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Vermilion Catholic Principal Mike Guilbeaux got the word Friday morning that VC defensive coordinator Kevin Fouquier has accepted the head coaching position at Vermilion Catholic.
He is expected to join the teaching and coaching staff fulltime in February.
Fouquier is no stranger to Vermilion Catholic. He has been the team’s defensive coordinator for the last seven years and coached under at least four head coaches. He coached the Eagles’ defense when they won a Division IV State Title.
After being a part of the VC head coaching carousel for seven years, Fouquier decided to apply for the head coaching position.
He was one of 17 who applied.
While the defensive coordinator at VC, Fouquier did not teach at the school. He worked in the oil field.
Now that he accepted the head coaching position, Fouquier is expected to be on the teaching staff.
He and Guilbeaux were out of town on Friday and could not be reached for a comment.
It is no secret why Guilbeaux hired the Hanson Memorial High alum. Fouquier has by far the most football coaching experience of anyone who applied for the VC job.
After graduating from Hanson, he walked onto the USL football team in 1984 but got hurt. That is when he took up coaching. He has 32 years of coaching experience, most in the college ranks.
He was the defensive coordinator at UL under Rickey Bustle for a few years. After Bustle was let go at UL, Fouquier was also let go. He went from UL to VC.
Before being named the defensive coordinator at UL, he held the same position at Florida International University.
He coached five years at Middle Tennessee, along with coaching jobs at Texas-El Paso, Texas A&M, Sam Houston and Louisiana Tech.
Fouquier also coached one year at Teurlings Catholic in Lafayette.

It’s not unusual to get a night, or even two, when hard freezes visit Acadiana, but it is uncharacteristic for us to see a weeklong surge of frigid nights like the one that ushered in the new year.
Still, Old Man Winter will have to work some to beat the bleak, blizzardy January of 1940. The overnight temperature fell below freezing — most nights far below freezing — on 22 of the 31 days of that month, and into really icy weather for 18 consecutive nights. The temperature dropped to 25 degrees or below on 12 of those nights, and into the teens on five.
That was not only the coldest January on record for much of south Louisiana, it was the coldest of all months for most of us, although February 1905 holds the record in Abbeville (45.5), Grand Coteau (45.0), Jennings (44.2), New Iberia (46.4), Opelousas (43.3) and Rayne (45.4).
The chill of 1940 was tough on people, pipes, and plants. The headline on the front page of the Lafayette Advertiser on Jan. 19 reported, “Louisiana Shivers as Frigid Blast Sweeps to the Coast” as “Lafayette residents shivered and slipped their way to work this morning following one of the severest cold spells this city has experienced in several years.”
J.J. Davidson, the government forecaster in Lafayette, “declared … that after thawing out the box in which his instruments were kept … he found the lowest temperature reached last night was 14 degrees. Mr. Davidson stated that at 9 a.m. … the temperature was around 19 degrees but soon after begin rising and at noon was around 24 degrees.”
Service station attendants scrambled as “motorists began pouring in for anti-freeze fluid for their cars.” Driving was dangerous. “Vision was poor due to the rain and sleet freezing on the windshields.” Alongside the streets and highways “exposed places were bathed in sheets of white as the sleet did not melt but froze into a solid mass of ice.”
That ice stayed in place for the rest of the month; the average temperature at Lafayette for January 1940 was only 40.4 degrees. The average low temperature was 29.7 degrees, more than 12 degrees below the norm, and communities across south Louisiana registered similar readings.
Snow fell on the morning of Jan. 22. The Associated Press reported that “except in the coastal regions, Louisiana and Mississippi … are mantled in the heaviest snow in years, measuring from one to 13 inches.” According to that day’s Advertiser, “sleet which began early in the morning soon turned into snow.”
Broken pipes became a big problem Jan. 23. Mayors and fire chiefs worried about water pressure that reduced the flow to a trickle as people turned on the tap to prevent freezing or let water flow from broken pipes.
Plants also took a beating. E.A. McIlhenny reported “incalculable damage” to the Jungle Gardens at Avery Island. He said he lost $100,000 (more than $1.5 million in today’s dollars) in camellias alone and that ice accumulations broke many limbs on the island’s huge oak trees.
“Accumulated ice … played havoc in bamboo thickets,” the newspaper reported. “Mr. McIlhenny said it would take at least a month just to clear away the debris, and it would be ‘maybe years’ before the damage could be rectified.”
On Jan. 27, “Many cases of flu and colds [were] keeping doctors … busy and livestock men report[ed] that some stock has been lost although the greater portion of the cattle have been driven to wooded areas where they are sheltered from the biting north wind. Hay and rice straw is being spread … to give the animals bedding and food.”
Schools in Rayne closed on Jan. 29, “due to a prevailing intense epidemic of influenza.” Rayne High School made “several attempts” to continue classes, “but the absentee roll was too large to give a successful operation of the school.” Schools in some other towns were closed because they couldn’t be properly heated.
Toward the end of the month tugs and barges on the Mississippi began to run into floating blocks of ice. R. G. Lovette, chief of the New Orleans district of the Corps of Engineers, said “solid cakes of ice varying from four inches to 18 inches in thickness and some blocks 15 to 20 feet wide were as far down as Plaquemines,” drifting toward the Gulf at about a mile an hour.
The weather bureau’s Monthly Weather Review said there were also ice blocks on the Atchafalaya late in the month. The Review’s editors said the month saw “decidedly subnormal” temperatures.
Decidedly an understatement, I think.
A collection of Jim Bradshaw’s columns, Cajuns and Other Characters, is now available from Pelican Publishing. You can contact him at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.

James Duffy Hebert, 88, passed away in a New Orleans hospital on January 2, 2018.
Mr. Hebert was born on May 12, 1929 in Kaplan, LA to Edier and Enes Meaux Hebert.
He graduated from Meaux High School and later obtained a Masters of Science degree in Library Science. He also served his country honorably in the United States Air Force from 1951-1955. Mr. Hebert lived his adult life in the New Orleans area. He enjoyed cooking, traveling, and studying the French language.
He is survived by his sister, Marguerite Frances Hebert; sisters in law, Sally Hebert and Lilly Ann Hebert; and nieces and nephews, Paula Bordelon, Lea Carleton, Leslie Helakoski, Chuck Hebert, Susan Blackstone, John Hebert, Greg Hebert, Chris Hebert, Gerry Hebert, and Edward Hebert.
He was preceded in death by his parents and two brothers, Charles Calvin Hebert and Robert Dale Hebert.
A graveside service will be held at Cossinade Cemetery in Kaplan, LA on Saturday, January 6, 2018 at 10 AM under the direction of Johnson Funeral Home. Father Alan Trouille will officiate.
Words of comfort to the family may be expressed atwww.johnsonfuneralhome.net.