10 / 60
8
MY
ROUSES
EVERYDAY
SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2017
the
Football
issue
Former Saints Quarterback Bobby Hebert talks to LSU Head Coach
Ed Orgeron
B
obby Hebert, the future Cajun Cannon, first played football
with his friend Ed Orgeron in high school more than 40 years
ago. Together, the pair brought home a state title for the South
Lafourche High Tarpons in 1977. Later, they were teammates again, at
Northwestern State in
Natchitoches
, LA, where they also roomed together.
Hebert, of course, went on to play quarterback for the New Orleans Saints.
After a long career in collegiate and professional football, including a stint
as the Saints’ defensive line coach, Orgeron was named Head Coach at
LSU in 2016. Decades after the two veteran athletes first met, they got
together to shoot the breeze about Cajun accents, Grandma’s white beans
with bell peppers, and a life’s worth of lessons from the football field.
BOBBY:
I gotta address one thing, first off:
People say you have an accent. You’re from
Larose. I’m from Cut Off.
I
don’t think you
have an accent.
COACH O:
I’m proud of this Cajun accent.
BOBBY:
They think it’s thick now, Bé Bé —
they shoulda heard you back in the day!
COACH O:
Both of our accents are
nothing
compared to what they
were. You listen to someone from South Lafourche, it’s like they’re
from another country.
BOBBY:
I can’t speak Cajun French, but you can.
COACH O:
My parents taught me. I remember, when I went to
college, I was going to take French. I thought, oh,
I
know
French
already. But Cajun French is not true French. It’s a spoken language
as opposed to something that’s written down. Guys invent words. If
this word sounds a little like a true French word, we think we’re good.
BOBBY:
When you go down the bayou you can hold conversations.
You can talk to my dad in Cajun French.
COACH O:
One thing about Cajuns, everyone has a nickname ...
Bobby J. Your son is T-Bob. I’m Bé Bé.
BOBBY:
I’m not sure people know we are cousins.
COACH O:
My dad and your grandma were first cousins — down
the bayou, you have a lot of cousins.
BOBBY:
You think about where they grew up. Back then, you got
maybe four or five choices for who you gonna marry. If it’s not
your first or second cousin, well then, alright.
BOBBY:
We played on the same South Lafourche High School
football team. We brought home a state title for the Tarpons in
1977. Bé Bé, what do you remember most about when we were in
high school, the year we won the championship?
COACH O:
The team. The character of the team and how we all
came together.We had some tough players.We had great coaches.
We had great assistant coaches. We had Coach Bourgeois and
Gribbuoy — and Roland Boudreau, the offensive line coach.
BOBBY:
He was actually married to my dad’s sister.
COACH O:
Playing for South Lafourche was an honor. Didn’t
you think so? It was a big deal to play for Coach Ralph Pere.
BOBBY:
If you played for the Tarpons, you were expected to win
District. Then it was, what can you do in the playoffs? Can you
get past the Catholic league?
COACH O:
Senior year was your first turn at quarterback. One
thing about you — and I mention this to all of my quarterbacks
— you did everything with a smile, but you could chew a guy’s
ass out if he wasn’t blocking right. Everyone respected you.
BOBBY:
State championship, it’s 4th and 17 ...
COACH O:
You threw it to Daryll Reynolds. Daryll tipped it, it
hit a defender from Bonnabel, and Scott Bouzigard, he’s on his
knees in the end zone and he catches the ball.
HE CATCHES
THE BALL
.
BOBBY:
We’re tied 20-20.
O’ Yeah