Legendary coaches Bob Ladouceur, Terry Eidson enter as one into 2023 De La Salle Hall of Fame
In the 15-class history of the De La Salle High School Sports Hall of Fame, there was never an easier selection. A slam dunk. A no-brainer. A piece of green and silver cake.
Bob Ladouceur, the winningest high school football coach in California history with 399 wins, sporting the highest winning percentage of .934 (399-25-3) in U.S. history, was finally eligible for induction in 2019.
And though it was comical for the voting committee to even go over his endless length of accomplishments — the national-record 151-game win streak, the 11 national titles, inductions already to the NFHS, San Jose State and Bay Area Hall of Fames — or that he’s largely considered the architect, founder and path maker for one of the country’s most successful athletic programs, there was still a process to follow.
Ladouceur, on the committee himself, threw a monkey wrench into the protocol.
Former De La Salle head football coach Bob Ladouceur. Photo: Dennis Lee
Instead of leaving the meeting, as is required for any nominee on the committee, coach Lad had a special, heart-felt request: Take his name off the nomination list until his partner in coaching Terry Eidson was eligible for induction also.
“None of it would have all happened without Terry,” Ladouceur said. “He did just as much as I did. We did it together. If possible, it would be nice if we could go in together.”
And so it is, four years later.
Head coach Ladouceur and his defensive coordinator and special teams coach Eidson head the 2023 De La Salle Hall of Fame Class that also includes four former athletes (golf’s Johnny De Los Reyes, basketball’s Lincoln Gunn, diving’s Kristian Ipsen and football/track’s Mawuko Tugbenyoh), two teams (1996 football, 1998 volleyball) and a distinguished alumnus (Scott Hugo).
An award’s presentation is Oct. 1 on the school’s campus.
“I love it,” Eidson said. “We’ve been joined at the hip all these years with our coaching and friendship. It’s the way it should be. It’s a big honor and totally selfless of Bob.”
The Odd Couple
It was a fitting request to share the day, because ultimately that is what Ladouceur has always been about. He loved football and competition, of course, but how he became so successful leading kids, pushing them to their limits was building genuine brotherhoods, commitments to one another and being the best self you can be for the good of others.
For the good of the team.
Love, effort and accountability were hammered home. Selfishness and self promotion was not tolerated. Winning games, championships or long streaks were never spoken of.
“Everything was a by-product,” Ladouceur said.
It was a hard sell, a hard buy-in, but that is exactly where Ladouceur and Eidson connected. They coached together for 31 years until Ladouceur retired in 2014 to be replaced by current coach Justin Alumbaugh, who played for both men and coached together for more than a decade.
Alumbaugh was a junior on the 1996 team that will be honored.
Terry Eidson (left) and Bob Ladouceur during a promotion of the motion picture "When the Game Stands Tall," based off Neil Hayes' book on the De La Salle program. Photo: Getty images.
Eidson came back this season to coach special teams this season after a few years away to focus on his family.
As opposite as the new Hall of Fame inductees were personality wise — Eidson the extrovert and Ladouceur the reserved introvert — the two were “identical,” when it came to creating a team environment and challenging players to be their best.
They both entered De La Salle in their 20s hungry to teach Lasallian principles on the football field and in the classroom.
“As far as personalities, they’re the 'Odd Couple,' ” Alumbaugh said. “Very, very different people. Polar opposites. But they are lockstop aligned in the philosophy of educational athletics. How to challenge and how to push, what direction to move, they never had a disagreement.”
On the sideline, it was another manner.
Tick, tick, tick
Eidson, affectionately nicknamed the “tick” for “burrowing himself under your skin,” Alumbaugh said with a laugh. “Not to infect you but to push and prod you to be your best.”
That’s not just with players, Ladouceur said. Coaches too. Both he and Alumbaugh note being second-guessed more than a few times on play calls.
“He holds nothing back,” Ladouceur said with a grin. “He’d needle me about a play call saying ‘I can’t believe you called that.’ And I’d come back ‘get back to your defense.’ He was pretty relentless sometimes. I’d have to say ‘I heard you, I heard you.’ “
Ladouceur heard him for the first time back in 1982, according to an excerpt from Neil Hayes’ book “When the Game Stands Tall,” and “he pissed me off.” Eidson watched a De La Salle game from the stands when St. Patrick scored the game-winning touchdown 24-21 on a kickoff return. Eidson reportedly told a mutual friend that Ladouceur blew the game with the kickoff coverage.
Word got back to Ladouceur and when Eidson got a teaching job at De La Salle, he offered him an assistant coaching gig on the junior varsity team. “I figured he knew something about the game because he was able to pinpoint the most critical moment (of the loss to St. Patrick’s),” Ladouceur told Hayes. “But it was pretty presumptuous to pop off like that. He still hasn’t stopped.”
Rags to riches
It didn’t take long for the two to get through the prickly start. They connected immediately and after two undefeated seasons as head JV coach, Eidson joined Ladouceur on the varsity team to start an unprecedented three-decade run of success.
Remarkable considering De La Salle was the proverbial football doormat in the 70s until Ladouceur arrived in 1979.
The Spartans had won four games combined the two previous years. They went 6-3 his first season, followed by 8-2 and 7-2 and in 1982 they won the first of Ladouceur’s 28 North Coast Section titles, going 12-0.
The team would win six more NCS crowns before Eidson took over full-time as defensive coordinator in 1992, when the 151-game win streak began. They wouldn’t lose a game until 2004.
From left-to-right: Terry Eidson, Justin Alumbaugh and Bob Ladouceur the day Coach Lad announced his retirement after the 2014 season. Photo: Dennis Lee
“We found a diamond in Terry for sure,” Ladouceur said. “He had an insatiable appetite to learn and a personality that really fired up the kids. He hyped them up to the max. They really rallied around him, especially on special teams. He had an ability to get to their level.
“Terry really loves De La Salle. He loves the football program. He and I both landed exactly where we belonged.”
Said Eidson: “Right place, right time. Coaching was sort of in my blood. Since I was 8-years-old. But to find mentors like Frank Tamony and Bob Ladouceur, I was very, very fortunate.”
No slippage
Alumbaugh agrees that having Ladouceur — and Eidson — as mentors were life-changing for him as well. But it was never easy as a player.
“(Ladouceur) is one of my closest friends — I love the man,” Alumbaugh said. “But it wasn’t sunshine and rainbows playing for him. He was a tough ass coach. But it was also incredibly, incredibly rewarding. We knew he was driving us to be the best we could be. He just didn’t accept mediocrity. He didn’t allow guys to slip. Terry was the same.”
While Eidson, also De La Salle’s athletic director for two decades, never turned down an interview to promote the school, Ladouceur wasn’t always available.
When Hayes proposed to write a book on the program — turned into a 2014 motion picture starring Jim Caviezel as Ladouceur and Michael Chiklis as Eidson — it was contingent on him following the team for a season. “We were being asked the same questions over and over, so this was our chance to say, ‘just read the book,’ “ Eidson said.
Around the movie release, interview requests were coming hot and heavy, which Ladouceur often complained about to Eidson. “It’s not my fault you’re so famous,” Eidson once said to Ladouceur.
Known for his deadpanned deliveries, Ladouceur fired back: “It sorta is.”
