball against us this year, because of the experience in the secondary,” said Delcambre. “Huh. If I was y’all, I wouldn’t worry about throwing the ball. All you’ve got to do is run the ball. We have nobody but one guy on the defensive line and one linebacker (with experience).”

Loreauville coach Trent Delahoussaye laughed at Delcambre’s reference to a Louisiana Football Magazine article that projected LHS as a team that will advance to the Superdome for the state finals. 

He also said that though Menard bemoaned the injury to his QB, he didn’t note that the Panthers have a 6-foot-2, 210-pound sophomore backup to step in.

As for the Tigers, LHS has to replace a lot of players, including a 2,000-yard rusher, the entire defensive line and both linebackers.

“I opened up this magazine today, and it is filled with some of the most absurd things about our football team that I’ve ever seen, talking about Superdome and so forth,” said Delahoussaye. 

“It is outrageous. The only dome we’re going to see is maybe the indoor facility that Erath has when we go scrimmage them.”

Nevertheless, he said, it should be a good year if things turn out well.a