Maurice basketball reunion: Scrapbook donation turns into reuniting coach with 1969, 1973 state championship teams

MAURICE — When Larry Winters approached former Maurice High head basketball coach Johnny Picard with newspaper clippings and photos from the Bulldogs’ 1973 state championship team, the former longtime coach suggested the items belonged in a museum.
That idea turned into a reunion of players and cheerleaders from Maurice High’s 1973 and 1969 Class C state championship teams when scrapbooks commemorating those two teams were donated to the Maurice Museum on Wednesday morning.
“He came to me and said, ‘Coach, I want you to have one (scrapbook).’ I said, ‘Man, we need to put this in a museum.’ He didn’t even know we had a museum in Maurice,” Picard said to a burst of laughter from the 60 or so people crowded into the museum on Wednesday.
Players from both teams gathered with their wives, some with their children or grandchildren, and several cheerleaders from both years. One cheerleader drove from Houston to Maurice for the event.
Picard, 85, was proud to note that those two teams are the only public schools in Vermilion Parish to win a boys’ basketball state championship.
Winters, who earned a college athletic scholarship after earning All-State honors in 1973, went on to a career as a teacher, coach, and school administrator. Winters said a first cousin of his gave him the clippings from Kaplan, who kept the clippings from his last two years and then gave them to him as a surprise upon his graduation.
Picard turned the clippings over to his son, Jeffery Picard, who had them laminated and bound into a large scrapbook. The 1973 scrapbook was donated to the museum on Wednesday, along with one presented by the family of the late Roger Dartez, a member of the 1969 championship team. Dartez and family members had collected newspaper clippings, photographs, a license plate commemorating the championship season, and other items.
The museum also got a third scrapbook on Wednesday when Richard Breaux, who played on the 1969 team, donated his scrapbook, which included a team photo and a copy of the typed-up play-by-play report of the championship game that the Louisiana High School Athletic Association provided to reporters at the time.
Picard was happy to see his former players at the event.
“I’m glad to see so many people here,” Picard said, “In fact, it kind of feels like we’re in the Maurice gym.”
After an outburst of laughter, one person said, “It’s a little bit bigger.” Another replied, “Nobody’s sitting on the Coke machines.”
“I’m glad to see all my ex-players,” Picard said. ‘Some of them have changed a whole lot. But I recognized most of them. If not, I recognized their voice.”
Picard, a Maurice High graduate, said he has frequently been asked which team was better. The 1969 team, which had been to the state playoffs for five straight years, went 43-1, with the only loss coming to Class A Gueydan. The Bulldogs avenged that loss later in the season with a 27-point win over the Bears.
Picard said that USL coach Beryl Shipley offered the team $10,000 to play at Blackham Coliseum, knowing what a big draw it would be, but Picard knew the team wanted to play at home, so the game stayed at Maurice High.
In 1969, Maurice beat Ebarb 60-59 for the state championship.
Picard said the 1973 team had the distinction of also winning the state track championship. After losing in the 1972 finals to Negreet, Maurice High returned to the championship game in 1973, beating Shady Grove 91-72.
“This team here won state basketball, and state track, same boys,” Picard said. “In Maurice, they had a rule that came from the days of my coach that you ran track if you wanted to play basketball. And they did. Many coaches told me, this is why you have the ballplayers you have, because they run track, and they’re in good shape.”
The coach said the school’s policy was that anyone who wanted to play basketball, “we had a coat for them.” The Bulldogs often had 20 players on the roster. And he never had a parent complain about how much time their son was getting on the court, either, he noted.
Picard’s players, in turn, had fond memories of the coach who made it a practice to have the players go to out-of-town games wearing red sport coats.
Dale Broussard, known for his scoring and willingness to shoot the ball, said he wasn’t sure about the new coach who came to the school in Broussard’s sophomore season.
“Needless to say, we were coached by the best basketball coach in Vermilion Parish,” he said. “And no joking, he came to Maurice when I was a sophomore, and I thought we were getting a dud. We found out he was a track coach. So what the (heck) does he know about basketball? Well, you know what he did? No. 1, he got us all in shape. And … he let me play.”
That joke aside, Broussard said Picard was the reason for the Bulldogs’ success.
“It took this man to keep us together,” Broussard said. “That is basically the reason that this team here (gesturing to the 1969 team), and this team there (the 1973 team), went where we went, because of this man.”
Eric Trahan, a member of the 1973 team, said Picard took him to USL when he was being recruited for track in 1973.
“This man back here (Coach Picard) donated a lot of his time for you, me, you … and he didn’t get paid for it,” Trahan said.
Kim Broussard, now the athletic director at St. Thomas More, said Picard was a great coach but also, like all great coaches, taught his players things they could apply to their lives and jobs.
“I think when we go to high school and we participate (in sports), coaches are always telling you about teaching you things that are more important than the game of basketball, baseball, football, whatever it may be, and that you can take with you in your job, whatever job it’s going to be,” said Broussard, who was named to the Top 20 All-Tournament Team in 1973. “As much as we’re here to talk about the accomplishments of both teams, I think it’s important that I express the things that he did outside of the court. He made us wear coats and ties. You don’t see that. That’s just part of the responsibility that he tried to place on us as student-athletes. Did we like it? No, but we had to do it. He would take care of those little intangible things. He would make us feel special. He treated us like kings, like professional athletes. That’s back 50 years ago. You don’t see that today.
“The discipline and the responsibility that he put on us are the things that I carry with me in the job that I do today. I’m a big believer in the little things in life. I believe that the little things you take care of in life will equate to some of the big things you do.”
That included putting together the caravans for trips to the state tournament, taking care of meals, and so on.
“I could just go on and on and on about all the things outside of coaching that he did to instill in us what it meant to be a good role model and a good person in our lives, so coach, thank you for all those little things you did,” Broussard said.