Getting his just due: Port Barre football field in honor of Donnie Perron
by William Weathers // GeauxPreps.com Contributor
Travis Soileau was someone whose life was immeasurably touched by Port Barre head football coach Donnie Perron.
During his six years (he began in the seventh grade) of serving as the football team’s manager and trainer, Soileau found Perron to possess the perfect blend between leadership and humility. There was a reason why the Red Devils rose to prominence in Class 2A during Perron’s reign at the St. Landry Parish school, he believed.
“Everyone knew he was in control and the boss, but he didn’t carry himself that way,” Soileau said. “He was confident in himself. He was a father figure to anyone who was around from a student-athlete perspective. When I was in school, I probably spent more time with him than I did with my own family because sports were year-round.”
When efforts were being made to honor Perron with a dedication of the field at Port Barre’s stadium to include his name on the field, Soileau received a phone call from Perron’s wife, Cynthia, inviting him to the Sept. 12 ceremony, where former players, coaches, and school board members would also be in attendance.
The school’s winningest coach, with 238 victories that included the only state championship in Port Barre history in 2002, was long overdue for such an honor, given he retired from the school 21 years before. His career record of 257-93 (including his earlier years at now-defunct Port Sulphur High) ranks him tied for 22nd on the state’s career win list with North DeSoto’s Dennis Dunn.
There was no way Soileau would miss such an occasion until he realized the event was set for the same evening as the University of Louisiana faced Missouri in a non-conference matchup the following day. He’s in his 14th year as Director of Athletic Training for the Ragin’ Cajuns, and it’s a prerequisite to accompany the team for a road game the day before.
Thanks to the resourcefulness of University of Louisiana athletic director Dr. Bryan Maggard, Soileau was able to be in attendance to show his appreciation for Perron and ride on the private plane of one of UL’s boosters the following morning to Columbia, Mo., arriving approximately 90 minutes before kickoff.
“It was kind of an ‘oh no moment,” Soileau said. “I knew it was our first road game of the year. All the credit goes to Dr. Maggard. The milestone for coach Perron was taking place, knowing that it was an important thing for him in his life, I felt I needed to be there for him. I’m lucky to have a great staff to handle it.”
Perron, 76, said that once the veil of secrecy surrounding the big moment gave way to full-blown promotion on social media, he was certainly appreciative. He spent 27 years coaching Port Barre High School, eight years as parish athletic director, and served nine years on the St. Landry Parish School Board – a total of 44 years of service to a community and parish that showed up in big numbers last Friday.
“We had a good turnout, former players, friends, and parents,” said Perron, who now lives closer to family in Lafayette. “It was even bigger and better than I thought it would be. It was really touching.
One of Perron’s Mt. Rushmore’ players during his tenure was quarterback/running back William Davis, who went on to have his hand in the record book at McNeese State.
Davis, who lives in Carencro, said it was startling to one day run into Perron at a local Lowe’s where his former coach, who was retired, was in the process of looking to update his home.
“I asked him what he was doing,” Davis said. “He said he was retired and was working on fixing up his house. I told him to get a repairman.”
Davis represented a large number of former players who returned to shower their former coach with adoration.
He was among a group of players that spoke, along with Maurice Sonnier and Blake Quebedeaux, along with former Port Barre coach Craig Stevens, to share insight into Perron and the manner in which he helped shaped their own lives.
“Coach Perron meant a lot to us and the community as a whole,” said Quebedeaux, a guard/outside linebacker from 1993-96, and spent eight years in the Louisiana Army Guard and three in the Air National Guard. “During the 1990s-2000s, the community went the way of the football program. If the football program did well, the school did well, and the community did well. It was hand in hand.
“His leadership and guidance had a lot to do with that,” Quebedeaux said. “He put together a great staff. Nobody does it by themselves, but he was instrumental. He’s the leader, the captain of the ship. He’s the one that put it together and getting the plan, executing it, and it paid dividends for the town for a long time.”
Perron, a grandfather of five and great-grandfather of five, joyfully rattled off such names as Davis, his older brother Tyrone, and cousin Daniel Francis, among former standouts in attendance before Port Barre later took the field on an emotion-filled night and defeated Beau Chene, 34-27, to improve to 2-0 this season.
He sweated through his old red Port Barre coaching shirt, one that he retired until again breaking it out to watch his grandson play for Teurlings Catholic.
Perron’s daughter, Christy Whaley, helped play a role in the set up on the field and handed out name tags to those gathered.
Players were able to catch up on old times, leading up to the ceremony and the eventual unveiling of a new sign on the exterior of the press box that read: Welcome to Red Devil Stadium, Donnie Perron Field.
“It was special to see,” Perron said. “It was really well done. I wished all of my former coaches could have been there. I had some good fortune to have hired so many excellent coaches, several who had been head coaches prior to coming. Some of them were better coaches than me, and I was smart enough to hire them. It was rewarding to listen to the things they said. Some guys are firefighters; some are in coaching. They’re successful, and it was good to see them.
“We stayed and watched all of the game,” Perron said. “At one point, it was a 20-point lead, and Beau Chene came back, and it was a one-score game. We hung on and won by one touchdown. Hopefully, they can have a good season and slip into the playoffs.”
William Davis believed the energy from the large crowd played a part in urging this year’s Red Devils to victory.
“It was packed and there were people from all over,” he said. “Hats off to Beau Chene, who had a nice crowd. It was a tremendous ball game. The kids actually fed off of seeing the older athletes coming back, not really knowing who they were. It was a good atmosphere.”
Perron, a native of nearby Ville Platte in Evangeline Parish, graduated from then USL, where he recently returned to pay homage to Ed Dugas, a recent inductee into the school’s athletics hall of fame.
“He was a big help to me, getting me prepared to coach and helping me get jobs,” Perron said. “He gave me a lot of direction.”
The origin of his coaching career took root in Plaquemines Parish at Port Sulphur High, which was a victim of Hurricane Katrina two decades ago. He spent seven years there when he returned home on Labor Day to attend the funeral of his grandfather.
Perron learned that Port Barre didn’t have a football coach, and it was the desire of his family and that of his wife, who was also a Ville Platte graduate, for them to return closer to their roots.
Perron, who led Port Sulphur to a 1974 state championship in track, said his brother spoke to then St. Landry Parish superintendent John Dupre, and a week later, Port Barre hired Perron for the 1978 season.
The Red Devils, though, weren’t an overnight sensation, taking time to get off the ground before later taking flight under Perron’s direction.
Port Barre was 26-32 through six seasons before advancing to their first state playoff. They were 8-2 in Perron’s third season, but with only the first two teams making the playoffs, the Red Devils, who lost two games by a total of four points, went on to defeat Jeanerette in the Oil Bowl played in Lafayette.
They were just getting started.
The Red Devils had consecutive double-digit win seasons with part of their 11-2 record in 1984 highlighted by a playoff win over second-ranked E.D. White – the first in school history – before running into John Curtis in the state quarterfinals. They fell to Ouachita Christian a year later in the regional round.
“It did take a while,” Perron said. “We had a good team the third year, but only the top two teams made the playoffs. The next year, we didn’t make the playoffs, and kind of surprised people a year or two later. We beat E.D. White and then White Castle and lost to John Curtis. That kind of got us rolling after that.”
Port Barre won back-to-back district championships – the first two of 14 in all – and reeled off five titles over the next six years. They were a playoff regular with 11 consecutive postseason appearances, including three during Davis’s career, marked by a run to the state quarterfinals against Welsh in 1993.
“I saw a lot of the things in the fifth and sixth grade when my brother was playing,” Davis said. “I was a ball boy and able to hang around the football team and listened to the way Coach Perron talked to the guys. He was trying to get them to be young men. I saw the way they were doing things. I knew I always wanted to play football, but basketball was my thing. I wasn’t sure about playing football. Once I started playing it, I fell in love with the game.”
Davis said Perron was ahead of his time with the structure of the program. By the time he reached McNeese, where he once had 1,000 yards rushing and receiving in the same season, he noticed a similarity that mirrored the way Perron ran Port Barre’s program.
“When I got to McNeese, there were kind of the same things we did,” he said. “I knew what was going on.”
Port Barre experienced the school’s first undefeated regular season in 1993, the last season for Davis and first for Quebedeaux. The Red Devils, district runners-up the next two seasons with regional exits in the playoffs against Notre Dame and Vinton, were league champions again in ’96 and ranked No. 1 in Class 2A for the first time.
That club, however, bowed out in the first round to University High.
“We had beat them during the regular season,” Quebedeaux said. “There was so much promise. It was disappointing.”
. . .
Port Barre football was never more successful than it was over the next eight seasons, which would carry Perron into retirement.
The Red Devils followed up the letdown against U-High with seven winning seasons that all resulted in district championships over the next eight years, including the school’s first two trips to the state championship game.
“It did so much for the community,” Perron said. “They were really excited about going.”
Port Barre football fever was rampant in the rural community of more than 2,000 residents, where a local grocery store featured a Red Devil burger on its menu. The asphalt road that ran in front of the school’s elementary and football stadium was covered in pitchforks with the jersey numbers of the football players that season.
“Some homes had banners and wooden football players in their front yard,” Quebedeaux said.
Port Barre reached the state semifinals for the first time in ’97, where they lost to Oak Grove. Following an 11-1 record and regional championship loss to Vinton in ’98, the Red Devils advanced to the Class 2A state title game for the first time in ’98, losing 35-23 to Iota.
“We had a really good run,” said Perron, who was part of a staff with offensive coordinator Bruce Broussard, defensive coordinator Bill Duplechin, and special teams coach Mac Mistric. “The kids wanted to play and be part of it. They worked hard. We enjoyed it, and the kids worked hard. Going to the dome twice was the ultimate.
“Port Barre was a special place for us, and they were so welcoming,” Perron said. “I loved the community.”
Davis, later an assistant coach under Perron, where he coached wide receivers and special teams, said Port Barre had a superior level of talent that included Francis, Chris Keys, Abdul Levier, Andrew Robin, Henderson Keys, Jerome Pinkney, and Marvin White.
White, who attended Kilgore (Texas) junior college and TCU, remains the lone player under Perron to have played in the NFL. The fourth-round selection of the Cincinnati Bengals in 2007 played for a total of five seasons, later joining the Dallas Cowboys and Detroit Lions, and finished his career with 152 tackles and 14 passes broken up.
Francis, who was on the practice squad of the Washington Redskins at one time, played professionally in Canada for three years with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and Saskatchewan Roughriders.
“We had some phenomenal talent,” said Davis, a bail bondsman by trade who’s also an assistant basketball at David Thibodeaux. “Anybody could touch the football and take it to the house. You couldn’t really concentrate on one person. We had so many athletes.”
Port Barre experienced nirvana in ’02 with its second trip to the Superdome in four years, and a return engagement with Iota had a much happier ending.
Led by Francis’ MVP performance of 156 yards rushing and four touchdowns, the Red Devils capped a perfect 14-0 season with a 26-7 victory.
“It was definitely a special season,” Perron said. “A great group of kids. Lots of talent and speed. You just don’t forget about teams like that. We’ll never forget that group.”
Port Barre took the initiative to Iota and didn’t let up, Davis said.
“It was a joyful night to win the state championship,” he said. “We knew if we could play a good game, that we could prevail. We jumped on Iota from the kickoff, and there was no turning back. The kids went out and performed.”
Perron coached Port Barre to a pair of district championships and two 8-4 records in what were his final two seasons. The Red Devils won a playoff game each year and experienced second-round exits against West St. John and Riverside.
“They say keeping a program afloat is easier than getting one started, and that’s true,” Perron said. “If you can keep doing what you’ve been doing, you have to take care of the basics. If you don’t have a good feeder program, if you don’t have a good weight program, if you don’t have discipline, then you’re not going to win. Once you get those things established, just keep it going.”
Port Barre enjoyed 19 winning seasons with Perron in charge, including 18 over a 19-year stretch. He had 12 seasons with 10 wins or more, highlighted by the school’s first state title in ’02.
“One of the elements to the success was him being a leader, good communication, a good relationship with the community, and everybody being on the same page,” Quebedeaux said. “We played tackle football in K-3 and even ran some of the same plays as we did in high school. We also did that in junior high and into high school.
“A lot of the guys that coached in the lower leagues all played for coach Perron,” Quebedeaux said. “He had a hand in what they ran. It was kind of like a feeder program. By the time we got to high school, the plays the coaches put together, we knew it and could execute it. We weren’t always the biggest teams, but we worked hard. We knew our assignments, and we had a lot of heart.”
Perron took on a broader role within the parish, overseeing 10 middle schools and six high schools as the parish athletic director. That coincided with statewide recognition from the Louisiana High School Athletic Association, which inducted him into its Hall of Fame in 2011.
“He let his coaches coach,” Davis said. “He let them coach their positions and, at the end of practice, got everyone together. He was a man’s man. His words spoke volumes, and the kids went out and tried to perform.”
Quebedeaux recalled the direction Perron provided for him as a full-loving teenager.
“I was a little bit of a knucklehead,” he laughed. “We had some talks. He was always very professional. When he spoke, we listened. He was very even-keeled, a great leader.”
Soileau has spent a total of 23 years at UL, evolving from a student trainer who completed his master’s at Clemson and returned to his alma mater, where he’s spearheaded the school’s sports medicine program since 2011.
There’s no doubt that his origins are tied to his time with Perron.
“What I do now, and the drive that I have, and knowing how he did it, he was a mentor even though I’m not a coach,” he said, “I learned what it took, the work that it took, to be able to work toward what your goals. That put me in this position.”
The heartfelt tributes flowed like the Bayou Teche in the community Perron called home for more than three decades. Players reciprocated their love for the effect he had on them as young men, and the town was grateful for a man who brought great pride and a smile to everyone’s face.
“It was a good, happy ending to a great career,” David said. “He devoted himself to football, athletics, and young kids and developed them. We had an excellent time.”
Davis believed Perron’s emotions may have later conquered his mild-mannered façade.
“He held it together well,” he said. “I’m pretty sure when he got home, he cried on his wife’s shoulders.”