High School Hevyweight : Ladouceur Lifts De La Salle Into National Football Power Riding a 90-Game Win Streak

CONCORD, Calif. — Bob Ladouceur was not quite 25 years old in 1979 when he arrived at Concord De La Salle High to teach religion and try to mold a fledgling football program into something respectable, something to be proud of. Something that would provide a way for Ladouceur, as much as his religion courses, to teach values to young men.

But first Ladouceur needed something.

“I needed some weights,” he says. “There were no weights here. I convinced one of the brothers [the school is run by an order called Christian Brothers], and he wrote me a personal check for $300. So I went out and bought a set of Olympic bar weights.”They got stolen.”

Ladouceur laughs softly, the irony of the weights being lifted--illegally.

But by then Ladouceur had already made his point.

Strength was important, and so the kids--there were only 24 on the varsity--started bringing their own weights.

That’s how it started, this powerhouse football program.

Saturday night, De La Salle, which has a national-record 90-game winning streak, will host Santa Ana Mater Dei at University of the Pacific in Stockton.

As far back as Ladouceur can remember, this is only the second time in history that the Spartans have moved a home game away from their 3,000-seat facility. So this is a big deal. It’s a big deal because of the winning streak. It’s a big deal because, forever it seemed, De La Salle had been measured against the big programs from Southern California--the Mater Deis and Long Beach Polys and Bishop Amats--and always had been deemed less worthy, pretenders to any lofty state or national rankings.

Until last year, when De La Salle came to Edison Field and defeated Mater Dei, 28-21. Ultimately, it was the pivotal game in the school’s seventh consecutive undefeated season and first national championship as crowned by one ranking.

“I don’t know how you can measure things like that,” Ladouceur says. “Who can tell which high school team is the best? There are too many teams in this country. That’s something that can’t be measured.”

Ladouceur, 45, is sitting in a small room off the gym and locker room. The walls are bare and the floor is cluttered with flat volleyballs, dusty basketballs and old gym bags. On Ladouceur’s desk is a computer with a thick layer of dirt on the screen and a keyboard that is not attached to the useless screen. Ladouceur’s phone is covered with sticky handprints.

“But we have new tile on the floor,” a man says as he passes through. Just like in Southern California, the public school programs in the Bay Area complain of the unfair advantages their Catholic counterparts supposedly have. There are accusations of recruitment and the assumptions that the Catholic programs have the best equipment and fanciest weight rooms and offices.

But there is nothing fancy about these facilities.

In Orange County, Catholic schools such as Mater Dei were again formed into a league of their own. What De La Salle has done, Ladouceur says, is make a deal with the league it had been in. “We agreed that if the league would promise us five games a season, we’d leave and be independent,” he says.

This allowed the Spartans the freedom to schedule foes like Mater Dei. But there are, Ladouceur says, only two teams in his old league that want to play the Spartans. “So the league has a lottery and the three losers have to play us,” Ladouceur says.

“My answer to those critics of our program is that if the Catholic schools have all these advantages, then why don’t all the Catholic schools have a program like ours?”

Point made.

What has been built at De La Salle, a team that hasn’t lost since Dec. 6, 1991--to area-rival Pittsburg--has not been done with loads of financial resources or recruitment of public-school athletes. It has been accomplished by one man.

“De La Salle is the program it is because of Bob Ladouceur,” says Patrick Oswald.

Oswald played on Ladouceur’s first undefeated team, the 1982 squad that went 12-0. An investment banker in San Francisco, Oswald pulled some strings to change a Saturday business meeting and golf outing at Pebble Beach from 2 p.m. to 8 a.m. so he can attend the Mater Dei game.

“Bob came in and did something which was totally new to me,” Oswald says. “He made us set goals. It was a process we went through every day. We set goals and we worked harder than everybody else to achieve those goals. The end result was winning. But you know what? What Bob taught has stuck with me in my adult life. I was a 5-foot-9, 170-pound nose guard and I ended up doing quite well. I never thought I was capable of playing football like I did. It was because of Bob.”

D.J. Williams, the Spartans’ standout running back and linebacker, a 6-2, 225-pound mountain of muscle who is among the top recruits in the nation, has learned similar lessons 17 years later.

“We work harder and are more disciplined than other teams,” Williams says. “Our whole team worked out together three times a week this summer. I’ve missed some fun in my high school life, and I know that because I know what guys on other teams do. But you don’t want to be the one in this program who doesn’t do the work. There is a tradition, and you feel that when you get here.”

Since Ladouceur’s arrival, the Spartans have produced some big-name players: Aaron Taylor of Notre Dame and the San Diego Chargers, and Amani Toomer of Michigan and the New York Giants, for example. But of the 24 Spartans currently playing NCAA football, only eight are in Division I programs. De La Salle is not a football factory. “We’re hardly ever bigger than our opponents,” Ladouceur says.

Ladouceur was not a star football player. But he was a hard-working player. He played at San Ramon High and San Jose State as a defensive back and safety. He was a special teams player who, he says, “tried to figure out different ways of getting things done that didn’t entail me getting hit hard.” After college, Ladouceur worked in a state probation department, but it was during the time of Prop. 13 and massive state budget cuts.

“I wanted to help high school kids somehow and I didn’t think I could do it this way anymore,” Ladouceur says. “I saw a job advertised in the local Catholic newspaper about De La Salle needing a football coach. I had gone and gotten my theology degree at St. Mary’s, so I applied.”

The Spartans, with a roster of only 24 players, went 6-3 in Ladouceur’s first year. In his third year, they went undefeated. It was also in 1982 that Terry Eidson arrived.

Eidson, who says he attended UCLA because, “I saw the cheerleaders and dance girls on TV and thought, ‘Wow,’ ” had earlier considered becoming a priest. “I was a pre-novice,” Eidson says, “but I found out I wanted to be married and have a family.” So Eidson became a teacher and came to De La Salle. Eidson met Ladouceur and was impressed. “I was impressed with the man and with what he was doing,” Eidson says.

Now Eidson is the athletic director and the defensive coordinator--and Mutt to Ladouceur’s Jeff.

On a day when the temperature reached the 90s, Ladouceur is dressed in a polo shirt, crisply pressed khakis and white gym shoes. Eidson, despite the heat, is wearing a long-sleeved plaid shirt and gray corduroys. Ladouceur’s hair is military short. Eidson’s is a little long, a little scraggly, and that beard and mustache wouldn’t cut it in the army either. Ladouceur speaks softly and in even tones. Eidson’s voice is constantly hoarse because he is, well, a yeller.

“They are totally different,” says assistant coach Nathan Geldermann. “But they are perfect for each other.”

Geldermann is among six assistants who have come back to work at their old high school. Geldermann is helping coach the freshmen. He should be playing this year at California as a fifth-year senior linebacker, but a neck injury ended Geldermann’s playing career.

Geldermann helped the Spartans escape their closest call during the streak. In a 1993 game, De La Salle trailed Pittsburg by six points with 23 seconds left. Then Geldermann, the Spartan tight end, out-muscled a defender, caught a desperation pass and scored on a 40-yard touchdown play.

“Biggest moment in my life,” Geldermann says. “And I’m so glad to be back here.”

Ladouceur dismisses the streak and any talk of pressure with a swift nod of his head. No, he says, the streak is not important. And, absolutely no, he says, he doesn’t want his players to think of it.

“I know,” Ladouceur says, “that the team which loses is going to feel terrible and that makes me sad. It’s going to happen, of course, and it could happen in a game where we play our very best and just get beat, and those kids will feel they’ve let someone down.”

Says Williams, the star senior: “Nobody wants to be the one to lose now. Yeah, we all think about that. It’s on our minds a little.”

Ladouceur thinks this team, which is rated either third or fourth depending on which national high school ranking you look at, is overrated.

“We’re young,” he says. “Last year, I thought we legitimately deserved what we got. This year, we’re inexperienced and still learning.”

OK. Maybe this is Ladouceur trying to take the pressure off. But he can’t do it. Mater Dei, which is used to being the heavy, is going to be an underdog Saturday. By some accounts, a big underdog.

When you’ve become the best, the reputation sticks.

Diane Pucin can be reached at her e-mail address: [email protected].

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Prep Perfection

Longest all-time winning streaks in high school football:

90: Concord De La Salle (1991-current)

72: Hudson, Michigan (1968-75)

71: Jefferson City, Missouri (1958-66)

69: Animas, New Mexico (1984-90)

64: Pittsfield, Illinois (1966-73)

64: Picayune George Washington Carver, Mississippi (1958-65)

63: Barton, Arkansas (1985-90)

62: Paulsboro, New Jersey (1992-97)

60: Bloomington South, Indiana (1967-73)

55: Waterloo East, Iowa (1965-71)

55: Pflugerville, Texas (1958-62)