Cor Jesu Sports

This engaging article was written in 1991 by James Clark (CJ '66).

James Clark

Andy Bourgeois

Eddie Boos

James Gibbs

Ellsworth Pilie

It just does not seem possible that 25 years have passed since Cor Jesu High School played the very first baseball game in the school's history. The school began in 1954 but waited eleven years to initiate an athletic program during the 1965-66 school year.
Suffering through a winless football season and an almost as bad basketball season, parents and students had little reason to be optimistic as baseball season approached. Andy Bourgeois, a member of LSU's famed "Chinese Bandits" on the 1958 football National Champions, was Cor Jesu's first Athletic Director. He also was the football and baseball coach.
I remember trying out for the baseball team in late February and thinking it ought to be easy for a senior to make the team since no one in school had any varsity experience. However, in one of Coach Bourgeois' first talks, he mentioned how hard it would be for "any of you 'seen-yas'" (as he used to call us) to make the team.
Like the students, the administration had little experience in the field of athletics. For the baseball season (and school for that matter) opener, instead of scheduling Ecology High or the ever famous Little Sisters of the Poor, John Curtis was selected. Curtis has fielded probably the most successful athletic teams in state history!
In the two weeks preceding the season opener, members of the team began reading the newspaper to see how their opponent was doing. The results were not encouraging. Curtis was rolling over foes by scores of 18-4, 15-2, and 10-0. Locker room talk ranged from whether we would score at all to whether Curtis would score 100 runs.
At practice the day before THE GAME, Coach Bourgeois announced that I would be the starting pitcher. With all the confidence of David's coach vs. Goliath, he also told freshman pitcher Ronnie Dewhirst that he also would probably "see action."
Holy Thursday seemed like an appropriate day for a Catholic school to be playing its very first baseball game. Maybe the Curtis players would feel a sense of guilt in running up too large a score. I remember asking my Dad as he dropped me off at school that day if he knew how to find John Curtis Field. He jokingly said that if we showed up, he'd be there. Seriously, he was probably the only person on earth who gave Cor Jesu even the remotest chance of winning.
Every person who graduated from Cor Jesu had Brother Nicholas for mathematics at one time or another. As luck would have it, my last class before going to the baseball game was Brother Nicholas's Trigonometry test. I had hoped for an easy test so I could get dressed early and be ready for the bus trip to Curtis. It was one of his all time toughest tests, and I walked away saying to myself, "This is not goin' to be my day." Senior outfielder Mel Bonie was late getting dressed out because he spent so much time on the test.
As we got on the team bus, Coach Bourgeois handed me a game ball and said "get ready." I had pitched several games for St. Raphael in NORD leagues and was never nervous before a game. I was petrified during the seemingly endless bus trip to River Ridge. Reserve catcher Benny Montalbano joked about the odds of us winning the game. The atmosphere was too somber for jokes. The grim reality of finally playing the game was setting it.
The red and gold Cor Jesu bus parked in the lot behind CF, and for the first time we spotted the Curtis Patriots already warming up in their white with red trim home uniforms. Some of us Kingsmen began to wonder who the Curtis starting pitcher would be and if they would recognize his name from the newspaper accounts they had read of the 10 win and 1 loss opponent.
I immediately went to the bullpen where I was getting so excited that I was actually pitching as hard as I could to warm up. I could not believe how many students, parents, and even some girls from St. James Major had come to see us play. I did not even realize the game had started when everyone began yelling at me to grab a bat. Leadoff hitter Ronnie Elmer had walked to open the game, and I should have been on deck.
Four pitches and I was on my way to 1B setting up C Eddie Boos to double in the first run of the ballgame. 1B Chuck Bacigalupi singled in two more runs before LF Jimmy Gibbs connected for the first home run in school history. The Kingsmen had hit Curtis for five runs in the top of the first.
As I took the mound in the bottom of the 1st, I could not help but notice the look of anxiety on my infielders' faces. 3B and SS were freshmen Glen Pilie and Shannon Battle respectively. Junior 2B Ellsworth Pilie looked even more nervous than the freshmen. My first pitch of the game was a perfect strike, and I knew from then on that control was not going to be a problem.
The Patriots did not score in the first three innings, although they did hit the ball well. The one thing that had me worried was that my curve ball had failed me. I was pitching batting practice during tryouts and throwing curves like crazy to get a kick out of inexperienced batters jumping out of the way of my pitches only to have them curve over the plate. I would give anything to have a few of those curves now.
The mood in the Cor Jesu dugout was one of surprise even though we had not scored since the top of the first either.

The Curtis players were still very confident that they would come back and win the game.
The top of the 4th produced my first hit in a Cor Jesu uniform - a double down the LF line. I would sure like to have a 6-run lead instead of 5. Gibbs hit a line drive that looked like a hit to me, but the Curtis 3B made a diving catch causing me to put on the brakes and head back to 2nd. I was dead out until the ball sailed way behind the Patriot 2B into RF. Coach Bourgeois signaled me around 3rd to score our 6th run of the day. I was so out of breath, I didn't know if I could pitch right away. Fortunately, Glen Pilie and John McCulla got a few hits to extend the inning.
The mood in the Curtis dugout changed in the 4th inning. Instead of yelling for the big inning, they began to shout for just one or two runs. I think they figured we would fold if they started to score runs. Three up and three down dowsed their rally plans.
The turning point in the game came in the top of the 6th. After scoring a run in the 5th, the Curtis players seemed more confident than ever that they could come back. Haik's HR was just the beginning, and they could not wait for the bottom of the 6th. How the Kingsmen responded to this challenge surprised our entire team.
Bacigalupi and Battle singled to open the 6th. Elmer walked to load the bases for me. After throwing two balls, the P tried to pick Chuck off 3B but threw wildly, enabling him to score. Now the score was 7-1 with runners on 2nd and 3rd. The P figured I wanted to walk with 1B open. The best pitch I had ever seen in my life was forthcoming, and I drilled it over the LF wall for a three-run HR. I remember thinking how nice it would have been for this to have been a Grand Slam and then realizing that beggars shouldn't be choosers.
Entering the bottom of the 6th with a 10-1 lead, I just wanted the game to be over. Six more outs and we win! Curtis would not go down without a fight. I hit the first batter before we committed our only error of the day. The next hitter sent what was surely a hit screaming over 2B. CF Elmer made the defensive play of the game - a diving catch to rob Curtis of at least a run and the makings of a big inning.
With the clean-up hitter up next and 1B open, I asked Coach Bourgeois if I could issue an intentional walk. He nodded yes but forgot that we had never practiced that. Just before the ball left my hand, our C jumped out of the catcher's box area which is a balk. Each runner moved up a base and the score was now 10-2. LF Gibbs made a nice catch of a deep fly to end the inning.
RF McCulla put icing on the cake with a two-run HR in the top of the 7th. Even the Curtis players knew at this point that their cause was hopeless.
The leadoff hitter for Curtis struck out on three pitches, and then what looked like a midget was sent up to pinch hit. My first pitch was a perfect strike. The second pitch was a little high, but the umpire called it a strike. On a day like today, even the umpire was on our side. This batter was called out on strikes two pitches later. Now Curtis was down to its last out. The thought crossed my mind as to how I should react after getting the last guy out. Should I jump up and down like this was the seventh game of the World Series or just be cool like I expected it all the time? The final batter went down swinging, and I was immediately mobbed by Coach Bourgeois and the players on the bench.
The Curtis players were very gracious in defeat. As the teams shook hands after the game, many of them said "nice pitching" to me. Even their little pinch hitter came up to me and said "nobody's ever thrown me strikes before."
The celebration lasted all too short a time, and before I knew it, we were walking across the outfield to our bus. My little sister, Marilyn, ran up to me as I was halfway across the field and gave me a big hug. When a senior in high school gets a big hug from a seven year old, he must have done something right. The proudest parents in the world gave me a big hug saying, "We knew you could do it." Realistically, even I didn't think so.
The team was back on the bus when Coach Boureois stepped up to a rousing applause. He showed the widest grin I had ever seen on his face. Despite being in a state of total shock, he still managed statements like, "I have never been more proud of a group of young men" and "This is Cor Jesu's finest hour in athletics."
The bus ride back to Gentilly was a rather quiet one for a team that had just scored the biggest upset of the 1966 prep baseball season. Perhaps the team was still dazed at the 12-2 score. When we arrived at school, the Brothers of the Sacred Heart were all waiting for us. They clapped and cheered us, causing even more amazement to the team. We had never seen religious acting like that before.
The principal, Brother Gaspar, came running up to the bus asking, "Where's Jimmy Clark?" It was the only time in my high school career I was glad to have the principal asking for me.
Twenty-five years ago seems like yesterday to me. Sayings like, "every dog has his day" and "we all had career days at the same time" just don't seem to cut it. For 22 overachievers representing Cor Jesu High School, our "One Moment in Time" was April 7, 1966.

Coach Andy Bourgeois

Cor Jesu Basketball Coach Bob Conlin
Coach Bob Conlin

Glenn Menard (CJ '66) was a junior in 1965 when the announcement was made that there would be sports at Cor Jesu the following school year.

Andy Bourgeois (SA '56), the former LSU Chinese Bandit newly hired from another Brothers of the Sacred Heart school, St. Aloysius in Vicksburg, served as the Athletic Director and football coach.

Without benefit of spring practice, Andy started teaching his raw recruits during the summer.

"He tried to teach us football on the blackboard," Glenn recalls.

Per LHSAA rules, actual practice began in August.

"We dressed in the old bus garage. We hung our clothes on nails."

Glenn hurt his knee and spent the season as one of the managers.

When Hurricane Betsy cancelled school for a few days that September, Andy returned to two-a-day practices.

Nevertheless, "we lost all our games." The Kingsmen scored only 15 points in their eight contests.

Bob Conlin, fresh from coaching with his older brother Mike (SA '53) at McGill Institute in Mobile (another school staffed by the Brothers of the Sacred Heart), assisted with football and coached the basketball team.

The new gym would not be finished until January. In the meantime, the roundball team practiced at St. Mary's Italian Gym in the French Quarter.

"We'd drive down there in our personal cars. There was no hot water in the old shower that dripped. So we'd wear our practice clothes both ways."

"Periodically, we'd show up and there'd be a boxing ring in the middle of the floor. So we couldn't practice, and Bob would get mad."

Glenn ended up as the captain of the first Kingsmen basketball team.

"There were three seniors on the team. The rule was that you had to be a senior to be captain. The team voted me the captain so they had to give me a letter jacket even though I didn't play enough to letter."

"When we got into the new gym, Bob would send the manager to Royal Castle at the start of practice to buy three cups of coffee. I remember them sitting there on the bench."