‘Beacon of Light’: Ouachita’s Leonard Ceaser III makes unlikely debut
by William Weathers // GeauxPreps.com Contributor
Former Neville High running back Leonard Ceasar III had completed his college career at Central Arkansas when he and his wife, Kendra, wanted to raise their newborn daughter, Audrey, in their hometown of Monroe.
Upon his graduation in dietetics, Ceaser’s work experience included sales for Sports Authority for a year and Batteries Plus for four years, the latter job moving the family from Atlanta to Baton Rouge before returning home.
Unbeknownst to him Ceaser, then an assistant manager, received a visitor one day at Batteries Plus – his former head coach, Mickey McCarty – looking to buy batteries for something at school.
McCarty, who won 197 games and four state championships during his career, learned that Ceaser was also in the process of getting his certification to teach.
“He asked me what I was doing in Monroe and told him I was working,” Ceaser said. “I told him that I had a daughter, and we thought it would be best to raise our child in our hometown. Coach told me that once I got in a position where they could bring me on as a teacher, then they would look into getting me there.”
Ceaser’s college career ended in 2009 where he was a running back for position coach for Louisiana native Hud Jackson and won a Southland Conference championship as a junior. The three-year letterman worked in nutrition for a local hospital in Conway, Ark., following his graduation.
A move to Atlanta to work for Batteries Plus was Ceaser’s first exposure to coaching, guiding a pee-wee football team that lit a spark on an endeavor he hadn’t given a lot of thought to.
“I figured if I could coach little kids, I knew I would enjoy coaching high school,” he said.
Ceaser attended McNeese State to begin graduate school but didn’t reach the finish line there. Instead, he gained his necessary credentials to teach through iteach – an alternative online certification program – that enabled him to take McCarty up on his offer.
He began teaching at his alma mater in 2016, but there were no visions of coaching becoming such a consuming part of his life.
“When it came to sports, it was just something that made me feel I had a purpose,” he said. “This is nothing that I planned on having a 20- or 30-year career. I actually like being able to be a beacon of light to young men. It fills that thrill of not playing as an athlete anymore. There’s so much that goes with it (head coaching). There’s mentorship and competition. I don’t consider myself someone that’s going to be a long-term coach at all.”
Ceaser was the team’s freshman coach, helping serve in the role of a defensive analyst in the press box on Fridays with defensive coordinator Benjy Lewis. He helped in the preparation of the upcoming week’s opponent, advancing to Neville’s varsity, where he coached wide receiver for three years.
When McCarty stepped down to take over the school’s principal role, Ceaser coached running backs for Jeff Tannehill, where he coached one of the school’s greatest backs – Ajay Allen (now at Western Kentucky) – before moving to become the offensive coordinator under Lewis at Ouachita High.
The 2025 season was a magical year for Ouachita, which, despite a fifth-place district finish, became the third-highest seed to win a state championship with a 21-20 victory over Ruston.
Five months later, when Lewis, after 23 years in coaching and the last five at Ouachita, became an assistant principal at Good Hope Middle School in West Monroe, Ouachita turned toward Ceaser to become its head coach, a journey that starts tonight at 7 p.m. at home against Byrd.
“My purpose is to be a beacon of light for a higher power, to serve God, and now this is where my servitude is,” Ceaser said. “Helping young men, and I feel like I can be a shining light on the community and bring positivity into the community as well. This is my stop where my purpose takes me.”
McCarty, who will have the field at Neville’s Bill Ruple named in his honor this season, is among Ceaser’s greatest influences.
But there are so many more.
“I think highly of coach McCarty,” he said. “He taught me a lot of things while being a player and coach for him.”
Current Riverfield Academy head coach Cecil Wise coached with Ceaser at Neville and was part of the formative journey where Jimmy Sampson had arguably the biggest influence outside of Ceasers’ dad – Leonard II.
Ouachita principal Charles Wright, whose son coached for a year at Neville, was another key figure because of the familiarity Ceaser’s father had with him.
Sampson was the head coach at Caldwell Parish and tried to get Ceaser to leave Neville and join him at Caldwell. The two coached in a local all-star game with Sampson, a ’06 graduate of Wossman, taking care of the linebackers and Ceaser the receivers, developing a bond that’s evolved into a tremendous friendship.
“That’s my brother,” Ceaser said.
It was a thrill when Ceaser joined Lewis’ staff in ’25 for the opportunity to coach with Sampson, the team’s defensive coordinator.
“He’s probably the primary reason why I’m here,” he said. “I always wanted to be on the same staff with him.”
Ouachita (11-4) won its first five games last season, highlighted by wins over two-time reigning Division III non-select state champion Sterlington and Division II non-select rising star Franklin Parish, before enduring four consecutive losses in rugged District 2-5A by an average of 7.3 points.
The No. 14 seeded Lions entered the Division I non-select playoffs with a familiar set of names across from them on the bracket – St. Amant, Destrehan, Parkway, Neville and Ruston.
“It was, ‘ How do we fix these mistakes to get better?” Ceaser said. “None of those games were blowouts in the four-game slump. It was a couple of plays here, and a couple of calls on my end to where once we got things ironed out, we’d be fine. We got a little boost of confidence when we played Pineville (56-0) at the end of it. We got a win going into the playoffs, and I thought that was important. It’s not that we won, but it was how we won. We executed.”
Ouachita had encountered heartache in previous postseason appearances with St. Amant and Destrehan, while Neville and Ruston were part of the reason District 2-5A is without peer in the state’s highest classification.
“We deemed it the ‘Revenge Tour’,” Ceaser said. “When we got into the playoffs, we knew. A couple of coaches said nobody wanted to see us in the playoffs, and we felt that way, too. We had to go through everybody that had beaten us in the past and this year to get to where we wanted to get. It was a remarkable experience to be able to go through that playoff run and win the championship after the district losses that we had. It was divine, and I knew God had his hand on it all.”
A three-point victory in its opener didn’t exactly signify Ouachita was revving its engines for one of the greatest postseason rides ever.
But they certainly got everyone’s attention with road victories over third-seeded Destrehan (21-19), sixth-seeded Parkway (28-22) and second-seeded Neville (14-7), setting up the school’s first appearance in the state championship since 1994. The Lions had last won the state crown in 1989.
“I think it made us mentally strong,” Ceaser said of the team’s shortcomings in district. “Who’s to say if we’d won a couple of those games and gone into the playoffs, we may have had the big head. We just knew that we had to work. It wasn’t detrimental to us because no one blew us out. We knew we had a good team. We had to continue to build our blocks the way we needed to in order to turn into the championship caliber team that we did.”
Top-seeded Ruston, back in the final game for the second straight year, led 14-0 in the first quarter and 17-7 at halftime of the state championship game.
The spread offense Ceaser helped devise also had elements of a power running game with playmakers on the outside. The Lions’ defense, led by Nebraska signee and Class 5A All-State lineman Dylan Berymon, had been stout throughout the season and limited the Bearcats to a field goal in the second half.
“If you have that mindset and you create a system where you’re attacking each gap in the run game, and you’re attacking every level in the pass game, and you’re stretching the defense vertically and horizontally, then you’ll be able to attack all of the space that you need to move the ball,” Ceaser said.
Ouachita, a veteran team with 26 seniors, showed its mettle in the final 24 minutes of play.
Quarterback Montrell Connor showed his poise and led the offense that helped take the lead 21-20 with 6:41 left in the game with a 30-yard touchdown pass to Wydell Clark, a first-team all-state choice at athlete.
Clark wasn’t finished and typified the grit the team displayed with its fourth straight upset of the postseason.
Ruston got the ball to literally its biggest offensive weapon – the nation’s No. 1 tight end in 6-foot-8 Ahmad Hudson – who was barreling deep in Ouachita’s territory with the clock winding down.
Instead of giving up on the play, Clark got back up off the Superdome turf and chased Hudson down from behind, punching the ball loose, which Dylan Jones recovered at the Lions’ 11-yard line with 1:21 to play.
“For the defense to make the stop they made on Ahmad with the strip fumble,” Ceaser said, “it was just great to see his (Sampson’s) joy and to hear to him say that our boys never gave up.”
Ruston threw one last scare into Ouachita before the school’s sea of maroon and gray could celebrate the first state title in 36 years.
The Bearcats moved their final series into the vicinity of what they believed to be an opportunity for a game-winning field goal. On the final play of the game, the 52-yard attempt was well short, setting off a jubilant Ouachita sideline.
The Lions’ coaches in the press box, sensing immediately that the field goal wouldn’t travel the required distance, were euphoric, and Ceaser was part of a charge down the elevator to join the jubilant team on the field.
Ouachita’s 5.8 margin of victory in the playoffs helped to make them the first team that finished fifth in its district to win a state championship.
“The trip from the press box to the field was one of the best football experiences of my life,” Ceaser said. “There was so much joy, even the way that the game ended with the long field goal attempt. To be up there with Coach Sampson, who was in his first year of being in the press box after coaching on the sideline for many years. I can close my eyes and relive that moment like it was yesterday.”
Ceaser felt fortunate for the support he received from his parents – Leonard II and Victoria – who have been married for 39 years.
They enabled him to live a life without worry, where his father’s vocation in electrical work led to stability as a technician with AT&T.
“He was a football guy,” Ceaser said of his dad. “There were three things he knew: football, people, and dominoes.”
There was also a strong religious influence, and Ceaser remains committed to a higher power. He also praised his father for his feedback, where even after games his team won, there were questions about some of the details that appeared rough around the edges instead of effortless to the eye.
“He talked about what I could have done, and what I did good,” he said. “That’s what I want from him because that’s the same thing he provided me as a player. I could have a big game, and he would say, ‘OK, son, but’ and the but’s what makes you better.”
His mother Victoria, the family’s “heartbeat”, has been equally instrumental.
The union of his parents provided a template that remains a shining example to Ceaser and Kendra, voted Mr./Miss Neville before they ever dated, to follow and have raised their own family of Audrey (11 years old) and Solar (8).
Ceaser said his wife is the epitome of the ultimate coach’s wife, herself spending a great deal of time away from home as a clinical nurse who’s primed to move into a role as a nurse anesthetist.
“Even with all of the work she’s put in, she still found time to support me,” he said. “Solar loves football, too. He’s our ball boy, and Audrey’s so sweet. She doesn’t care if we win or lose. When I go home after a tough loss, it’s easy to get over it because of the support I have at home.”
This year will be different, though.
Ceaser embarks on the start of a head coaching career that he never envisioned taking place. It’s been a decade since he obtained his master’s in education leadership, providing the option to one day move into administration.
“My heart’s tugging at dean of students,” he said.
After the grind of more than two decades of coaching, Lewis moved into an administrative role that also enabled him to spend more time at home with his family. That created an opening for a head coach to take over a program that had just won a state championship.
Ceaser believed there were better candidates on Ouachita’s coaching staff that, but the endorsements to become the Lions’ new head coach were coming in different directions.
When he received a favorable nod from some of his peers on the staff, along with some of the school’s administration and community members, Ceaser believed it was in his best interest to become a serious candidate.
Ouachita officially announced Ceaser as its head coach on May 22.
“I knew we had other people on the staff that had experience who I thought could make good head coaches, and honestly better than me,” Ceaser said. “My name kept being brought up, and eventually I said I was going to apply for it. The coaching staff supported me, including the guys I thought could have gotten the job.
“They were saying that this was my opportunity,” Ceaser said. “They thought the community and administration were pushing for me to have it. Once I got their approval, I just went for it, and fortunately it happened the way that it did, and we’re moving on right now.”
The last four months have been productive in the ramp up to a new season, including a spring game with Evangel Christian Academy.
Support from the administration, including Lewis, has been well received, and Ceaser’s now tasked with keeping Ouachita’s program on its current trajectory.
“I wasn’t expecting it to happen this fast,” Ceaser said. “I loved the gladiatorial chance aspect of coaching so much that coordinator is where I wanted to be. Once you get to be a head coach, it’s more management; a political realm’s in there. I’m a fan of the game. I love the competition. I consider it chess.
“I know I’m good with people; I try to do right by folks,” Ceaser said. “I try to handle my business when a task is given to me, so I guess people saw that in me and saw me as potentially a good head coach. I’m trying to prove people right.”