Gentleman and a Scholar: Joel Sinclair returns home to Crowley to reprise past
by William Weathers // GeauxPreps.com Contributor
The last time Joel Sinclair left his alma mater after serving as an assistant coach for five years at Crowley High, he sealed his departure with a kiss atop the school’s ‘C’ logo at midcourt in the school’s gymnasium.
“I thought I’d never come back to this place again,” he said.
Sinclair was part of the school’s glory days, playing for legendary football coach Lewis Cook Jr., when the Gents won their lone state championship in 1989 and were state runners-up two years later, his senior season.
Sinclair signed a football scholarship with Michigan State, where he was part of the team for two years before injuries curtailed his playing career. He remained on scholarship, though, taking part with the school’s track team as a thrower in the discus, shot put and javelin. He filled the void of athletics in his life as a member of the school’s athletic training staff.
“I worked with football, wrestling, diving, and swimming, all kinds of different athletes,” he said. “I got all of this knowledge that I’m not thinking about at the time that would eventually help me as a coach later.”
The leadership of the school’s football program also changed from George Perles, the coach who signed him out of Crowley High, to former Spartan defensive coordinator Nick Saban.
Upon graduation, Sinclair was afforded the opportunity of returning home to Acadia Parish. There, he was back at his alma mater as an assistant coach for five years before embarking on a coaching career in Mississippi that spanned a total of 18 years, coaching football and track and field. He had also established himself in the classroom, serving as a special education teacher and later earning his master’s online from Capella University in Minneapolis, Minn.
Sinclair further enhanced his education with a specialist’s degree from Mississippi College, enabling him to one day to serve as a principal or part of a school’s administrative team.
Clearly, the hulking 52-year-old Sinclair was not the same man who originally left home in 1992 for college in East Lansing, Mich., returning home briefly, only to branch out and become a head coach to instill values and have a positive impact on kids the same way his high school coach – Lewis Cook – had on him.
“Things have changed over the last 20 years,” Sinclair said.
Despite his time away, Sinclair occasionally returned home to visit family and his girlfriend, allowing him the chance to drive by the school where he noticed a visible difference. Through social media, the former all-state offensive tackle knew the Gents’ level of play had dropped off, as they hadn’t experienced a winning season in eight years.
Former teammate Troy Harmon, a defensive end on Crowley’s state championship team, was now the school’s principal and, following the last two seasons of 8-14 football, sought a change that eventually brought Sinclair in for an interview where the two like-minded individuals agreed on a new path for the program.
Crowley named Sinclair its new football coach and athletic director on April 22, a move the school believes will have far greater implications than solely on the athletic playing fields.
“There wasn’t a lot of discussion; I was going to be all in,” Sinclair said of his initial conversation with Harmon. “We talked about what was expected of me. Mr. Harmon wanted to find someone with culture and remember how it used to be so I could bring some of that back. There were some good times.”
Sinclair’s subsequently moved to Crowley, officially beginning in his new capacity June 1, and three months after accepting his new role, began his first fall practice on July 27 in preparation for the 2026 season.
“It feels full circle to come back,” he said. “When I came back the first time, I was happy to be at Crowley High and help the kids the way I did. It’s not quite like that, this go-around.”
The 75-year-old Cook is the state’s third-winningest coach (417-104) and begins his 41st year overall, the 30th at Notre Dame where he’s separated by four miles from Crowley High and Sinclair.
Several weeks after being on the job, Sinclair stopped by to visit Cook at his office for what turned into a marathon four-hour exchange between two people with immense respect for one another.
“We had a really good visit and talked about a lot of things,” Cook said. “The word nowadays is culture. There’s been a problem there finding a consistent method the kids can buy into. Joel’s mindset is that he’s coming home. I know he’s going to attack it in that method. He’s a smart guy and has always had smarts going for him. He came from a solid family in Crowley.”
Hope Sinclair Singleton always admired her older brother Joel, the way he carried himself, the aura that always seemed to surround the second oldest of the nine Sinclair siblings.
Among the traits that caught Hope’s attention was Joel’s cerebral nature.
“Joel was like a larger-than-life figure to me,” she said. “I marveled at him at times, and there were times when he got on my nerves. I always felt warmth and love from him. Books were one thing. He mostly challenged us with our ability to think through things. That has carried him through a lot of situations.”
Joseph and Helen Sinclair, both of whom were college graduates, had similar hopes for their children.
They created an environment where education mattered, and all nine of their offspring would go onto graduate from college, with several obtaining advanced degrees such as doctorates and masters.
That wealth of knowledge resulted in career paths that led to nursing, counseling with a great majority of them becoming educators such as Joel, the second oldest, and Hope.
“We were very blessed to have the parents that we did,” Hope said. “They taught us basically from birth that education was important. Not just the book knowledge, but understanding, uncovering and seeking, and developing us into thinkers. For me, it helped to think through things and make the best decision with the information we had at the time.”
Joel Sinclair earned all-state laurels at Crowley in something other than athletics. He was also a member of the state’s all-academic team, a bigger indication of his college readiness at Michigan State instead of just his burly frame.
Injuries during his high school career precluded Sinclair from completing his college career, forcing him to lean on his intellect instead of his athletic ability to prepare himself for later life.
A second knee surgery to repair a meniscus tear in the offseason before his redshirt sophomore year hastened a decision Sinclair would have never contemplated ever having to make.
The doctor performing surgery presented Sinclair with two options: continue playing football and take the risk of not being able to walk in 10 years or walk away and retain the ability to walk later in life and have the ability to play with your children and grandchildren.
Sinclair pivoted.
He joined the school’s track and field program where he threw the shot put, discus, and javelin, and the original scholarship that brought him to Michigan State would still cover him through his remaining two years. An opportunity to join the school’s sports medicine department and remain around athletics was a focal point and kept him on pace to obtain his bachelor’s degree.
Hope wasn’t surprised at her brother’s persistence.
“That’s just his personality,” she said. “Just like when he played football, he met challenges like it’s something to be knocked down or run through. He sets out with a plan, and then things don’t quite go the way you want. He thinks there are two choices: either he can let it get the best of him, or he can get the best of it.
“He’s very intelligent in the way that he thinks,” she said. “There’s purpose behind anything he does, and coaching is something he’s always done. It just makes sense. Especially when he has a heart for it.”
Hope was a four-time qualifier in the state track and field meet, winning the hurdles and high jump as a junior and senior at Crowley, breaking the state’s record in the hurdles her final two years.
She signed a scholarship with Southern Mississippi and was projected to run the 400 and hurdles. Instead, she wound up participating in the seven-event heptathlon along with her favorite event – the high jump.
Hope enjoyed success in both indoor and outdoor seasons for the Lady Eagles. She broke the Conference USA record for points scored in the heptathlon and was an indoor champion in the 200, hurdles and high jump during her career.
She also held the school’s record in the long jump of more than 19 feet, was second in the high jump (5-9 ¾) and sixth in the 55 meters.
Hope attributed her rise in athletics and ability to compete in college to the part Joel played early on when she was in middle school. She could also hold her own in backyard football with her family because of Joel’s insistence on learning pass routes or catching a football.
“He would tell me what route to run,” she said. “Whatever he would call, he had taught us those things. I understood the game because of him.”
Joel conducted workouts in the family home, putting Hope and others through their paces. He even taught the art of lifting weights, which would become so important in Hope’s athletic development.
Joel’s commanding presence held everyone’s attention and his wisdom proved undeniable.
“The athlete I became started with him coaching me,” Hope said. “He had us lifting weights, doing push-ups. He had us running laps around the house for time. It didn’t matter the time you came in; he always wanted you to improve, and you just felt like you could do it.”
Sinclair was simply paying it forward, replicating the same practices and workouts he learned during his youth football days. While music filled the air in the Sinclair household, especially impacting Joel, he found time to give back and, in a sense, was just scratching the surface in the leadership and direction he would later provide.
“I made them do things that I did,” he said. “They became better athletes than I was because I was giving them what I didn’t get.”
Sinclair, a 6-foot-3, 240-pound freshman, had intentions of simply playing the tuba and baritone in high school. He played baseball from the time he was six, rising through the different levels of competition the community had to offer when his mother, unbeknownst to him, signed him up for football in the sixth grade.
“All eight of my siblings played instruments; that’s what we did,” Sinclair said. “We had to take care of our grades, and we all had to play instruments. We were in church and sang. That’s how I was raised. My parents played basketball in high school, but sports weren’t pushed on us. It became something we ended up doing.
“I was a big, tough kid and my mom said I didn’t know my own strength,” Sinclair said. “She said she had to put me somewhere because I was too rough.”
Sinclair was part of a group in junior high that only lost one football game in two years, but when it came to Crowley High, he was going to follow the same tune his siblings did in high school and play in the band.
“Coach Cook got me out of the hallways in high school; I wasn’t going to play football,” he said. “I wasn’t thinking about football. I played but didn’t really watch a lot of football to know what was going on.”
Cook arrived at Crowley in 1985 following a stint at the University of Southwestern Louisiana (now UL) to find a program in disarray. The Gents were riding a 21-game losing streak, having gone 0-10 the previous two seasons, and the sight of the broad-shouldered Sinclair necessitated a conversation.
Sinclair informed Cook he was going to play in the band and was going to enroll in band class the final period instead of athletic P.E. for all freshman athletes.
Cook explained the upside associated with being a part of the football program and convinced Sinclair to join the team and enrolled him in early athletic P.E. class, thus enabling him to remain in the band class.
“He came from a musical background with his family, and he was going to be part of the band,” Cook said. “He was big enough to hang with the older guys in the PE before lunch. He was there for the next three years, earned a scholarship and went to college from there.”
Sinclair’s future aligned with his environment, and it wasn’t playing football beyond high school. With two college-educated parents serving as role models, he also witnessed male figures in his life with military backgrounds that held down jobs such as electricians, carpenters, farmers and plumbers.
He planned to walk a similar path.
“I saw people that worked with their hands, which went and got a trade,” he said. “That’s what I was going to do as well. I would go and get a trade. That’s what I saw.
“Coach Cook was wondering why I wasn’t playing,” he said. “I was one of the biggest kids in school. I wasn’t going to do it. I wasn’t thinking about college football. He had to convince me. It had to make sense. What he told me made a lot of sense. He had something different in me.”
Sinclair didn’t play with the varsity team as a freshman but was part of the band’s halftime performances.
“I got to be a part of that,” he said. “Band was earning superior ratings in marching festivals and concerts.”
Cook’s rebirth of Crowley football included six wins in his first season, losing to Ferriday in the playoffs, when the program started making deep runs in the postseason an annual event.
The Gents, who lost to Jonesboro-Hodge in the 1986 quarterfinals, ran into a talented Wossman team in consecutive years, falling in the regionals (’87) and quarterfinals (’88).
Cook said a failed two-point conversion with 50 seconds was the difference in a 14-13 setback in Sinclair’s freshman season in ’88.
A year later, the same two schools collided to decide the Class 3A state championship where the community of Crowley was out in full force for the school’s first trip to the Superdome in New Orleans.
The Gents, who went 8-2 during the regular season, took a 10-7 lead with 16 seconds left before halftime on the first of two Visith Luanghone 37-yard field goals. Standout defensive back Orlando Thomas, who went on to star for the Ragin’ Cajuns and the Minnesota Vikings, set up his team’s first touchdown with an interception.
Harmon was also a force on defense with a forced fumble that led to a 17-7 lead at the 5:45 mark of the third quarter en route to a 17-15 victory. Another key for the Gents was the punting of two-time, first-team all-state punter Brady Thibodeaux, whose Prep Classic record of 72 yards contributed to his 45.3 average on seven attempts.
Quarterback Joey LaFosse earned the second straight berth for a Crowley quarterback (joining Tiger Hollier) on the Class 3A All-State team.
“Watching him again on the field, those were some of my happiest times,” Hope said of Joel, the team’s starting offensive tackle. “It was the most fun.”
Crowley followed its state championship with a trip to the regionals before making it back to New Orleans, where the Gents suffered a 14-12 loss to South Lafourche in the Class 4A title game.
Sinclair was named to the Class 4A All-State first team and was equally impressive in track and field. He was the Class 3A state champion in the discus (’91), state runner-up in both the shot put and discus to Brandon Mitchell of Abbeville in ’90 and ’92, respectively.
Sinclair was also third to him in the discus as a senior.
Recruiting was a constant during Sinclair’s final season, where it appeared at one point he favored LSU, where assistant coach Ed Zaunbrecher, a native of Rayne, had been his lead recruiter. When Zaunbrecher was hired away by coach George Perles at Michigan State, Sinclair followed him to East Lansing.
“That blew all of our minds, him going so far,” Hope said of her brother’s decision to travel in excess of 1,100 miles to attend college. “Michigan might as well have been another planet from where we were. We took that journey with him. It took us three days driving in a van, and then we had to turn around and come back home. It broke my heart. We’re such a close family. We wondered if he would be OK way out there.”
Sinclair’s playing career wasn’t without challenges at Crowley, later following him to Michigan State.
A wrist injury during the team’s twice-a-practices in August later revealed a broken bone in the seventh week of the season. Instead of losing the rest of his senior season, Sinclair received a cast that was padded to play in that week’s homecoming game.
“It looked like a big club,” he said, finally getting surgery after graduation in New Orleans.
Shortly after the discovery of the broken wrist, Sinclair suffered a partial tear of his ACL during practice.
“I thought I was done with football,” he said. “I was being recruited, and schools continued to recruit me.”
Once again, Sinclair displayed his mettle and remained with his teammates. Because he was assured by doctors that he couldn’t damage the ligament any further, he wore a knee brace and played with the Gents who made their second state championship appearance in three seasons.
He also played basketball and participated in track and field.
The surgically repaired wrist continued bothering Sinclair during his freshman year at Michigan State, which led to orthoscopic surgery in December.
He wasn’t finished.
Sinclair faced surgery to repair cartilage damage in his knee, and following his redshirt season, his knee began swelling.
“I’d continue to do my best I could playing,” he said. “My knee kept swelling. I had trained hard. It was my time. My playing time was right there.”
His body couldn’t keep answering the bell.
A previously undetected tear in his meniscus was found, and another surgery was performed in the offseason, leading Sinclair to the brink of the biggest decision of his life.
The doctor’s outlook was grim, leading him to choose a sense of normalcy, to have the opportunity to walk hand-in-hand with family members instead of trying to play, which would result in further knee damage that would lead to a debilitating way of life.
“That’s when I realized it was over and I cried for two weeks,” Sinclair said. “All of the years of little league, junior high, high school…. All the years of playing football and it came to an end.”
Sinclair, after two seasons in uniform on the team’s sideline, was forced to medically retire from football in ’94, which was Perles’ final season, signaling a change in the program with the arrival of Saban for five years.
Michigan State was 11-12 under Perles during Sinclair’s two seasons and 12-11-1 under Saban in Sinclair’s final two seasons. They lost all three bowl games in which they participated in with a 45-26 defeat against LSU in the ’95 Independence Bowl.
To fill his thirst for competition, Sinclair joined the track meet and took part in three events, earning his letterman’s jacket.
Sinclair finished his degree while a member of the school’s athletic training staff for an array of different sports.
“I worked with football, wrestling, diving, and swimming, all kinds of different athletes,” he said. “I got all of this knowledge that I’m not thinking about at the time that would eventually help me as a head coach later.”
Sinclair turned to youth coaching after graduation in the East Lansing area before moving to the high school level, getting a job at the school (Everette High) of one of his idols – Magic Johnson – until heading home to Crowley, where he was an assistant coach for football, basketball and track for five years.
Sinclair’s skill set included more than just blowing a whistle and commanding players on a field. He was also equipped to tape ankles and assess injuries from his time on MSU’s training staff.
“Our mom used to always tell us, to whom much is given, much is required,” he said. “I felt if I could do it, then I’m supposed to do it.”
With a career that was still in its infancy stages, Sinclair made certain to find one person upon his return to Crowley eight years after graduation.
He made certain to thank Cook for introducing him to football and uncovering the role the sport could have on his life.
“I told him he saved my life with the things that I’m doing and have been able to accomplish,” he said. “He’s real modest. He said I did the work and did it myself. He got me out of the hallways. I don’t know what I would have been.”
Sinclair veered off briefly from his coaching career, becoming a traveling general manager for Zaxby’s Chicken Fingers where he helped sagging locations become profitable for two years.
During that span, and with the Mississippi State playoffs reaching a conclusion, Sinclair saw the ’07 state championship game on television where perennial power South Panola (16-0) won the seventh of its 11 state championships with a 28-21 win over George County.
“I missed coaching,” he said.
His typically reserved sister implored her brother to return to coaching.
“When he stepped away from education and coaching for a little while, I had to tell him to take his time, but I believed his calling was coaching,” said Hope, who spent 22 years in the Army and retired from the Army National Guard and teaches middle school in Ponchatoula. “I don’t normally speak up and tell people things like that. But if that’s what I see, if that’s what I truly believe, I’m going to say it. That’s what I’ve always felt for him. His influence is from Coach Cook and others. It’s improved and developed him as a coach.”
Sinclair began his first head coaching job at Wingfield High in Jackson, Miss., where the Class 5A school was regarded as more of a basketball school, heightening the challenge to build large roster numbers.
Sinclair relied on the same resolve he saw when Cook rekindled the fortunes at Crowley with an even-handed approach and a fondness for his players.
There were 0-10 and 1-9 tasks that challenged everyone to move Wingfield forward, which Sinclair eventually did, closing the gap to within three points of reaching the playoffs in his third season. Despite the bumpy ride, he never lost one of his 25 players, an indication of the team’s sentiment for their coach.
Wingfield’s administration opted for a change in its head coach but didn’t alter Sinclair’s status in the classroom, where he was viewed as a valued special education instructor.
He had increased player participation up to 45 kids in the program and had 60 signed up for spring practice before he was asked to accept a lesser role.
Wingfield, back down to 25 players, suffered through a winless season under another coach who lasted one season. Sinclair was retained by the incoming coach and served as the offensive coordinator for three years, stepping in as interim coach for a brief time when health issues sidelined the head coach.
Sinclair, who earned his master’s by this time, left Wingfield after 12 seasons after school officials tried to convince him to remain on faculty and went to Hazelhurst without ever filling out an application because of the confidence the principal took in their interview.
He was the football team’s special teams coordinator for six years and head track coach for three years.
Hazlehurst (12-2) advanced to the state’s South State championships or semifinals in 2022. The Indians only missed the playoffs once in six years during Sinclair’s stay through last season.
“Being battle-tested, I’ve been through a lot and seen a lot,” Sinclair said. “The thing that helped me work with kids over the years in tough situations, it wasn’t about wins and losses. That’s going to take care of itself and are more or less a byproduct of what the program really is. What the kids value most is that I’m there for the kids. In some of their worlds, they don’t have a male figure that shows up every day. They tend to gravitate toward somebody that cares about them.”
Family and friends were atop Sinclair’s to-do list, along with some of the players he formerly coached, upon his periodic visits back to Crowley.
Word about the Gents’ play on the football field usually wasn’t very palatable. It wasn’t the same program Sinclair played for 33 years earlier, save for a five-year stretch under Josh Fontenot, who won 32 games with trips to the state semifinals (’15) and consecutive trips to state quarterfinals (’17, ’18) to his credit.
“When the job came open, I didn’t really know what was going on,” said Sinclair, a veteran of 22 years of teaching special education. “I thought I’d consider it, and then I got a call from the principal and asked me if I was interested in moving back to Crowley.
“I told him (Harmon) I would think about it,” Sinclair said. “I was coming to Crowley more frequently than I had over the past 20 years because I had been dating a girl that I went to high school with. I talked to my family and told them I’d throw my name in the hat and went through the process.”
CHS had a stretch with 14 consecutive playoff appearances (1985-98); but has reached the playoffs 12 times since ’05 and endured seven straight non-winning seasons with a regional appearance two years ago.
“You should have seen how it used to be around here,” Sinclair said. “We were the flagship school of the parish.”
The school’s enrollment’s decreased since Sinclair graduated, and it didn’t take very long to detect a subdued vibe on his campus visit after accepting the job.
“He’s got the chance to rebound and get things going again,” Cook said of Sinclair. “There’s some work ahead of him. It’s definitely an uphill battle, but being in 3A helps.”
Sinclair accepted the offer from Harmon – his former teammate and longtime friend – with the task mirroring that Cook took over Crowley more than four decades ago. A long losing streak and campus-wide apathy greeted Cook at the doors, an atmosphere that Sinclair wants to replace with the same sense of school pride and community-wide support Cook was able to build up.
“The stands were loaded, but it just wasn’t Crowley High people in the stands,” Sinclair said. “There was nobody left here when Crowley went to the dome in ’89 and again in ’91. Everybody was in New Orleans. Crowley could have been robbed blind those two days because there wasn’t anybody here.”
Several weeks after taking on the task of rebuilding the program from the bottom up, Sinclair went back to Notre Dame and poured his heart and soul to Cook.
“I hugged him like I would have hugged my dad,” he said. “I was so happy to see him. We just talked and caught up. Being around him was great. He’s still Coach Cook. I try to coach like him. I try and treat my kids and coaches the way he did. It’s part of the standard that he brought is what I’m trying to recreate.
“We have the right kind of people to work with these kids, and they’re starting to feel that,” he said. “I want to recreate that vibe that he (Cook) had. I’m not a big rah-rah guy. I’ll get hyped every once in a while, but my natural demeanor is laid back. I’ll tell you the truth.”
Sinclair dropped by campus over the final few weeks last school year. He was able to meet players and coaches, share his vision, and launch the start of the process of making Crowley successful again.
When the Gents began fall practice, Sinclair was greeted by 52 to 53 players, all of whom were present during offseason weight and conditioning workouts.
The Gents are working toward their first fall scrimmage Aug. 20 at Lake Arthur and a jamboree matchup with Grand Lake at Welsh High on Aug. 27.
That buildup will culminate in the start of Sinclair’s homecoming against a familiar opponent – Acadia Parish rival Rayne – at Gardiner Memorial Stadium on Sept. 4.
“I can’t wait until that first game, and we’re playing Rayne, the rival that first game of the season,” Sinclair said. “I look forward to it. I’ll embrace that moment when it gets here. To come out in that green and gold again, I’ve talked to kids about Crowley pride. It’s just different. It’s a pride that these kids have lost and we’ve got to get back.”
Hope believes it will take some creative scheduling, but the tight-knit family will bring their support system to a football stadium near Joel during the season.
“Watching your big brother on the field, and now seeing him in a coaching position, that’s big for us,” she said. “There’s going to be a lot of emotions when we get a chance to see him. It’s cathartic in a way. Since our parents are not here physically to see him do this, I’ll know they’ll be looking down and smiling.”