'Death of an athletic department'? Comeaux devastated by opening of Southside High

From the day the news broke that Southside High School would one day exist in Youngsville, the Comeaux High coaching staff was put on alert.

It was pretty obvious the new school would negatively affect Comeaux High in some way.

And naturally once they knew “The Taj Mahal” of a facility Southside would become, their concerns expanded.

But now, just a few months away from the end of the first school year of co-existing with Southside High, the decreased enrollment at Comeaux High and lack of a true feeder school has been more devastating to the Spartans athletic department than any of them imagined.

“If something isn’t done, you’re looking at the death of an athletic department,” Comeaux football coach Doug Dotson said. “This is not sustainable. You’re going to see the death of an athletic program and it falls on deaf ears. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

'Scary' freshman numbers

In his sport of football, Dotson said he typically got 75 to 80 freshmen. This year, it was 20. With normal attrition, he’s expecting 12 to 15 returning as sophomores.

In baseball, the Spartans have three freshmen, not close to enough to field a freshman baseball team.

Even in wrestling, the school’s most dominant sport, coach Keith Bergeron normally has “15 to 20” freshmen added to his program each year. This year, he had five.

“It’s very scary,” Bergeron said.

And currently, there’s little hope for any reversals.

“They’re going to have several tough years,” said LPSS Chief Administrative Officer Joe Craig, who is a former principal at Comeaux High.

“For the next two or three years, their enrollment is going to drop because of Southside.”

How and why is this happening?

When this rezoning process began, Comeaux had just more than 2,000 students. In two years, its estimated enrollment will be 1,150.

Currently, there are 61 juniors still at Lafayette High technically rezoned for Comeaux, but that group is expected to finish out their careers at Lafayette High, according to Craig.

There are nine freshmen and sophomores currently at Lafayette High who could soon be headed for Comeaux — but only if they don't academy- or family-clause out of that assignment.

Lafayette High, meanwhile, is expected to stay around 2,000 students.

After numerous conversations on the issue, there’s no evidence that this decline in numbers was done intentionally.

Unfortunately for the Spartans, that doesn't make the consequences any less real.

“It wasn’t on the radar at all,” Craig said. “They knew Comeaux was full and they needed a school in the south part of the parish. Athletics wasn’t a priority in the rezone.”

When told of the low athletic numbers at Comeaux this school year, school board member Jeremy Hidalgo was surprised.

“That is drastic,” he admitted. “I’ve never been made aware of those numbers. That is problematic. It is something that I’d want to be addressed to see if there’s anything we can do about it."

Hidalgo admits athletics weren't the top priority in the rezoning plans, listing "taxpayers, transportation, space, technology, etc." as main focuses.

“Look, first and foremost our concerns are education. But athletics is important in this parish. It’s not anything we would turn our backs on.”

It's also not something he could have predicted, he said.

“Our intent was to reduce the size of every school with the exception of Southside and Northside,” Hidalgo said. “Lafayette High did go down. It didn’t go down as much as we wanted it to. Comeaux did drastically go down."

School board demographer Mike Hefner said the rezoning strategy should have worked numerically.

“Southside took some, obviously, but Comeaux numerically based on student residency should have made up for most of that,” Hefner said. “We tried to reduce Lafayette High, tried to build in some growth at Southside and build in some growth at Comeaux. Those were the general objectives.”

Said Hidalgo: “We’re trying to get the schools to where they’re all at a comfortable level regarding capacity. Comeaux had over 2,000 students. That’s ridiculously uncomfortable.”

No feeder schools

Unfortunately in more than addressing that issue, the future of Comeaux athletics is apparently way beyond “uncomfortable.”

Making the situation even worse, Bergeron said Comeaux is the only school in the parish without a true feeder school.

“There isn’t a school that we can go in and talk to the kids where they’re talking about going to Comeaux High School,” Bergeron said. “About 70 percent of Broussard is going to Southside, so where is that school pride going to be generated to? Certainly not Comeaux High.”

Meanwhile, Dotson said all of Youngsville and all of Milton are now Southside; most of Paul Breaux is Northside or Carencro; most of Edgar Martin is Lafayette High; and most of L.J. Alleman is Lafayette High.

“So basically (athletically), we got nothing (in rezone),” Dotson said. “And we’ve been told that it’s going to take three years for that to correct itself.”

Dotson and his staff cringe at what the status of the Spartans’ athletic department will be in three years.

“It’s not sustainable,” Dotson said. “We’re in trouble.”

What are Comeaux's options?

Dotson said he’s done the old suggestion of beating the halls to find them.

“There’s nothing left over,” he said. “There ain’t none of that.”

Heightening the staff’s frustration is the feeling that “no one on the board is fighting for us,” said boys basketball coach Jeremy Whittington.

“We have no voice on the board,” Whittington said. “We’re set up to fail.”

In basketball, Whittington said his “floor is a hazard to play on, and our bleachers should be condemned.”

But are there any options to tweak the rezoning process that would help Comeaux High?

School Board member Dawn Morris has an idea, but it would require major changes.

“This is not a popular idea,” Morris said. “We have some really incredible academy programs, but the original purpose of those academy programs no longer exist.

“So if, for example, a bunch of kids are leaving Comeaux High to go to the business academy at Acadiana to play sports, then maybe one of the things the board will have to consider in the future is no longer having those type of academies that pull kids out of their zoned schools.”

Morris also suggested that the gifted-and-talented services could be offered at each of the six high schools.

For the time being, however, coaches are frustrated about finding ways to build their programs.

“There’s a (recruiting) free-for-all in this town right now,” Dotson said. “That’s really what it is. How are we supposed to not recruit?

"If you don’t recruit, you get trampled on. If you recruit, you’re breaking the LHSAA's rules.”

And obviously, recruiting isn’t any more of a level playing field than the parish’s enrollment numbers.

“When you make a Taj Mahal and you give the kids the options to go here or here,” Dotson said, “it’s like saying, here’s Alabama and here’s a seventh-grade middle school program. It’s just not fair.”

Craig said there's another potential solution, but Comeaux High would have to wait a year for it.

“If the board would like for us to consider a spot rezone, we’ll absolutely get with our demographer and see if we can make an adjustment, so that we send some kids back to Comeaux,” Craig said.

“I don’t have a solution for the fall of 2018. Potentially, though, we could look at something for the fall of 2019, if the board chooses to do so.”