Hank Tierney’s Journey Comes Full Circle as Shaw Eyes State Title
by: Mike Strom // GeauxPreps.com Contributor
Divine intervention.
Might that actually represent what’s transpiring on the West Bank of New Orleans where Coach Hank Tierney and Archbishop Shaw High School are reunited and conducting a football revival now entering its third season?
The Rev. Steve Ryan, S.D.B., Head of School at Shaw, and the man responsible for returning Tierney to the scene of his greatest triumphs, believes so.
“Divine intervention,’’ Ryan answered when asked to put perspective on the remarkable fairy tale of a story brewing at the only all-boys Catholic high school located on Jefferson Parish’s West Bank.
“As a priest would say, (the Lord) has been working on this,’’ Ryan, the school’s defacto president, who is better known as “Father Steve’’ to the Shaw community, said. “I tell you the truth, I feel it was a spiritual moment. Because I think God was waiting for this to happen.’’
Top-seeded Shaw, 11-2, and winner of its last 10 games stands one victory away from capturing the second state championship in school history and the first since Tierney, then 36, directed the Eagles to the 1987 Class 4A state crown nearly four decades ago.
The Eagles face No. 3 seed E.D. White (11-2) in the Division II Select championship game scheduled for noon Friday as part of the Allstate Sugar Bowl LHSAA Prep Classic being staged at the Caesars Superdome.
Ranked as the sixth-winningest football coach in LHSAA history with a career record of 330-128-0 compiled at Shaw, West Jefferson, and Ponchatoula, Tierney has guided six teams to the Prep Classic.
Five have been at Shaw (1987, 1988, 1997, 2000, and now 2024) and one at Ponchatoula during nearly five decades of coaching in which 39 of those years have been spent as a head coach. His last Prep Classic appearance came three years ago in 2021 when he culminated 11 seasons as Ponchatoula’s coach by directing the unheralded Greenies to a Class 5A state runner-up finish.
“I was done, 100 percent done,’’ said Tierney, now 73, who had 30 years of credit in the state retirement system. “I was just kind of burnt out. The people at Ponchatoula were very good to me. But the head coaching deal at Ponchatoula involved a whole lot. It was the only school in town so it was a lot of community work involved, always somewhere to go. It was a huge school with a lot of kids. So it’s not an easy job is, I guess, what I’m trying to say. If you want to try to do (coaching) the right way, then it’s a lot of time and a lot of hours.’’
The timing of his retirement was purely coincidental in that his final year in public school education and coaching would parallel Ponchatoula’s first trip to the Prep Classic.
Retirement “was always going to be then,’’ Tierney said. “It wasn’t anything I decided then. That was when I was going. I was done after that. Had we not got into the playoffs, I would have been done. It just so happened that I went out with a really good team.’’
Tierney believed he was ready to abandon the grind of 50 years of football coaching, smell some roses, and take a year to travel with his wife Jo Ann to places across America, sightsee, and attend some college football games he previously never had the time for, like Army-Navy.
The last destination imaginable would have been Shaw where he was unceremoniously vilified and released following the 2001 season, one year after directing the Eagles to their fifth Prep Classic appearance.
The rift involving alleged financial aid violations by Shaw ended in a bitter separation in which Tierney was jettisoned while feeling betrayed and scapegoated by an institution he loved and revered. Though Tierney later was exonerated by the Louisiana High School Athletic Association of any wrongdoing, the damage was done.
It took years for Hank and Jo Ann Tierney to reconcile those hard feelings, with the first real thawing of those sentiments coming in 2017 when former Shaw principal, Dr. Mark Williams, now superintendent of Houma archdiocese schools, invited the Tierneys to attend a reunion of the 1987 state champions Tierney led. Even afterward, though, Hank and Jo Ann Tierney retreated to a safe distance to avoid any further hurt.
Now fast forward to December 2021. Shaw had just completed a 2-6 football season playing in Class 5A as an over-matched member of the New Orleans Catholic League. The 2021 decline was not an isolated incident. The Eagles had lost 37 consecutive Catholic League outings on the field dating to 2015 save for a forfeit win from Brother Martin. The program had not advanced to the Prep Classic since making three consecutive runner-up finishes while playing in Class 4A in 2006, 2007, and 2008.
Ryan, in his first year back at Shaw and now directing the Marrero school, decided a change was necessary. The question was who to pursue. Ryan had served at Shaw for four years in the football glorious late ’80s when he arrived at age 22 as a Salesian brother in training to become a priest.
“I just felt that the Lord was saying, ‘It’s time for a change,’’’ Ryan said. “We were getting clobbered for a number of years. We were at the bottom of 5A (enrollment). We were the one Catholic school that was hanging on. So we made a decision to do two things. The first dream was we were going to move to the lower classification, 4A, for our (enrollment) numbers. And then the second move — and I made that move — was that we were going to try something new.’’
Though aware of Tierney, Ryan had no idea if he might be open to a reconciliation.
Enter D’Artanian “Duck’’ Miller, a former Tierney assistant coach and close friend, who had two sons either at Shaw or set to enroll. Miller suggested Ryan and Shaw “swing for the fences’’ and offered Tierney as the top candidate to investigate at the very least.
It was then that Miller began a dialogue with Jo Ann Tierney, knowing her blessing would be paramount. The two exchanged texts and telephone calls and Miller discovered he had a receptive co-conspirator.
“Hank had talked about retiring and anybody who knows Hank knows that he has one passion, one hobby, and it’s football,’’ Jo Ann Tierney said. Tierney told her husband, “I don’t know what you’re going to do in retirement that allows you to sit and watch film 24/7, thinking about what plays you could possibly use from that game (being watched). Who does that in retirement?
“Really and truly he doesn’t golf. He doesn’t fish. There’s not a lot of things he does (outside of football). Anybody who knows him will tell you that. So everybody was very concerned (about) what is Hank going to do in retirement.’’
Hank Tierney says in reflection, “I don’t think my wife thought I was done. I think she wanted me to keep coaching for obvious reasons (related to maintaining a healthy lifestyle). Because I would have been the greatest couch potato of all time.’’
Jo Ann Tierney’s concern centered around what Shaw’s position would be given the onerous separation 23 years earlier.
“Let’s be honest, really, who’s ready for Hank to go back to Shaw,’’ Jo Ann Tierney said. “There were a lot of people who could have stepped up at the time he left Shaw and didn’t. Were they willing now to welcome him back? That’s a lot of unknowns there.’’
With Hank Tierney’s name now firmly planted in Ryan’s conscious, Shaw’s top Salesian reached out to Hank and Jo Ann to arrange a dinner meeting at the Tierney’s Ponchatoula home. Both Tierneys remembered Ryan from his first Shaw stint when he served as the football team’s chaplain.
While no mention of a job offer was made via telephone, enough parameters about the position were discussed to peak the Tierneys’ interest in meeting. Hank still was operating under the impression that he would be asked for input in recommending some coaches and even compiled a list of candidates that did not include his name.
When Ryan, accompanied by Miller, arrived in Ponchatoula, Ryan quickly established clarity as to the true purpose of the meeting and Shaw’s desire to bring Tierney back to the West Bank.
An hours-long exchange of questions and answers transpired with Hank Tierney peppering Ryan about all of the pertinent what-ifs involved in making such a bold move. What was the compensation? What coaches could he bring? What would his school responsibilities be beyond coaching? What about the hour-plus commute each way from Ponchatoula to the West Bank?
Ryan, to his credit, aced the questioning even if Hank Tierney exited still carrying reservations.
Tierney would have no teaching duties, instead being hired as Assistant Advancement Director charged with raising donations and attending to other alumni matters, two areas very much in his wheelhouse. The commuting issue was solved by Tierney taking advantage of the sleeping quarters available in the school’s Salesian residence on Sunday through Wednesday nights in-season.
Ryan had done his homework, Hank Tierney said, pointing point specifically at the Salesian priest’s strategy of recruiting Jo Ann Tierney first.
“You’ve got to get the wife,’’ Ryan said with a chuckle this week.
But there were other important moments, Ryan said, which involved a cleansing of sorts.
“What happened was (the meeting) released a lot of healing for Hank because he loves this school,’’ Ryan said. “He gave himself to it and he left under a tenuous moment of misunderstanding with the (then) lay principal. He also felt that maybe the Salesian priests (in charge then) and the powers that be even higher with the Church didn’t want to hear (about his situation).
“It ended up being that bad. (Hank Tierney) left and he was off and for years he couldn’t even really bring himself to root for Shaw because he felt hurt. I saw that. And the worst thing was that once these decisions are made, people just kind of say, ‘Well, that’s the way it is and it’s impossible to reverse.’’
Not Father Steve Ryan, though.
“I saw that, no, here’s a competent guy who loves the school and he’s finishing a public school career and he’s Hank Tierney,’’ Ryan said. “He only knows football. Jo Ann will tell you that. He can’t do anything else. Hank is not the kind of guy who’s going to go build a shed. He’s just a football maniac. He’s a coach. He loves mentoring young people and coaching football. It’s in his blood.’’
Hank Tierney remembers, “My initial gut reaction, because I liked Father Steve, was I didn’t want to come right out and tell him no, hell no. So I didn’t. I said, ‘I’m flattered, Father. I’m kind of caught off guard by it and I need to think about it.’ But as I was saying that, I was thinking, no, I’m not doing this.
“I did ask him a lot of questions about how could it be worked out. Who could I hire? What was going to be my role? I wasn’t going to teach. I was going to be in administration, which basically frees me up to do a lot of things.
“I got all of that out. So when (Ryan) left, I didn’t give him an answer. I just left him thinking I was very interested, but in my mind, I really wasn’t. Then he left and my wife was like what are going to do? Are you just going to lay on the sofa? So she started on me. ‘You like to coach. You still love to coach. Whatever happened at Shaw, those people are all gone.’ She was right. They were gone. Then it just took off.’’
A Kodak moment and additional turning point of the four-hour meeting arrived while Hank Tierney sat in disbelief at this shocking turn of events.
Standing behind her husband, who was seated on the sofa, Jo Ann Tierney squeezed Hank’s right shoulder and offered her approval, saying, “Hank, I’m OK. It’s time to go home.’’
Miller now fondly and vividly remembers Hank Tierney’s befuddled reaction.
“Hank looked at Jo Ann and then he looked at me,’’ Miller said. “Then he looked at Jo Ann and he looked at me again. And he said, ‘Y’all two have been talking.’
“Hank was taken aback by the offer,’’ Miller continued. “He was happy for the offer. And one thing he made sure was that this didn’t have anything to do with (the release of) Tommy Connors leaving (as Shaw’s coach). Because Hank felt like if that had anything to do with it, he was not taking the job. He wasn’t that type of person. He liked Tommy.’’
Hank Tierney accepted Shaw and Ryan’s job offer less than a month later and he and his wife have not looked back since.
“It was pretty amazing, I’ve got to tell you,’’ Jo Ann Tierney said of the experience now three years old. “We still think about (the meeting) sometimes. We’re still in kind of in disbelief.
“Unless you were involved, people do not know the hurt that went along with Hank leaving Shaw. It was unbelievable that it could have happened and that it did happen. But as years go by you move on. We moved to Ponchatoula. We had beautiful friends and a beautiful community. And we had a wonderful time at Ponchatoula (High School).
“But Hank’s heart and probably mine, too, has always been at Shaw. Nothing in our lives comes up that we don’t reference Shaw. So, it was a pretty big moment. And it still is. It really is.’’
About Ryan, Jo Ann Tierney said, “Father Steve is an amazing man. There is nobody like him. He is truly the epitome of Don Bosco in life.’’
Father Steve could not be happier with the selection of Tierney and the vindication that has ensued.
Shaw has amassed 30 victories in the three seasons since Tierney returned. The Eagles have won three consecutive district championships while advancing to the state quarterfinals, semifinals, and now the championship round. Wins and losses do not tell the entire story, however.
“Hank really is a good man for mentorship of young people because he practices virtue and is a good man,’’ Ryan said. “He’s a fiery coach. But he’s a good Christian and he practices the Salesian method like (Salesian founder) Don Bosco. Don Bosco, our Saint, always practice a certain amount of understanding with young people to get into their heads.
“I think he practices the Salesian and Christian approach well. He knows everyone’s name. He is a fantastic guy to remember stories and people. He’s very loyal. He’s mentored so many others who have gone on to careers in coaching and education and sports and all kinds of avenues. He has time for people, too.’’
Another factor less talked about publicly in Tierney’s decision to return to Shaw was the opportunity to reunite with his closest coaching friends while assembling a staff. Among his first hires were three-time assistants in offensive line coach Mike Baiamonte, wide receiver coach and pass game coordinator Frank Allelo, and Miller.
Baiamonte was teaching and coaching at Holy Cross. Allelo was teaching and head football coach at East Jefferson and Miller was in private business itching to return to the sidelines.
“This is no doubt Divine Intervention,’’ Baiamonte, who has coached with Tierney at all three of Tierney’s posts, said, unknowingly seizing upon Ryan’s earlier sentiment. “This is about guys (in coaching) coming together who have done right by children and who have done right by every school they’ve worked in. We’ve never done wrong or harm to anybody. I think we’re reaping that reward.
“I just think we’ve always done right whether people agree with it or not. We always land on our feet. We always show up. We always work hard. We always win. But, again, it’s through hard work and dedication and it really is about putting children first. It really is. It’s always about putting kids first and I think that’s why we are so successful. We’ll never change that.’’
“It feels like a bunch of fraternity brothers who went different routes and we call came back to the fraternity,’’ Miller said. “So it’s a brotherhood that’s like no other. That’s probably the best way I could put it.’’
“You know Hank sets the tone for everything,’’ Allelo, who has coached with Tierney at Shaw and West Jefferson, said. “(The transition back) really has been seamless. We were away from each other … but we were always communicating.
“For me, when he called me and said, ‘I’m going back, I’d like you to come.’ This was my payback. I stepped away from being a head coach whole-heartedly with no qualms about saying this man has done so much for me and my career and the fact that he asked me to go back for this project, I could tell that going back was more than just about, ‘Hey, let’s coach together for five more years or whatever.
“This is about unfinished business, a rewrite of history that was on his soul. I was like he thought enough to ask me to do that. Obviously, I was there when it fell apart (at Shaw). It’s kind of a mission. I had no qualm.’’
Allelo recalls his then-principal’s disbelief at East Jefferson that he was leaving a head coaching job to become an assistant.
“You’re missing the point’’ was Allelo’s reaction. “It’s not a football move. That’s one of my closest friends who’s asking would you want to be part of something that’s important to him. I wouldn’t have turned that down for any reason.’’
Though a septuagenarian, no one has noticed any slowdown in Tierney’s fierce competitiveness or in his coaching gait.
“I think the fire burns brighter now,’’ Miller said. “He is a competitor. He has a point to prove to all of us that don’t let this age fool you, I’m still going to out-work you. That’s why I say the fire still burns.’’
“I think his energy is great,’’ Baiamonte said. “I think he’s the same (overall), but he’s better. What I mean by that is the public school experience teaches you so much. We are so demanding of young people. Our tolerance of behaviors – and I’m not talking about like goofing off in class – the tolerance of player behavior, practice behavior, academic behavior, we don’t have a high tolerance for guys that are not committed. We never have.
“What public school taught us to do was when those kids are coming to you, you may be their only piece to a good puzzle. You might be the one thing in their life that’s giving them a chance. You might be their only chance. So when you go through that … you just have a different perspective. It doesn’t change your base philosophy. It doesn’t change what you tolerate. It just changes your approach to just how can you get this kid onboard.’’
“Honestly, I don’t think the man has changed a bit,’’ Allelo adds. “Sometimes people say he’s chilled and maybe he does sometimes. But not too often. He is ‘on’ all of the time. It’s Archbishop Shaw. It’s a different expectation.
“He’s always on, so your (butt) better be on, too, or you’re going to get run over. That’s my daily challenge.’’
“We’re going to do things with a certain level of accountability,’’ Baiamonte said. “We’re going to mold you. We’re going to help you. We’re going to do as much as we can. But, when it’s all said and done, the standard’s the standard, and we’re not going to waiver.
“We’re going to run the program the right way. We’re going to treat kids the right way. We’re going to be hard on them and love them all in the same breathe. I just think that’s part of who we are. I think it’s always been a part of who we are. I also think that’s why we’ve been successful every step of the way.’’
“Hank is the perfect prototype of how to run your program,’’ Allelo said. “Everybody is going to be a little different. But if you follow his structure and you’re passionate about being a coach and you’re a good coach, you’re going to have a chance for success.
“(Tierney’s approach and methods) just make you a winner. The guy’s a winner. There’s no other way to put it. And winning doesn’t come easy. If people understood the amount of work that’s put in, the amount of hours watching film, the amount of hours of preparation … making sure no stone is left unturned, Hank is phenomenal at that.’’
Shaw players certainly have proven to be all in on Tierney Project II.
“No matter if you’re (star running back) Jasper Parker or the manager on the team, if we mess up, everybody is doing up and down (drills),’’ Shaw senior quarterback Mason Wilson said. “Nobody is above the program. If we do great, everybody is going to get a ring. So that’s a great aspect about him.’’
Wilson had transferred to Shaw from St. Augustine.
“I had come from another school and I kept hearing about this Coach Hank guy,’’ Wilson said. “I had no clue who he was, so I just started doing research. Then a couple of my uncles came up to me and he had coached my uncles. So I kind of had a little (background) about how he would be.
“But, from personal experience, he was very strict at first. I was scared to do anything. He’s very respected. So that was my first impression. But then once he gets to know you, he has a really soft spot in his heart. I know Coach Hank talks very highly of me when I’m not around. I have the utmost respect for him due to that.’’
“I was coming off a Player of the Week my junior year,’’ Wilson continued. “I was acting, not cocky, but I was a little confident and I made a mistake. He didn’t let me practice for the rest of the practice because I was messing around. So he’s willing to lose a game to prove a point. After that, I never messed around again in practice. I gained a lot of respect for him after that.’’
“When we were first introduced to Coach Hank, he pushed for both structure and discipline from the first day that we met him,’’ said running back/wide receiver Gavin Richard, a three-year starter whose father and grandfather played for Tierney at Shaw, said. “I think those were kind of two things that were lacking in the Shaw program before he made his return.
“Whenever we have a practice week, no matter who we’re playing, the week always looks the same. He has the same structure and the same regiment that we’re going to go through every single week so that we’re prepared for whoever the team is.
“On the discipline side of things, he was very regimented and (set) in his ways about what we do. A Shaw football player acts this way. He’s not going to act up in class. He’s not going to get in trouble off the football field. Because whatever we do off the field is a reflection on the team as a whole and he doesn’t want a negative light.
“So I think bringing in those two values that he believes deeply in kind of brought the team together as a whole. Because whenever your team is not structured or not disciplined, it’s not going to amount to a very good football team.’’
“Every day I learn something new about Coach Hank and I really have built love for him because he keeps me responsible,’’ Wilson the quarterback said. “If I ever need anything, I know I can call Coach Hank. We’ve built a relationship over the past three years that’s unbelievable and that I’ve never felt with a coach before.
“He disciplines me, I know. If anything happens at school or even at home, I know Coach Hank is going to be the first person to get on me. So that’s the kind of relationship and bond that we have.’’
As for Friday’s high noon championship showdown against E.D. White, an 11-2 team that has won its last six games, including three in the playoffs while finishing as District 8-4A runner-up behind Lutcher, Richard said, “We’re really excited. We trust Coach Hank and what the coaches have in the game plan for us and we’re going to go in there and execute. If we play Shaw football, then we’ll come out victorious.’’
Shaw already has punched a winning ticket of sorts.
Declining enrollment has been reversed with approximately 620 students now onboard in grades 8th through 12 grades. That represents an increase of approximately 200 students in the three years since Tierney and the football revival arrived.
The rejuvenated Tierney said he has no thoughts of retiring any time soon. He plans to continue coaching “as long as I am healthy, happy, and enjoying what I’m doing and feel like I can still do the job.’’
That could be a long time, according to his wife.
“It’s been magical,’’ Jo Ann Tierney said of their return. “I can’t say enough about it. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen Hank as happy as he is now, probably in our whole life. I never thought in a million years that this would happen. But it did and we’re so happy.
“I just want to stress how happy we both are,’’ Jo Ann Tierney reiterated. “I’m going to say especially Hank, but it’s equally me. What it means for us to be back and involved at Shaw, it’s huge. It’s really huge. Now if we can just win Friday, it will be the perfect fairy tale.’’
Featured Image Courtesy of Thomas Albarado and Archbishop Shaw High School