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CRIMSON SHIELD
THE ONLINE MAGAZINE OF BROTHER MARTIN HIGH SCHOOL |
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| November 2010 |
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Head Wrestling Coach Robbie Dauterive
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Robbie Dauterive ('84) came to Brother Martin in 8th grade expecting to play baseball. However, he was one of the last cuts on the eighth-grade team. He gave no thought to wrestling until the second semester of his freshman year.
- While waiting to be picked up in front of school, Robbie got into a horseplay match with a wrestler who was 30 lb bigger. "I tore him up," he recalls.
- Another wrestler reported the incident to Coach Ray Charbonneau who told Robbie the next day, "You're wrestling."
Charbonneau's plan to start Robbie at 98 lb his sophomore year were derailed for a semester.
- With learning disabilities that were not diagnosed until college, Robbie was ineligible the first semester of his sophomore year.
- When he returned the second semester, he won the JV state championship.
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Robbie moved to the varsity his junior year.
- He finished fourth in state that season.
- He worked extremely hard his senior year and started well, losing only two matches, both of which he avenged.
- However, grades pinned him again, knocking him out of the state tournament.
- Fortunately, the Crusaders won the title with the help of points earned by Robbie's replacement, whom he whipped at practice every day to prepare him for tough competition.
- The disappointment of not seeing his name on the placard in the gym gave Robbie a focus when he became a coach. He's proud that he's never had a wrestler become ineligible because of grades.
Dauterive began college at LSU where he majored in journalism.
- He often attended the wrestling team practices but did not walk on.
- When the athletic department eliminated wrestling, Robbie played on the club Rugby team.
- He was in and out of school until he was given Ritalin for his learning disabilities.
- He enrolled at UNO where he studied for hours in the library pushing his way to a degree in history in 1994. "If I could cut 15 pounds from Wednesday to Saturday to make weight for Coach Charbonneau, I can learn the history of World War II."
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Robbie Dauterive and Kenny Spellman in the 1984 Wrestling Team Picture
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Robbie Dauterive, coach of the 1999-2000-2001 state wrestling champions
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During this period, the De La Salle wrestling coach contacted him about becoming a volunteer assistant there. He jumped at the chance.
- Robbie recalls his Cavalier JV team winning 10 of 15 matches against Brother Martin.
- The next year, Mark Wisniewski recruited Robbie back to his alma mater as a volunteeer coach.
- As soon as he graduated from UNO, Brother Martin hired to teach social studies and assist with the wrestling and baseball programs.
Robbie became the head coach in 1996-7.
- The first two years, with the assistance of his high school teammate, Kenny Spellman ('84), he continued the rebuilding program that Wisniewski had started.
- The 1998-9 squad won the school's first state title since 1987, ending Jesuit's run of 11 straight championships.
- The next year's team not only defended the championship but scored a record 328 points at the state tournament.
- The 2000-01 team three-peated.
No longer finding wrestling fun because it had become so easy, with his first child on the way, and wanting to experience the "real world," Robbie left Brother Martin.
- He worked in the New Orleans area until Katrina displaced his family to Dallas where he held "a great job" with a pharmaceutical company.
- Hankering to coach again, he volunteered at St. Mark's School in Dallas where he helped legendary coach Rick Ortega win four state championships in five years.
- He fielded several offers from Dallas area schools until Brother Martin contacted him.
Happy to be back in New Orleans, he approaches both teaching and coaching with renewed zest.
- "I love being in the classroom. My wife say it's because I like a captive audience." As one who struggled in school, he enjoys seeing students learn.
- His goal as a coach is, as it has been every year, to win state. He knows it will be difficult but is pleased with the progress of the team since the summer.
- Robbie is excited by the outstanding prospects in the 7th and 8th grades who have won state championships in the USA Wrestling program.
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